• Review: The Star Clipper Blog on Boody. The Bizarre Comics of Boody Rogers: "To say Boody Rogers was ahead of his time is an understatement. Boody was underground before there was an underground. His comics were surreal and sexy before the Comics Code was even around to censor such outrageousness. Think of every bizarre and trippy moment from 40's Disney features, the overt sexuality of Fleischer Studios Betty Boop, and a Freak Show and Superman in a blender, and that's not even half as odd as Boody Rogers' comics. Will you have seen anything like it before? No, and you'll probably never see anything else like it again."

• Review: Blog @ Newsarama looks at Boody too: "[W]eirdness... permeates these stories and radiates outward from the pages. To say they're 'ahead of their time' would be an understatement; they seem like they were drawn just last week... [I]t's a beautiful book."

• Review: Obsessive-Repulsive finds a kindred spirit in the pages of the "rad" Ho! The Morally Questionable Cartoons of Ivan Brunetti: "I would go further than saying 'nothing is sacred' in his work and say that nothing is tolerated in Brunetti’s world. He skewers the hypocrisy, cruelty and weakness in people but it doesn’t appear that Brunetti loathes humanity nearly as much as he loathes himself. Check it out! Funny stuff!"

• Review: Comics Should Be Good! enthuses over Supermen! The First Wave of Comic Book Heroes 1936-1941: "I can’t recommend this book enough, people! Run, don’t walk, to your nearest purveyor of comics awesomeness and pick it up. You will not be disappointed... you could not buy another comic this year and be happy if you pick it up. Would I lie to you?"

• Preview: Robot 6's "What Are You Reading?" column's guest contributor this week is Dash Shaw, and regular contributor Matthew Maxwell says of The Wolverton Bible, "Wow. Just wow... man, that’s a piece of work."

• Interview: The Groovy Age of Horror talks to Josh Simmons about House and other more recent work

• Commentary: ReadingArt.ca imagines Snoopy's "It was a dark and stormy night" novel in a context of digital/mobile delivery (calling The Complete Peanuts "fantastically beautiful" while they're at it)

• Things to see/read: Conservative entertainment blog Big Hollywood has posted Steve Ditko's 2007 essay "Toyland" in its entirety (via Slog)

• Things to see (and buy)/bookmark: Jim Blanchard's "Fine Art Chophouse" blog is the place to buy original art and prints from Jim. The latest offering: a limited edition print of Butch & Petey, everyone's favorite Trucker Fags in Denial (only 16 bucks)

• Review: Comics Waiting Room on Ho! The Morally Questionable Cartoons of Ivan Brunetti: "...[I]f the material printed Ho! had been created in, say, Soviet Russia, Ivan would be the biggest star in the gulag. As it is, he’s one of the most twisted and funny motherfuckers putting pen to paper right in the U.S. of A. And I’m damned proud he’s one of us... Brunetti’s latest work is as strong as ever, and maybe even sicker. He’s an amazing cartoonist, and I respect his work immensely, even when some of it makes me queasy… especially if it makes me laugh then feel queasy."

• Review: Make It So Marketing's Comics And Pop Culture Blog finds A Mess of Everything by Miss Lasko-Gross to be "an interesting read, and the art style that Miss Lasko-Gross uses is one that actually grabs me the more I read into the graphic novel... I look forward to the third volume being published..."

