It was my birthday a couple of weeks ago, the big four-zero, and I thought I'd share this awesome little card given to me by my old pals, Peter & Joanne Bagge. Pete drew it, and in true Bagge tradition, Joanne colored it: 

Peter Bagge goes to jail — women's jail! — for his latest piece of comics reportage for Reason magazine.

Seattle: Fantagraphics Comics

If you've always wanted to get a behind-the-scenes look inside our glamorous offices and see what things are like around here on a day-to-day basis, this segment that The A.V. Club came by to film for their "Pop Pilgrims" series should give you a pretty good idea. Host Dan Telfer and his crew got the grand tour from Gary Groth, and we had Peter Bagge stop by to give his perspective and insights. My favorite parts are the bits that show my co-workers just going about their day and getting shit done. (I missed all the hubbub that day because I was on my way to... oh, some darn convention or other.) They wrote up a nice profile of us too — be sure to check it out.

Today's Online Commentary & Diversions:

• Review: "...[Walt Disney's Mickey Mouse] is not just a great Mickey Mouse comic, it's one of the best comics of all time.... When Gottfredson took over the Mickey Mouse newspaper strip in 1930, he created stories that still hold up eighty years later as solid well-done comics. That alone would be an incredible achievement, especially considering how few stories from the era even seem readable to a modern audience, but Gottfredson takes things to an entirely different level with comedy that's still funny and adventures that are genuinely thrilling.... As to the book itself, Fantagraphics has done their usual amazing job of design on it... The strips are crisp, there's a ton of bonus material (including biographical information, details on the process, and a bunch of additional strips), and the book even feels nice in your hands while you're reading it. They did a seriously remarkable job putting it together, which is fitting considering how good the material is.... It's a great collection, and one of the few that anyone who likes any sort of comics could — and should — pick up and enjoy." – Chris Sims, Comics Alliance (all emphasis his)

• Review: "It feels like there's been an onslaught of pirate stories in the last several years, but Jason's deadpan visual style mixed with Vehlmann's absurdly dark humor make for a special tale of skullduggery.... Hilarity and adventure ensue, but not without a tremendously affecting and emotionally complicated final scene, making [Isle of 100,000 Graves] a wild ride in the truest sense of the term." – John Seven, Worcester Magazine

• Plug: "Legendary writer Bagge (Hate) and artist Hernandez (Love and Rockets) teamed up ten years ago for this comic [Yeah!] about a spunky all-girl, all-universe rock band. Now the whole series has been collected for the punk/sci-fi girl in your life." – Dan Kois, New York

• Plug: The Comics Reporter's Tom Spurgeon points out a favorite line of dialogue from Roy Crane's Captain Easy Vol. 2

• Interview: Christopher John Farley has a brief Q&A with Paul Hornschemeier at The Wall Street Journal's Speakeasy blog: "I tend to write far more than I draw, I may have an image pop into my head, but those are usually just isolated points of inspiration: from there the writing takes over."

This 2003 drawing of Daffy Duck by Peter Bagge hit the internet a couple days ago thanks to Again With the Comics and has been making the rounds... Can you imagine (no pun intended) a Bagge written-and-drawn Looney Tunes? That sounds like just about the greatest thing ever. Hey WB!

Spanish cartoonist Jose Tomás (who's also responsible for this homage to Johnny Ryan) barrages Peter Bagge with some dumb questions about music and lettuce, mostly.

Don’t miss Jim Woodring signing his latest work of genius, Congress of the Animals, at Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery this Saturday from 1:00 to 3:00 PM. Jim’s appearance is part of the lively Georgetown Carnival festivities featuring attractions that will appeal to all: circus entertainers, sideshows, aerial acts, carnival games, confections, music, alluring art, power tool races, and more! The Georgetown Carnival promises free fun for everyone from noon to 8:00 PM, rain or shine.  So plan to arrive early and stay late. For details see www.georgetowncarnival.com.

You’ll want to see Larry, Bella and Stacey defend their title at Hazardfactory’s annual Power Tool Races. Last time out they terrified the crowd with the “Georgetown Chainsaw Massacre.” This year it’s “Monstrosity” — a Hate inspired Black & Decker “Dragster” model belt sander. (I swear that’s the factory brand.) A wicked quick, bad ass machine.

The Carnival caps off with a reunion of Seattle’s seminal proto-grunge band Feast, performing right outside the bookstore. (Inside, you can view a vintage photo of Feast circa 1985 in Charles Peterson’s “Taking Punk to the Masses” exhibition.)

See you all on Saturday at 1201 S. Vale Street in the heart of Georgetown. Phone 206.658.0110. Skip the traffic and parking problems by taking a Metro bus (routes 131, 134, 106, or 60.)

