On his blog, Tim Lane reveals the killer cover for the softcover edition of Abandoned Cars, due late '09-early '10, and hints that there may be two variant covers. Head over there for a sweet sampling of the lurid Golden Age crime comics covers that inspired this one!

Today's Online Commentary & Diversions:

• Review: "Just finished reading and cannot recommend enough the new Fantagraphics release Blazing Combat" - This Is Why I Hate You

• Review: "Something for everyone in this educational, humorous and borderline offensive tome. Communicated in Bagge’s trademarked bugged out style, [Everybody Is Stupid Except for Me] is a must-have for fans of incisive political commentary." - Kevin Mathews, The Power of Pop

• Review: "...Supermen! provides a concise glimpse into what the early comic books were like back when the medium was really fresh... Today’s readers will be surprised at how some of the material from a supposed more naive times really comes across rather grim and gritty... The 20 stories on view here provide an intriguing insight of where many of our modern day comic book heroes may have originated from, even if indirectly." - Kevin Mathews, The Power of Pop

• Preview: Fábio Moon previews and provides a bit of background about his and his brother's cover art for The Comics Journal #298

• Interview: Robot 6's Tim O'Shea talks with Bob Fingerman about his latest releases, including Connective Tissue

• Things to see: Another eye-melting page from Tim Lane's "The Passenger"

• Things to see: Roger Langridge takes a break from the Muppets for a Krazy Kat kommission

Due to the somewhat obsessive nature of my link gathering, I had the idea to start calling these posts "Daily OCD: Online Commentary & Diversions." What do you think, readers? Too cutesy-poo? Offensive to sufferers of real OCD?

• List: The Comics Reporter's Tom Spurgeon names "The Ten All-Time Best Long-Running Comics Series," with Love and Rockets Vol. I at #2 ("The best long-running and organic artistic achievement in serial comic book form... The Hernandez Brothers inspired and outworked a greatest generation of comics auteurs. Jaime and Gilbert Hernandez are each among that handful of artists who must be given serious consideration when talking about the best cartoonists working. In Love & Rockets each created fictional worlds for the ages and used them as a vehicle for enormous artistic development, lapping the majority of their peer group. One so inclined could argue with seriousness a top 25 of American graphic novels where 1/3 of the titles listed came from this series") and Acme Novelty Library at #8 ("...a mind-bending achievement... ACME punched right in the scrotum the notion that every issue of a single comic book series had to look like the others... Its primary value is that it presented [Chris] Ware's giant talent to enough of an audience to bring him thousands of hardcore fans... Ware can dream up a single-page that if it were the only thing he ever published people might still know his name")

• List: The A.V. Club's Noel Murray offers commentary on Spurge's list ("There’s no one definitive L&R storyline; it’s just story after amazing story, accumulating over the past three decades like personal correspondence. [...] Ware... turn[ed] comic books into a kind of readable sculpture...") and lobbies for the inclusion of Johnny Ryan's Angry Youth Comix

• Review: "Miss Lasko-Gross' self-caricature in her autobio stories [in A Mess of Everything] is an interesting mash-up of a typical teen with low self-esteem and that of an indignant outsider determined to make her increasingly confident voice heard -- and loudly. [...] Lasko-Gross' greatest strengths as an artist are her character design, gesture and use of body language. It's the way she stages her characters that makes looking at each page interesting... I love the touch of the exaggerated and the grotesque that she injects into her drawings, distorting faces and bodies to reflect emotional tumult." - Rob Clough

• Review: "I read Leah [Hayes]’s whole book, Funeral of the Heart [in one sitting]; I couldn’t stop reading. It’s a beautiful, engrossing book... Amazing." - Anika in London

• Review: "Formerly-suppressed, entirely classic, these stories [in Blazing Combat] are all solid examples of comic storytelling and craftsmanship... [T]he teams here make things look too easy. Not surprising since we’re talking about master artists like Toth, Frazetta, Severin, Crandall and others. The stories have all aged surprisingly well... Highly recommended..." - Matt Maxwell, Robot 6

• Reviewer: At that same Robot 6 link, Miss Lasko-Gross reviews books by Osamu Tezuka and Gabrielle Bell

• Reviewer: Alexander Theroux's latest book review, for Closing Time by Joe Queenan, is up at The Wall Street Journal

• Plug: Biblioteca del Instituto Internacional (an American-English library in Madrid) recommends Castle Waiting by Linda Medley

• Preview: Monster Brains presents 3 pages from Johnny Ryan's Prison Pit Book One (due this fall)

• Profile: The Walrus's article on Seth discusses his design work for The Complete Peanuts in depth

• Events: Portland, your Free Comic Book Day cup runneth over, as Andrice Arp and the other contributors to the excellent free anthology comic Bird Hurdler will be appearing at various locations throughout town -- Andrice has the full itinerary and details on her blog

• Things to see: Pappy's Golden Age Comics Blogzine has an uncollected Boody Rogers story for ya

• Things to see: Three recent illos from the ever-busy Drew Friedman

• Things to see: Another fantastic new story page from Tim Lane

• Things to see: In the next panel, Big Bird kicks Freddy Krueger in the nuts

• Things to see: Ragged Claws Network presents a few of Jeffrey Jones's Jones Touch strips which can be found in the out-of-print collection of the same name from our Eros Comix imprint (NSFW)

Dig this eye-popping, bone-crunching cover for the Spanish edition of Tim Lane's Abandoned Cars, coming later this year from our colleagues at La Cupula. From Tim's blog.