• Reviews: The "What Are You Reading?" column at Robot 6 includes Tom Bondurant on Gilbert Hernandez's Heartbreak Soup ("At first I was afraid that Beto was introducing so many characters I wouldn’t be able to keep up with them, but the deeper I go into the book the better he manages everyone. The writing reminds me of Will Eisner’s slice-of-life stuff from his later career..."), Tim O'Shea on The Complete Peanuts 1969-1970 ("The intro by Mo Willems is great insight into what appealed to many about the series..."), Chris Mautner on A Mess of Everything by Miss Lasko-Gross ("[It] shows a good deal of progression [from Escape from "Special"], both in terms of storytelling and artistry"), and Jeff Lester on The Comics Journal Library Vol. 6: The Writers ("for which a more accurate title might have been 'Gary Groth Browbeats Bewildered Comics Writers'")

• Preview: Urban Aesthete looks at the forthcoming Abstract Comics anthology

• Profile: The Stranger says some nice stuff about Jaime Hernandez, Stan Sakai and Paul Hornschemeier in advance of their visit here this past weekend

• Profile: The Seattle Weekly, previewing Jaime's visit to Seattle, nicely describes Love and Rockets: "It’s a mutable universe that skips between characters at older and younger stages of life, where buxom pro wrestling queens, spaceship mechanics, and touring hardcore bands buoyantly intersect. No one stays lost for long; no grievance goes unforgotten; and deep-fried jungle slugs forever remain a delicacy."

• Interview: Bookslut has a great Q&A with Jules Feiffer. I didn't know that Tarantino had cribbed some dialogue from Feiffer's The Great Comic Book Heroes

• Interview: The Daily Cross Hatch concludes their 3-part chat with Arnold Roth. Great anecdotes ahoy!

• Things to see: A semi-animated gag cartoon by Kurt Wolfgang

• Things to see: new sketchbook pages from Anders Nilsen. Also: Anders Nilsen exhibit in Chicago April 18-May 3 and new minicomic

As you might have guessed from today's Daily Links post, we have several new books scheduled to arrive in comics shops tomorrow:

• Boody. The Bizarre Comics of Boody Rogers
• Ho! The Morally Questionable Cartoons of Ivan Brunetti
• Supermen! The First Wave of Comic Book Heroes 1936-1941

Despite being mentioned by other sources, Paul Hornschemeier's Mother, Come Home is not on the official list, but you never know! Contact your local shop to confirm availability of these titles, and hit those links to see previews and gather more info. Happy shopping!

It's a honker today! Lots of good stuff out there:

• Review: Blogger Fionnchú considers the place of Alexander Theroux's Laura Warholic in the pantheon of "big, long, thick" maximalist novels (e.g. Wallace, Joyce, DeLillo, Pynchon)

• Review: The Tearoom of Despair pens a loving ode to The Comics Journal: "...[I]t remains the best magazine about comics I’ve ever had the pleasure to read, offering in-depth analysis that has changed my entire opinion of certain comics... And it has some of the best interviews with comic writers, artists and editors that have ever peen published in any medium... Overall, it is still an absolute pleasure to sit down with a new issue of The Comics Journal and read about the craft and love for the medium that is out there... It has recorded the history of comics with style and panache, has published the liveliest letter page in magazines and has been unfailing in its bid to raise comics as an art form."

• Review: Rob Clough has a typically thoughtful take on The Complete Peanuts 1971-1972: "The latest volume of The Complete Peanuts finds Charles Schulz still at his peak... a perfect blend of fantasy, whimsy, jokes, heartbreak, topical references and sturdy characterization."

• Blurb: The Seattle Times' roundup of notable new local books includes a mention of Humbug: "Includes satirical takes on highway congestion, time travel, consumer reports and perspiration."

• Preview: Fictional or not, The Rack's Lydia recommends Mother, Come Home by Paul Hornschemeier ("Paul Hornschemeier's comics always make me miserable, and in a good way. This is a new edition of my favorite work he's done so far.") and Ho! The Morally Questionable Cartoons of Ivan Brunetti ("I like him a lot, but I think that Johnny Ryan should be cutting Ivan Brunetti a check every month and this collection of gag cartoons will show you why") from this week's new comics

• Preview: Rounding up the week's new comics, Jog highlights Boody. The Bizarre Comics of Boody Rogers ("you will doubt your sanity") and Ho! The Morally Questionable Cartoons of Ivan Brunetti ("excellent, take-no-prisoners gag panels")