Today's Online Commentary & Diversions:

• Review: "Gilbert Hernandez is one of the great craftsmen of modern comics... Hernandez’s new Fritz book, Love from the Shadows, is as bracing as a slug of bottom-shelf rotgut.... Hernandez artfully approximates the broad, thrilling badness of late-night movies and their inept special effects, and uses it as an excuse to show off some of his gifts: spacious compositions built around texture as well as forms, pauses heavy with foreboding, a sense of body language and facial expressions so acute that we can recognize both the story’s characters and the 'actors' playing those characters." – Douglas Wolk, The New York Times Sunday Book Review

• Review: At CBR's Comics Should Be Good, Sonia Harris looks at Gilbert Hernandez's trilogy (so far) of "Fritz Films" graphic novels: "Filled with the longing of unfulfilled desire and lost innocence, these stories are the kind of schlock film that is accidentally life-alteringly great and I suspect Hernandez might have missed his calling as a screenwriter in the early ’60′s… That’s the thing, this kind of movie doesn’t really happen any more which is why Hernandez’ use of the comic book medium to tell Fritz’ movie roles is particularly delightful."

• Review: "In her debut release, Leslie Stein proves that comic strips are so much more than those old Cathy cartoons you'd read around the kitchen table on Sunday mornings. Instead, this semi-autobiographical tale, Eye of the Majestic Creature, follows protagonist Larrybear on a trippy journey throughout Chicago, San Francisco, and NYC in hopes of figuring out her life.... Drawn in a totally out-there Surrealist style, this quick page-turner is proof that while you might be too old for Garfield and Friends, there are cartoons you can still relate to...and love." – Liza Darwin, Nylon

• Review: "...Eye of the Majestic Creature... blend[s] autobiographical self-discovery, surreal free-association, philosophical ruminations, nostalgic reminiscences and devastatingly dry wit to describe life filtered through a seductive meta-fictional interior landscape. This lady laconically tans under vastly different suns and the results are enchanting and entrancing." – Win Wiacek, Now Read This!

• Review: "There’s precious little around for kids and especially girl readers in American funnybooks... so this intriguing and wildly imaginative series [Yeah!] which seamlessly combined fantasy, science fiction, fashion, pop and school cultures in a wild blend of frantic fun and thoroughly deserves another chance to shine." – Win Wiacek, Now Read This!

• Commentary: The anecdote and photo of a little girl and Yeah! that lead off Sonia Harris's latest "Committed" column for Comic Book Resources' Comics Should Be Good are beyond adorable

• Review: "Alex’s days are punctuated by alcoholic constipation, artist’s block, trashing his flat and avoiding childhood friends and his favourite teacher from high school, now a raving dipsomaniac surrounded by cats. He is also tormented by a rather good expressionist painting he apparently produced during a bender, and impure thoughts about his Asian neighbour and a beautiful former classmate... In short, a very good but not at all cheerful study of the consequences of achieving your ambitions when you’re a self-loathing dog-headed cartoonist." – Grant Buist, The Name of this Cartoon Is Brunswick

• Interview (Audio): Inkstuds host Robin McConnell and his cohort Colin Upton talk with fellow British Columbian Mark Kalesniko about his new graphic novel Freeway

• Commentary: Our own Eric Reynolds has become ESPN.com's go-to expert on baseball cartooning — the article also discusses Jack Davis's work for Topps

Today's Online Commentary & Diversions:

• Review: "Stein's cartooning is broad and trippy, and if she occasionally becomes intoxicated with her own gimlet-eyed sensibility, she's never afraid to turn that dark wit on herself. Eye of the Majestic Creature... is ultimately the tale of a young woman rejecting the things that shaped her and attempting to figure out what comes next for her. Thanks to Stein's loose, amiable approach, you'll want to know that, too." – Glen Weldon, NPR Monkey See

• Review: "Readers needing their Peter Bagge and/or Hate fix will always get it, to some degree, in the Hate Annual. Hate Annual #9, however, is one of the better editions, and that’s probably because of what Bagge presents here. 'Heaven' and 'Hell' appeases by giving us a peek at what’s going on in Buddy’s life right now, but we also get a hefty narrative that gives us something akin to the classic madness that was Buddy and Lisa’s life in Seattle." – Leroy Douresseaux, I Reads You

• Plug: Los Angeles magazine spotlights Walt Disney's Mickey Mouse Vol. 1: Race to Death Valley by Floyd Gottfredson in their monthly "Reading List": "Reacquaint yourself with the real Mickey as Fantagraphics launches its effort to reprint the entire strip by the famous L.A. cartoonist."

• Profile: Brian Hoag of the McCook Daily Gazette has a Memorial Day tribute to Bill Mauldin: "During WWII, Bill Mauldin's cartoons appeared in the military Stars and Stripes newpaper, and showed a sarcastic humor side of war that the combat troops could relate to. Not one to shy away from pointing a finger at the top brass, General Patton tried to get Mauldin censored as George thought the 'humor' wasn't so funny." (Via Mike Lynch)

• Feature: Mint spotlights the work of Lilli Carré

• Feature: Eleanor Davis got the Meathaus spotlight treatment

A crew from MTV Geek was at the 2011 MoCCA festival filming creator interviews, and now they're up! Dig these fun chats with...

Peter Bagge (part 1 embedded here; click thru for parts 2-4):

Leslie Stein (part 1 embedded here; click thru for part 2):

Gahan Wilson (part 1 embedded here; click thru for part 2):

Bonus! Here's Charles Burns talking about X'ed Out (part 1 embedded here; click thru for parts 2-4):