• 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

• Review: Comic Book Resources gives 4 stars to Boody. The Bizarre Comics of Boody Rogers, saying it "features some of the nuttiest comics you'll ever read... Boody Rogers presents an off-kilter world of hilarity that seems like an oft-unheralded link between the Golden Age of the newspaper strips and the underground cartoonists of the 1960s."

• Review: In the weekly Robot 6 "What Are You Reading?" roundup, Chris Mautner says of Humbug, "It’s a really impressive collection of work... and the production design here is nothing short of stunning. Fantagraphics really knocked this one out of the park in restoration."

• List: At New York Magazine, Bob Fingerman, Dash Shaw and a host of other creators pick their favorite New York City-set comics

• Blurb: Trendspotting blogger RobOrange spots The Wolverton Bible

• Interview: The Daily Cross Hatch continues their conversation with Al Jaffee, focusing on his early career

• Things to see/read: Illustration and story by Tim Lane

• Things to see: "I did a whole bunch of illustrations for this Japanese business magazine ASAHI," says Johnny Ryan

• Oddity: Kitchen Synch stumbles across some Duplex Planet Illustrated synchronicity

• Review/profile: The Oregonian says that Most Outrageous by Bob Levin is "The most challenging and thought-provoking book I read last year... unforgettable... among the great essays on human frailty," and discusses how the commercial success of The Complete Peanuts enables us to publish more challenging work

• Review: Brick Weekly says of The Lagoon by Lilli Carré, "Carré’s cartooning is purely excellent, evolving nicely from her earlier work and pulling you into a world of vividly drawn characters and lush environments" (scroll past the video game review)

• Previews: Whateves looks at The Wolverton Bible

• Interviews: Robot 6 talks to our own Eric Reynolds about the current state of the indie-comics market (Diamond, economy, etc.)

• Things to see: A new batch of sketchbook drawings from Anders Nilsen

• Things to see: A fantastic splash page from Tim Lane's next book

• List: Rina Ayuyang posts her Best of the Year comics list, with Ganges #2 by Kevin Huizenga and Abandoned Cars by Tim Lane on it

• Review: Vice gets a 5 year old kid's verdict on Johnny Ryan's Angry Youth Comix dolls

• Blurb: Precocious Curmudgeon looks at this week's new comics, recommends Castle Waiting Vol. II #14 by Linda Medley (which will be in stores before we have it for sale here)

• Interview: Optimum Wound gets all kinds of information out of Ho Che Anderson

• Things to see/interview: The ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive Project Blog posts a trove of Eldon Dedini's Playboy cartoons, along with a video interview clip

• Events: Here's a list of current and upcoming art shows where you can view work by Andrice Arp

The comics blogosphere does not rest for Super Bowl weekend:

• List: Brick Weekly has 4 "Top 10 Comics of 2008" lists on which Bottomless Belly Button by Dash Shaw and The Portable Frank by Jim Woodring appear multiple times

• List: The Comics Reporter asked readers to "Name Five Favorite Single-Issue Alternative/Independent Comic Books" and lots of folks chose Fantagraphics stuff

• Review: Fictions looks at Maggie the Mechanic by Jaime Hernandez

• Review: Rob Clough says Where Demented Wented: The Art and Comics of Rory Hayes is "a stunning retrospective that seems remarkably fresh today"

• Blurb: USA Today Pop Candy's Whitney Matheson names Esther Pearl Watson's Unlovable the "Best thing I read" last week; she's also reading the current issue of The Comics Journal

• Analysis: At Blog Flume, Ken Parille examines Schulz's use of varied settings in some early Peanuts strips

• Interview: Watch this episode of Canapé, from NYC cable channel CUNY, for a segment on David B. 's recent stop in NYC

• Interview: Robot 6 talks to Lilli Carré about The Lagoon

• Interview: Newsarama talks to our latest Mome signing, Noah Van Sciver

• Events: Sacha Peet is excited for Esther Pearl Watson's Unlovable art show and book signing at our storefront this Saturday, and so should you be

• Things to see: At Liberation.fr, here's what appears to be a promotional video for a French edition of Eightball by Daniel Clowes

• Things to see: Another new story page from Tim Lane

• Things to see: More "Doodle Dump" and rock sketches from Tom Kaczynski