• Preview: The Comics Reporter, same tune, different lyrics: on Boody, "Some of the greatest, oddest comics of all time"; on Ho!, "relentlessly naughty... I like these quite a bit"; and on Supermen!, "I liked this book quite a bit... a bunch of frequently weird, hallucinatory adventure fantasies"

• Preview: Atomic Romance also anticipates Supermen!: "In your face golden age stories by some of the greats of comic book history... I love this because it’s a time of experimentation. The writers and artists are learning their craft and there aren’t any established rules yet. Sure to please fans of I Shall Destroy All the Civilized Planets."

• Preview: Yet more blurbage about this week's new comics, this time from Blog @ Newsarama: on Boody, "comics super-genius Boody Rogers’ work... is almost as beautiful as it is weird. Or almost as weird as it is beautiful. At any rate, it’s really weird and really beautiful"; on Supermen!: "[A] must-read... I can’t recommend this one highly enough"

• Interview: Guttersnipe has a 2-part Q&A with Paul Hornschemeier: part 1 includes discusson of Mother, Come Home; in part 2 he discusses his Northwest tour this week

• Interview: Publishers Weekly chats with C. Tyler about her new book You'll Never Know, Book 1; of the book they say "[Tyler] recreates the experience of thought, in which past and present, parents and children, relationships and variations of the self co-mingle, intersect, and layer over one another. Evocative words and images appear in the background or the margins of Tyler’s panels, drawing out subtleties of the story, or clueing us in to unspoken emotional tones."

• Interview: The Daily Cross Hatch posts part 2 of their 3-part interview with Arnold Roth; topics covered: nudism, Hex signs, jazz

• Profile: The Oregonian presents an overview of the career to date of Paul Hornschemeier

• Things to see: The Argyle Academy pays homage to Michael Kupperman's Snake 'n' Bacon

• Good deed: Please consider donating to the S. Clay Wilson Special Needs Trust

• Review: 13 Milliones de Naves says Tim Lane's Abandoned Cars is "drawn with the raw precision of a compassionless physiognomist, with a style midway between Daniel Clowes and Charles Burns... removing the rubble from the shipwreck and bringing to the fore a collection of human beings in the state of abandonment... [T]his book is anything but indifferent; the realistic and stark graphic style of its author shakes with a flying kick... [T]he Lane name has many numbers to enter on the same roster as Tomine, Burns, Clowes and company." (Translated from Spanish with help from Google)

• Review: Bookgasm on Boody. The Bizarre Comics of Boody Rogers: "Each page of Boody is a delight to take in. These comics are colorful, good-natured and good-humored, full of pep and personality... Rogers definitely was ahead of his time, demonstrating more zeal for the medium than much of his contemporaries."

• Review: Rob Clough on Ho! The Morally Questionable Cartoons of Ivan Brunetti: "No other artist in the history of comics has worked out their misanthropy and self-loathing on the page quite like Ivan Brunetti... with each strip yet another needle jabbed into the eyes of his viewers. Brunetti's enormous discipline and talent as a cartoonist shines through in this collection..."

• Review: A Bucket of Instant Sunshine reads Like a Velvet Glove Cast in Iron by Daniel Clowes: "...I think it's safe to say that if you like surreal imagery, vague noir-ish plotting, and freak shows, then you will probably like this."

• Events: The Daily Eastern News reports from yesterday's Ivan Brunetti talk at Eastern Illinois University

• Review: Entertainment Weekly gives Supermen! an A-, saying "Supermen!, this anthology lovingly assembled by Greg Sadowski, makes the case that these earliest endeavors by the future creators of masterworks like The Spirit, Captain America, and Plastic Man were more than crude throat-clearings — they were unfiltered manifestations 
of psyche, lousy with erotic charge and questionable politics."

