Online Commentary & Diversions:

• List: For Library Journal, Tom Batten recommends a handful of recent "Classic Graphic Novels," including The Left Bank Gang by Jason: "Supporting his highly imaginative and quirky storytelling, Jason's deceptively simple cartooning carries a great deal of intensity in each line."

• Review: "Winning a coveted Jury prize at the 2010 Angouleme festival, Dungeon Quest succeeds on so many levels: the art and character design are superb, the dialogue is acerbic yet measured, the page construction has a flow to it that verges on perfection, the meter of the storytelling is spot-on, and, most importantly, it’s actually really funny. ... As the first volume in a series projected to last for a good few books yet, readers are advised to party-up with the cast of Dungeon Quest immediately." – Martin Steenton, Avoid the Future

• Review: "The series only lasted four issues, but it is among the high points of 1960s comics, and this handsome collection is one of the most welcome reprint volumes of the last few years. ... Blazing Combat showed comics readers the gritty downside of war..." – Robert Martin, The Comics Journal

• Review: "...[S]ome books just leave a reviewer pointing and jabbering, unable to coherently explain what he's just been through or to find any words that will adequately explain what he has seen. The Squirrel Machine is a book of [this] kind... Reading The Squirrel Machine is very much like watching some German Expressionist movie: it's a series of alternately wondrous and appalling scenes, clearly connected by some kind of logic, the true meaning of which resolutely remains beyond the knowledge of the viewer." – Andrew Wheeler, The Antick Musings of G.B.H. Hornswoggler, Gent.

• Plug: The fine folks at Librairie D&Q say "Now in store is this little jewel just published by Fantagraphics Books. On top of being a well-researched collection of underground mini-comix of the 1980's, this book compiles pages and pages of interviews and commentary on the creative, edgy, weird and free-spirited post-Crumb scene. While it may not necessarily represent the global landscape of underground comix in the 80's (one could argue it needs more wemin-ahtists, for example), Newave! is definitely a praise-worthy sampler of work most often hidden in the shadows of the underground comix movement of the late 1960s and early 1970s."

• Plug: Roberto C. Madruga of Evolve Happy on Luba by Gilbert Hernandez: "The story is Hernandez at his best and the artwork is simplistically gorgeous."

• Plugs: The latest Robot 6 "What Are You Reading?" roundup includes several Fantagraphics mentions, and guest contributor Ng Suat Tong on the black & white Prince Valiant Vol. 1: 1937-1938 from Libri Impressi, available in the U.S. exclusively from us: "The new Fantagraphics and Portugese books are the only way one should read Foster's masterwork."

• Analysis: At PopMatters, Oliver Ho compares and contrasts two stories from B. Krigstein Comics and Strange Suspense: The Steve Ditko Archives Vol. 1: "The strangeness comes not so much from the individual stories, but from the way each comic and artist appears to be a sort of mirror image of the other."

• Links: Love & Maggie begins their detailed, annotated breakdown of the second entry on their list of the top 10 issues of The Comics Journal, #59

• Profile: Comic Book Resources' Kelly Thompson looks at the work of Gabrielle Bell

• Interview: The Comics Journal's Kent Worcester presents an edited transcript of his on-stage interview with Tom Kaczynski from the 2009 MoCCA festival

Online Commentary & Diversions:

• Review: "[High Soft] Lisp has its share of tender moments and tragic ones, although it’s relatively buoyant with humor throughout. ... This is the stuff of soap operas, minus the melodrama. Lisp comes loaded with palpable emotions and heaps of honesty, even amid a cartoony backdrop." – Rod Lott, Bookgasm

• Review: "Part one of a proposed trilogy, King Of The Flies Vol. 1: Hallorave is an extremely promising title from French crime comics artists Pascal “Mezzo” Mesenburg and Michel Pirus. ... Its approach to violence and turmoil is surprisingly fresh, although the story bears obvious debts to David Lynch, and the art just as obvious ones to Charles Burns; it all combines in surprising, powerful ways. ...King Of The Flies is a fascinating new take on the nearly exhausted subject of youthful alienation… B+" – The A.V. Club

• Interview: At The Comics Journal, the conclusion of Matt Thorn's Moto Hagio interview from TCJ #269

