Today's Online Commentary & Diversions:

• List: On the Inkstuds radio programme's "Best of 2011 with the Cartoonists" episode, Aaron Costain, Dustin Harbin and John Martz discuss their favorite comics of 2011 with host Robin McConnell, including:

Like a Sniper Lining Up His Shot by Jacques Tardi & Jean-Patrick Manchette
Approximate Continuum Comics by Lewis Trondheim
Walt Disney's Donald Duck: Lost in the Andes by Carl Barks
Walt Disney's Mickey Mouse by Floyd Gottfredson
Prison Pit Book 3 by Johnny Ryan
Mome Vol. 22

• List: Love and Rockets: New Stories #4 was the second-highest vote-getter in Forbidden Planet International's "2011 FPI Master List" survey of "various comic types" to determine the best-loved comics of the year

• Review (Audio): Jack Davis: Drawing American Pop Culture is a topic of discussion with host Mark Frauenfelder and guests Ruben Bolling and Dean Putney on this week's Boing Boing "Gweek" podcast

• Review: "You know who’s great? Lewis Trondheim, the incredibly prolific French cartoonist. Evidence comes in... Approximate Continuum Comics, an English translation of a six-part series Trondheim published in the 1990s concerning his struggles in the comics industry, desire for success and acclaim and just general angst, anxiety and feelings of self-doubt. It sounds all terribly self-involved to the point of tedium, but Trondheim is simply too skilled a storyteller to allow his own ego to override the quality of his work. Approximate is filled with wonderful visual inventions, like an early daydream about dealing with obnoxious passangers on the subway. More to the point, Trondheim’s self-effacing sense of humor is so charming and revealing that the book never becomes too solipsistic or insufferable." – Chris Mautner, Robot 6

• Review (Audio): Extra Sequential Podcast hosts Kris Bather and Mladen Luketin examine Young Romance: "Legendary creators Joe Simon and Jack Kirby effectively created the romance comics genre which was surprisingly dominant during the 1940s and 50s. We look at Fantagraphics’ entertaining new collection of some of their work."

• Review: "Paul Nelson's life narrative is too good and too tragic.... The painful thing about reading this book [Everything Is an Afterthought], beautifully written and edited by Kevin Avery, is a lot of people are going to identify with Nelson's love for culture and what it means to him/us/them.... A very sad book. But the interviews with his fellow critics and friends (most love him to bits) [are] quite moving and a tribute to those who write to expose how 'their' feelings are attached to the shine or the mirror-like image of pop culture." – Book Soup Blog

• Analysis: Comic Book Resources' Greg Burgas examines a 1957 Steve Ditko page as reprinted in Unexplored Worlds: The Steve Ditko Archives Vol. 2