• Review: Graphic Novel Reporter on Abandoned Cars by Tim Lane: "Abandoned Cars doesn’t arrive at a clear-cut solution to the American Myth, but Lane’s effort to understand it for himself is beautifully presented... every last detail of the book seems perfectly devised by Lane to bring the stories together and make the reader join the inner dialogue on the subject of the Great American Mythological Drama. It is a brilliant debut."

• Review: Andrew Wheeler says Mome Vol. 11 is "a solid, interesting anthology"; following up with Mome Vol. 12, says "I expect anybody who likes 'alternative' cartooning at all will find something to enjoy here"; and finds Funeral of the Heart by Leah Hayes not to his taste

• Preview: Philadelphia Weekly's "Spring Books Roundup" looks at You'll Never Know Book 1: A Good and Decent Man by C. Tyler ("luscious") and The Complete Crumb Comics Vol. 4

• Profile: The Daily Eastern News previews Ivan Brunetti's visit to the Eastern Illinois University campus

• Things to see (and buy if you're filthy rich): The Daily Cartoonist reports that the original art for the April 1, 1973 Sunday Peanuts is up for auction. Go bid, or save yourself a few thou by collecting the strip in The Complete Peanuts 1972-1973, coming this Fall

• Things to see: Thomas from Paul Hornschemeier's Mother, Come Home, rendered in embroidery

• Things to see: Look upon the bookshelves of Eric Reynolds and weep... WEEP

This is a meaty one:

• Review: For The Savage Critics, Sean T. Collins says The Last Lonely Saturday by Jordan Crane is "pretty much the best love story in comics form I've ever come across... It's an intelligent, moving, beautiful, terrific little comic."

• Review: Rob Clough says that Beasts! Book 2 "mingles myths, warnings, fairy tales, correctives, and genuinely unexplained phenomena and allows its artists to run with them. The end result is a consistently beautiful, lovingly assembled book that forms a kind of metacommentary on the entire notion of the fantastic."

• Review: For the Honolulu Star-Bulletin, the wonderfully-named Burl Burlingame reviews Man of Rock: A Biography of Joe Kubert by Bill Schelly

• Review: For Robot 6's "What Are You Reading?" column, Tucker Stone encounters Duplex Planet Illustrated #2

• Review: The SF Site's "Nexus Graphica" says R. Crumb & David Zane Mairowitz's Kafka is "a terrific guide to Kafka's life and work — Mairowitz deftly sums up Franz' family/Jewish/pre-Holocaust European experiences and influences, and Crumb's heavy inkings lend the exact tones of darkness to recreations of both Kafka's life — and work." (See sidebar)

• Blurb: Gear Live's "Comix 411" "vote[s] yes" on Ho! The Morally Questionable Cartoons of Ivan Brunetti

• List: Tom Spurgeon of The Comics Reporter weighs in with his Best of 2008 lists. In the top 10 "Archival Editions" there's Where Demented Wented by Rory Hayes at #7, Popeye Vol. 3 at #6, The Complete Peanuts Vols. 9-10 at #3, Explainers by Jules Feiffer at #2, and Willie & Joe: The WWII Years by Bill Mauldin at #1; Most Outrageous: The Trials and Trespasses of Dwaine Tinsley and Chester the Molester by Bob Levin is named "Best Book on the Subject of Comics"; the top 25 "Best Comics (First Run, First Translated, Definitively Collected) of 2008" includes Fuzz & Pluck: Splitsville by Ted Stearn at #19, Bottomless Belly Button by Dash Shaw at #15, Sammy the Mouse #2 by Zak Sally at #12, and Ganges #2 by Kevin Huizenga at #4 

• Interview: Robot 6 talks to Anders Nilsen about his most recent book, Monologues for Calculating the Density of Black Holes

• Interview: The final installment of The Daily Cross Hatch's interview with the great Al Jaffee finally gets around to Humbug

• Transcript: The Daily Cross Hatch presents our own Eric Reynolds's talk at MCAD at the opening of the MOMEntum exhibit

• Preview: The First Post presents a slideshow of images from Humbug, saying "the short-lived Humbug [was] an exquisite satirical work that, over its 11 issues, routinely equalled MAD in its displays of creative genius... providing a level of trenchant satire that was almost unheard of at the time."