• Interviewer: Over at his Profanity Hill concern, our own Jason T. Miles picks the brain of Sparkplug Comic Books publisher Dylan Williams about the business and ethics of independent comics

• Event plug: "If there's a greater comics-related joy to be had on an early Spring Saturday sipping beers, hanging out in Seattle's cartooning headquarters, finding out you're standing next to Jim Woodring while occasionally taking a focused gander at Beto's originals, I haven't been informed as to what that might be." – Tom Spurgeon, The Comics Reporter

Your daily Fantagraphics-related artblog links:

• The penultimate installment of Steven Weissman's "This Already Happened" at What Things Do

• Rick Veitch presents part 1 of a mid-1990s comic based on a dream he had while being interviewed for The Comics Journal #175 (via The Comics Reporter)

• A censored cover by Marco Corona

• This week’s episode of Belligerent Piano from Tim Lane

It's today's Online Commentary & Diversions:

• Commentary: At Manga Worth Reading, Johanna Draper Carlson comments on our recent manga publishing news, saying "I’m expecting great things."

• Interview: At The Comics Journal, part 3 of Matt Thorn's Moto Hagio interview from TCJ #269

• Interview: On KBOO Community Radio's "Words and Pictures" program, host S.W. Conser welcomes Dame Darcy for a half-hour chat

• History: At Comics Comics, Jeet Heer gives a brief overview and critical commentary on Fantagraphics anthologies throughout the years: "Any complete history of Fantagraphics will have to tell the story of how they slowly learned to put together interesting anthologies."

A healthy helping of Online Commentary & Diversions:

• List: At The Manga Curmudgeon, David Welsh writes "So you’re among the legion of people who are grateful to Fantagraphics for their recently announced manga initiative, to be curated by Matt Thorn. Who isn’t? I know I am. And you may want to express that gratitude by buying something that Fantagraphics has published. If your comics interests rest primarily in titles from Japan, you may not have sampled other works published by Fantagraphics, so here are some books for your consideration."

• Review: "Amazingly, I was sucked in by the whole enterprise, laughing and groaning and shaking my head. ... It’s scarcely what I would call 'elegant in its simplicity' but with subject matter like this photo-realistic art and emotional weight aren’t called for. These are ugly characters in a gross situation, and Prison Pit treats them with all the indulgence and nastiness needed." – Mark Hale, The Bureau Chiefs

• Review: "Taken as a whole, Newave presents a portrait of an era that might otherwise be overlooked as a vital link between, say, Zap and Eightball. ... [T]he book is a veritable treasure trove of material that would otherwise have been lost to the ages. And, perhaps most importantly, it’s a hell of fun read." – Brian Heater, The Daily Cross Hatch

• Pre-review: At Trouble with Comics, Alan David Doane takes a look at our preview sampler galley of the forthcoming Stephen Dixon story collection: "What Is All This, based on my reading of this short and enticing preview, looks to be one of the most exciting and intriguing fiction releases of the decade. That I’ve only had a chance to read less than a quarter of its 450 pages is maddening, and thrilling. I can’t wait to read the rest of what Dixon has in store."

• Profile: Jordan Hurder writes an appreciation of Jacques Tardi titled "Tardi is Really, Really, Really, Really Rad"

• Interiew: The Comics Journal website presents part 2 of Matt Thorn's interview with Moto Hagio reprinted from TCJ #269

• Opinion: At The Comics Journal, Shaenon Garrity's reaction to our manga publishing news and appreciation of Moto Hagio is a must-read: "Is there an animated gif of a unicorn with the head of Jason Shiga devouring the universe and exploding? Because that might just about express the awesomeness of this development."

