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Today's Online Commentary & Diversions: • Analysis/Commentary: At The Hooded Utilitarian, Ng Suat Tong provides an illustrated and annotated (and necessarily spoiler-filled) guide to the flashbacks in Jaime Hernandez's stories in Love and Rockets: New Stories #4; Robot 6's Sean T. Collins adds his own thoughts • Travelogue: John Porcellino visited E.C. Segar’s hometown of Chester, IL and has a photo-filled report (including the possible real-life Jones Boys) at his blog

It's official! Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery will be celebrating its 5th anniversary on Saturday, December 10 with an exhibition of Walt Kelly's original Pogo artwork. Look for a dozen dailies and several Sundays along with some appropriately swampy musical entertainment. Save the date and make your way to the bookstore where you will, indeed, be "confronted with insurmountable opportunities."

Rock's Backpages ("the online library of rock writing") offers up two excerpts from Everything Is an Afterthought: The Life and Writings of Paul Nelson by Kevin Avery — a portion of Avery's biography of Nelson and Nelson's 1975 Village Voice review of Neil Young's Zuma — plus an interview with Nelson by Steven Ward that originally ran at rockcritics.com in 2000. All are free to read at the subscription-based site, though an email address is required to access the articles.

Members of the press are currently receiving our Spring/Summer 2012 distributor's catalog, with all of our releases slated to hit the book market from April through August of next year (in other words, everything but pamphlet comics) — but why should they have all the fun? Download your very own PDF of the catalog (11.9 MB) to get all the scoop on (spoiler alert)… • Highly anticipated and much-demanded projects like Significant Objects, Sexytime, Barnaby, Gary Panter's Dal Tokyo, the Mort Meskin collection Out of the Shadows, Malcolm McNeill's Ah Pook art book and accompanying memoir of working with William…

From now through November 14, 2011, place an order of $25 or more and choose two comics from the list below as our FREE GIFT to you! Just state your selection when checking out, either in the comments field in our online shopping cart or to your friendly phone representative. Now is the time to check out that series or creator you've always been curious about, or even take a plunge on something you've never heard of before. What have you got to lose? Choose any two issues from the following list (shown in no particular order): Goody Good Comics…

Scared? (Image from Jack Davis: Drawing American Pop Culture – A Career Retrospective.)

Today's Online Commentary & Diversions: • Review: "Sala’s new book, The Hidden, does not wholly depart from the campy fascination with the morbid that marks his previous work, but is even darker in tone, despite the vibrant watercolor work. The visual markers of Sala’s humor are present — the affected font, the twisted faces — but there is arguably something more serious and disturbing at play here." – Jenna Brager, Los Angeles Review of Books • Reviews (Video): "This week on the Comics-and-More Podcast, Patrick Markfort and I discuss Richard Sala's work, including his Peculia books and his new graphic…

Tor.com is having a Halloween giveaway, including chances to win copies of The Hidden by Richard Sala and Beasts! Book 1! Enter to win The Hidden here and Beasts! here. UPDATE: They've now added a contest for Beasts! Book 2 — enter here.

* Other People's Publications** Yeah, You Know Me. It's been a long time since our last edition of "Down With OPP," so for those of us who've forgotten (me), it's a column where we take a look at books from other publishers that you can find at the Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery in Seattle! And, of course, what could inspire me to revive the column faster than a new title from the great Lynda Barry!!! I was beyond the moon to get to the store yesterday and see we had Blabber Blabber Blabber: Volume 1 of Everything (Drawn & Quarterly)…

photo credit: Edwina Hay No tricks! All treats! Tonight at McNally Jackson Books in SoHo! Join Mark Twain — we mean, Michael Kupperman! — for an evening of Halloween storytelling, with scare-larious stories from Mark Twain's Autobiography 1910-2010! It's part of "Real Characters," McNally Jackson's monthly storytelling series, featuring some of New York's funniest comedians and writers.  Kupperman will also be joined by Elna Baker, mad scientist Nick Vatterott, George Gordon, Matt Mercier, and my second favorite next to Kupperman, Ted Travelstead. The stories start at 7 PM! McNally Jackson is located at 52 Prince Street in New York City. …