• Preview: Notions & Potions excerpts a page from Ray Fenwick's Hall of Best Knowledge

• Preview: Bryan Munn, in "hyping" The Complete Peanuts 1971-1972, states "Now that two whole decades of Peanuts have been reprinted in the deluxe hardcover format published by Fantagraphics and designed by Seth, we can really get a sense of what a huge achievement this project is and will continue to be for a generation."

• Preview: SFScope covers our Tardi announcement

• Bookmark: Quotes on Comics gives you what's in the name, presented randomly for your diversion

• Things to see: Animated Gary Panter unaired commercial (via Comics Comics)

• Things to see: This month's Vice cartoons by Johnny Ryan

Ho! The Morally Questionable Cartoons of Ivan Brunetti
By Ivan Brunetti

Hoping to further increase his irrelevance to the esteemed world of graphic novels and thus cement his status as “former cartoonist,” the saturnine Ivan Brunetti (author of the acclaimed Misery Loves Comedy and editor of Yale Press’s two essential Anthologies of Graphic Fiction, Cartoons and True Stories) has compiled HO!, which collects the vast majority of his morally questionable, aesthetically confused — and absolutely gut-busting — “gag” cartoons.

Culled mostly from out-of-print work (Hee! and Haw!) and other anthologies, the contents are discreetly presented in an uninviting, funereal package of unglamorous black and white. Hopefully, this will keep the impressionable, young, and faint-of-heart unintrigued and at a distance, while those who appreciate a touch of the gallows in their humor can enjoy an uncomfortable chuckle or two before the merciless thumb of oblivion grinds us all into less than dust.

HO! further cements Brunetti’s reputation as the contemporary king of the gag cartoon, a sentiment echoed by noted comedian Patton Oswalt (The King of Queens, Comedians of Comedy) in his introduction.

112-page black & white 6” x 6” hardcover • $19.99
Add to Cart • More Info & Previews

Bookslut talks to our very own Ivan Brunetti about his Yale anthologies of comics. Choice quote from Ivan: "Why dwell on the negative, I always say."

• Review: Eric teased it; now read the New York Times Book Review review of Supermen!

• Review: Rob Clough examines Jules Feiffer's Explainers

• Review: Rob Clough again, this time reveling in Tales Designed to Thrizzle #4 by Michael Kupperman

• Review: Mania gives The Wolverton Bible an "A" (last item on the page)

• Review: At The SF Site, Rick Klaw says The Wolverton Bible is "amazing" (see sidebar)

• Review: Graphic Novel Reporter says Fuzz & Pluck: Splitsville by Ted Stearn is "a joy to read" (and favorably compares it to Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy)

• Review: The Quarterly Conversation examines "the genius" of Fuzz & Pluck: Splitsville

• Review: Sean T. Collins has a bone to pick with Mome Vol. 13

• Blurb: In Robot 6's periodic "What Are You Reading?" column, Tim O'Shea praises Boody: The Bizarre Comics of Boody Rogers

• Blurb: Boing Boing also features Boody

• Interview: I feel like maybe I've seen this Bookslut interview with Ivan Brunetti before, but it popped up in my search feeds today so here it is

• Things to see: Michael Kupperman - 3D!

• Things to see: A recent batch of commissioned artwork by Johnny Ryan

• Things to see: On the Covered blog, Derek Van Gieson does New Mutants #37

• Bookmark: New Mome contributor Hernán Migoya keeps a blog; his post about his Mome appearance is a good place to start

• Oddity: Mike Sterling quotes and comments on some classified ads from the July 1981 issue of The Comics Journal