• Staff: Selections from the forthcoming anthology The Last Vispo, co-edited by our own Nico Vassilakis, will be on exhibit at the Common Ground Art Gallery in Windsor, Ontario, opening this Saturday, March 13 — more info from Crg Hill or on the Facebook event invitation (above example by Dirk Krecker)

On The Comics Journal website, Gary Groth writes:

"In June, Fantagraphics Books will publish a collection of Norman Pettingill’s work. Comic fans may remember that Robert Crumb published some of Pettingill’s cartoon drawings in Weirdo in the mid-’80s. The idea of publishing an entire book collecting Pettingill’s work was first broached to me by Johnny Ryan, a Pettingill fan (and the cartoonist behind Angry Youth Comics and Prison Pit), a few years ago. The John Michael Kohler Arts Center in Sheboygan, Wisconsin, is the repository for most of Pettingill’s work, and agreed to help us put together a book. Johnny wrote a brief appreciation; R. Crumb loved Pettingill’s work and wrote a brief introduction. But, so little is known about Pettingill himself that I felt the book required a short biography of the man — so I wrote one."

Read the rest of Gary's intro, and the biography itself, starting here.

In light of our publishing announcement yesterday, the editors of The Comics Journal website have wisely chosen today to present the first in a four-part online serialization of Matt Thorn's feature interview with manga-ka Moto Hagio from TCJ #269.

Response to the news about our new manga line has been overwhelming.

Series editor/curator/translator Matt Thorn speaks out on his blog, providing a bit of background and a few more details about the two inaugural releases, Moto Hagio's A Drunken Dream and Other Stories and Shimura Takako's Wandering Son Vol. 1. Be sure to bookmark Thorn's blog for ongoing updates on the project. Meanwhile, The Comics Journal's Dirk Deppey, who was instrumental in bringing the project to fruition, uses his ¡Journalista! pulpit to reveal much more information and background about the line. Both links are must-reads for anyone interested in this project.

We'd be remiss if we didn't point out that the Deppey-edited "Shōjo Issue" of The Comics Journal, #269, with Thorn's feature interview with Moto Hagio, is still available and is indispensible to fans and newcomers to the genre alike.

We also want to point out that the cover images that we've posted and sent out, as lovely as they are, are still works in progress by Fantagraphics art director Adam Grano and will likely be revised before the final releases.

Various other blogospheric reaction and commentary:

• Anime News Network shares our press release and comments on Moto Hagio's appearance at Comic-Con International this summer

• Anime Vice's Gia Manry, who had the original scoop, offers her commentary

• AnimeNation has a brief item

• The Beat's Heidi MacDonald posts news and links and comments "to see Fantagraphics get involved [in manga] is a very promising development."

• Bleeding Cool's Rich Johnston comments with a typical firm left hand

• Kai-Ming Cha, manga editor for Publishers Weekly, has commentary and links at her personal Boiled Egg blog

• Comic Book Bin posts the news

• Comics212's Chris Butcher offers extensive commentary and concludes "Great day to be a manga fan."

• CraveOnline's Joey Esposito reports

• Sean Gaffney also comments and similarly concludes "All in all, a terrific day for manga fans yesterday."

• Hypergeek re-posts our press release

• I Reads You's Leroy Douresseaux posts the news

• Icarus Publishing honcho Simon Jones has some great commentary, including: "Fantagraphics’ taste for artistic, compelling, quality comics, and the expertise of Thorn makes for an inspiring combination; Fantagraphics is a risk taker, with faith in art and willingness to see difficult projects through, while Thorn has the knowledge necessary to comb through and make sense of Shogakukan’s immense catalog."

• ICv2 reports

• Japanator's Brad Rice reports the news and comments "If you'll excuse me, I'm going to go die from happiness real quick now..."

• Manga Bookshelf's Melinda Beasi reacts to the breaking news with the headline "Fantagraphics Makes Dreams Come True" and follows up with more details and reaction

• The Manga Curmudgeon's David Welsh reacts and provides his own link roundup

• MangaBlog has links and commentary

• Robot 6 has a concise news item

• Zona Fandom has the news en Español

UPDATE: Adding more links as they are found:

• Forbidden Planet International blogs "We know Fanta as champions of quality comics work from around the world, so if they are putting their name to a new line then I’m interested..."

• Newsarama takes note in a headline roundup

• Otaku Champloo comments excitedly: "I’ve read some of Hagio-sensei’s works and Wandering Son in Japanese and I am infinitely happy how these mangas are finally having an English voice."

