Apologies for the late update -- technical difficulties and all that. This week's reviews: 

• Joe McCulloch, AKA Jog, takes a good look at Tim Lane's Abandoned Cars

• Joe/Jog also looks at Where Demented Wented: The Art and Comics of Rory Hayes 

• Sequart examines Explainers by Jules Feiffer

• Retailer Mike Sterling says Tales Designed to Thrizzle #4 by Michael Kupperman is "all you need to know about the new comics coming in this week," and then promptly sells out of them! Sequart looks at the issue too

• This week's coverage of Strange and Stranger: The World of Steve Ditko by Blake Bell comes from Publishers Weekly, The Village Voice (second on the page), and Steve Bissette

• Black Heart Magazine reviews Ellen Forney's Lust

• French site Wart looks at Bottomless Belly Button by Dash Shaw

• We take 3 spots on this top-10 list at Creative Loafing (and 2 of those are Acme Novelty Library)

• Our Eric Reynolds is posting scans of our press clippings on his Flickr account

• Harry Allen appreciates The Pin-Up Art of Dan DeCarlo Vol. 1 and Vol. 2

• The Forbidden Planet International blog looks at The Number 73304-23-4153-6-96-8 by Thomas Ott (reposted from the Blank Slate Books blog)

• Flickr user jjohnshea not only poses his sweet-looking dog with Maakies with the Wrinkled Knees by Tony Millionaire and Chance in Hell by Gilbert Hernandez (among other books... and look, here's his other dog with The Frank Book by Jim Woodring), he reviews them too:

In other links...

• This guy scored some great stuff at our Summer Sidewalk Sale last weekend

• Richard Grayson has a great report from last Friday's Where Demented Wented book release event at Desert Island in Brooklyn

• Blake Bell has the hots for my wife and writes some other things about his Comic-Con experience

• Paul Hornschemeier posts a video of Jonathan Lethem and Daniel Clowes talkin' shop at MoCCA

• At Blog Flume, Ken Parille connects the dots between Swiss appropriationist Ugo Rondinone, Jason, and Carl Barks

• Also at Blog Flume, Jonathan Bennett presents the complete It Was a Dark and Stormy Night by Snoopy

• Are you keeping up with Amazing Facts... and Beyond! with Leon Beyond by Kevin Huizenga, Ted May and Dan Zettwoch?

• In other webcomics news, Roger Langridge announces the temporary return of Fred the Clown

• Tim O'Shea interviews The Comics Journal Online Editor Dirk Deppey

• News To Me Dept: Hey, this Angry Youth Comix cover is based on this Li'l Abner paperback cover

• An amazing piece of original art by Michael Kupperman and the bitter story behind how it was acquired (via Sean T. Collins)

• Our own Kristy Valenti posts her Comic-Con 2008 wrap-up at ComicMix

• At Thought Balloonists, see photos of Jim Woodring at his Comic-Con spotlight panel and video of Jaime Hernandez sketching John Hancock for a fan at our Comic-Con booth

• Our own Larry Reid is quoted in this Los Angeles Times article about photographer Edward Colver

• Tim of Sparky Malarkey has a lot of our books on his shelves

• More Anders Nilsen sketchbook comics

No update next week due to Comic-Con, but the next one will be a two-fer. In this week's web reviews:

• The Stranger weighs in on Dash Shaw's Bottomless Belly Button

• Sean T. Collins looks at Mome Vol. 11

• The Toronto Star, Newsarama, Javier Hernandez, ComicMix and Maclean's on Strange and Stranger: The World of Steve Ditko by Blake Bell - see this previous Flog post for even more recent links related to this book

• On the NPR website, Laurel Maury looks at Willie & Joe: The WWII Years by Bill Mauldin; The Miami Herald also takes a look

• Til the Last Hemlock Dies looks at I Shall Destroy All the Civilized Planets! by Fletcher Hanks

• Vice loves Johnny Ryan's Angry Youth Comix #14

• Sequart continues their detailed examination of Love and Rockets Vol. 1 with issue #34

• Sequart also looks at the anthology fanzine Mineshaft #19

• Sequart additionally examines The Comics Journal #291

• The Alex Ross Collector looks at Ross's covers for TCJ #216 and #223

• Newsarama digs the Comic Arf anthology

In other news:

• Here's what the hardworking Roger Langridge is up to lately

• Empire magazine names Usagi Yojimbo the 31st-greatest comic book character of all time (the highest-ranking alt-comics character on the list is Vladek Spiegelman, at #13)

• du9 presents a 2004 interview with Daddy's Girl author Debbie Drechsler

• The latest cat-n-comix find on Flickr, from user "contrasts":

A two-fer this time around, since I was out last Friday. I need to come up with a better name for these link roundup posts. Any suggestions?

• When Comic Books Ruled the Earth is enthusiastic about The Education of Hopey Glass by Jaime Hernandez

• Sequart on Amor Y Cohetes by the three Hernandez brothers

• Also at Sequart, their in-depth look at every issue of Love and Rockets Vol. 1 has reached issue #33

• Joe McCulloch (a.k.a. Jog) reprints his Comics Journal review of the first two issues of Gabriella Giandelli’s Interiorae

• Chris McLaren, in discussing Jules Feiffer's Explainers, reveals that this Feiffer print hung at one time (and possibly still does) in Neil Gaiman's bathroom

• Boing Boing boosts Bottomless Belly Button by Bash Dash Shaw

• Largehearted Boy's Book Notes also looks at Bottomless Belly Button

• The Oregonian, Jog again, and Sequart again, all on Jason's Pocket Full of Rain and Other Stories

• The Forbidden Planet blog on Jason's The Last Musketeer

• Shuffleboil on Ray Fenwick's Hall of Best Knowledge

• Panels and Pixels says Willie & Joe: The WWII Years by Bill Mauldin "might be the most important comic reprint project of the year"

• The Comic Book Bin on R.C. Harvey’s Meanwhile… A Biography of Milton Caniff

• Sequart once more, on the Comic Arf anthology

• Again with the Comics starts a series of posts on the work of Peter Bagge by looking at his series Neat Stuff

• The Floating Lightbulb looks at E.C. Segar's Sappo as it appears in our Popeye collections

• Fantasy writer Icats Nitram takes a look at our 1986 release Children of the Night Tide by Jan Strnad, Dennis Fujitake and Tim Solliday

Plus...

• Our own Eric Reynolds explains Mome to Comic Book Resources (with a preview of the forthcoming Vol. 12)

• See Paul Hornschemeier's photos of Kevin Huizenga, Anders Nilsen and the trio's artwork at the Bilbolbul festival in Bologna, Italy

• Presspop has photos of a Jim Woodring exhibit in Japan

• WFMU apparently has more Fantagraphics clutter to auction off; this time it's the first collection of Kaz's Underworld

• Rod McKie spotlights the work of Jason

• Ty Buttars reports from Tuesday's Jason event at The Beguiling in Toronto

• And finally, from our Flickr group pool, a cat reading Peanuts upside-down:

Nothing directly to do with comics but Steven Weissman writes on his Flickr page: "We rescued this kitten out of a bird's nest in one of our cypress trees this weekend. We're taking care of it for now, but if anyone wants her, please let us know. She's cute, sleeping through the night and maybe 3-4 weeks old."

Are you going to pass up the opportunity to adopt a cat who thinks it's a bird??

Found on Flickr, from user Jessie Johnson. Taken at Comic Relief in Berkeley.