Daily OCD: 10/26/10

Today's Online Commentary & Diversions:

• Review: "…[T]he third annual volume proves to be the best yet, combining eccentric drama, bright fantasy, captivating whimsy and appalling human frailty into a package of stunning graphic intensity. […] Stark, challenging, charming and irresistibly seductive, Love and Rockets: New Stories is a grown up comics fan’s dream come true and remains as valid and groundbreaking as its earlier incarnations — the cutting edge of American graphic narrative." – Win Wiacek, Now Read This!

• Review: "What to say that others haven’t? I’m not steeped enough in Jaime’s work to say that his contribution to this volume [of Love and Rockets: New Stories] was his best ever, but it was very, very strong work, and the reveal at the end so surprised me that I immediately reread the story. […] I’ve been enjoying the way that Gilbert’s stories and stories-within-stories have interacted, though without being entirely sure why. This volume also led me to wonder to what degree the brothers are aware of what the other is up to, since the stories seemed to strangely reflect each other in ways that previous volumes haven’t." – Brendan Wright, The Wright Opinion

• Commentary: Chris Limb of Catmachine pens a heartfelt ode to las locas: "My old friends are two women who live in a Latina neighborhood in California; I've known them since we were all teenagers. Their names are Maggie Chascarillo and Hopey Glass."

• Plug: Pulitzer Prize-winning author and noted Love and Rockets fan Junot Díaz was talking up the Bros again at the New York Times recently, reports Jennifer B. McDonald at the NYT's Paper Cuts blog

• Plug: At Techland, Douglas Wolk spotlights Jason in a slideshow of "70 Years of Frankenstein Comics": "The brief, wordless 2004 graphic novel You Can't Get There from Here, by the Norwegian cartoonist Jason, concerns a love triangle involving Frankenstein (the Doctor), the Monster, and the beehive-hairdo'ed Bride. It's since been collected in Jason's anthology Almost Silent."

• Commentary: At Comics Comics, Joe McCulloch discusses panel layouts and other matters pertaining to the work of Carol Swain