• Shoujo Café has the news in Portuguese

• Dave Carter of Yet Another Comic Blog is "giddy" with the news

The latest Online Commentary & Diversions:

• Review: "Dash Shaw seems set to become a name to be reckoned with in comics... [The Unclothed Man in the 35th Century A.D.] is a wonderful introduction to Shaw’s work, and should certainly find its way into the hands of those craving more." – Grovel

• Review: "I'm so glad I started reading this series and can't wait to catch up. Usagi Yojimbo is that rare breed of animal comic that works for me, blending Sakai's cartoon style with a story that would not be out of place in Lone Wolf and Cub. Fans of comics set in historical Japan should definitely check this out. You'll be glad you did. I think it would also be a good fit for manga fans looking to try a non-Japanese comic. I enjoyed this book a lot, and look forward to reading more." – Panel Patter

• Review: "Yet another reason to love Fantagraphics is their meticulous sequential collections of classic newspaper strips such as... Hank Ketcham’s Dennis the Menace. This volume collects the strips from 1961 - 1962 in a huge 654-page volume. What has always stood out about the Dennis the Menace strips is that they were single panel cartoons. It takes an incredible level of talent write a single panel cartoon and Ketcham was one of the best. ... Truly a delight that has lost none of its humor in fifty years.  Grade A" – Tim Janson, The Gouverneur Times

• Review: "West Coast Blues might be an off-kilter story of insufficiently motivated violence and random ennui, but it's a gorgeous-looking one." – Andrew Wheeler, The Antick Musings of G.B.H. Hornswoggler, Gent.

• Review: "...Ho Che Anderson's Sand & Fury... [is] a slightly twisty tale of sex, serial killers, and the supernatural, told very stylishly in black, white, and red. Blood and shadows therefore get a lot of play across Anderson's desolate southwestern landscapes; and although his lines can be thick and blocky, his figures evoke a good bit of emotion. There's a lot of nudity, a whole lot of violence, and so the plot can be boiled down to a very simple level: revenge, good vs. evil, etc. However, Anderson's anonymous main character, and the people she befriends, are more than just nominally sympathetic. I feel like I'm not doing the book justice, because it is a very raw tale, full of death and sex, and I liked it a lot." – Tom Bondurant, Robot 6

• Plug: Sequential spotlights Ho Che Anderson's Sand & Fury, saying it's "nice to see something new after he told Howard Chaykin he was giving up comics in the Comics Journal 300 interview."

• Plug: "King creator Ho Che Anderson has a brand new Scream Queen book, Sand & Fury. Ho's work always looks good, and I'm personally pretty happy to see this one..." – Chris Butcher, The Beguiling

• Interview: At Robot 6, Tim O'Shea talks to Ho Che Anderson about the new Special Edition of King ("That’s one thing I wish I could have done more of, slashing dialog, rewriting more of it, but at a certain point you gotta let it go. (Yes, George Lucas, I am talking about you.)") and his new graphic novel Sand & Fury ("To me, sex and horror or sex and violence seem to go naturally together. They seem to stem from the same twisted areas of our psyches. What scares us can often arouse us, sometimes despite ourselves, and vice versa.")

• Profile: CNN's Bob Greene pays tribute to Bill Mauldin on the occasion of the release of Mauldin's commemorative US postage stamp this month: "Mauldin, and his work, meant so much to the millions of Americans who fought in World War II, and to those who had waited for them to come home. He was a kid cartoonist for Stars and Stripes, the military newspaper; Mauldin's drawings of his muddy, exhausted, whisker-stubbled infantrymen Willie and Joe were the voice of truth about what it was like on the front lines." (hat tip to Walt Simonson)

• Commentary: At Comics Comics, Dan Nadel pulls a quote about Hal Foster from the interview with Burne Hogarth in The Comics Journal #166

An all black-and-white installment.

• A new Amazing Facts and Beyond with Leon Beyond from Kevin Huizenga

• How about a nice bunch of recent con sketches by Stan Sakai? (They're mostly Usagi, but this one's for you, Jacob. Via The Comics Reporter)

• Miner's lettuce is a great name for a plant — sketch by Debbie Drechsler

• This piece by Kevin Nowlan appeared in this 1982 issue of The Comics Journal

• This looks like one heck of a loopy story by Derek Van Gieson