The year's penultimate Online Commentary & Diversions:
• List: Comic Book Resources begins their countdown of the Top 100 Comics of 2009. At #82, "Because I Love You So Much" by Nikoline Wedelin: "Found in the pages of the recent anthology of Danish comics, From Wonderland with Love, this collection of strips about a mother who discovers that her daughter is being sexually abused by her dad is one of the most harrowing and utterly stunning stories about a difficult subject matter I've ever read and easily equal to the works of, say, Phoebe Gloeckner or Debbie Dreschler." (Chris Mautner)
• List: The Brazilian editions of The Complete Peanuts 1950-1952 and Dash Shaw's Bottomless Belly Button have been voted among As melhores HQs de 2009 (The Best Comics of 2009) by a panel of critics at O Globo (via The Comics Reporter)
• List: Robin McConnell of Inkstuds re-posts his Best of 2009 and Best of the 2000s lists previously run at The Daily Cross Hatch
• List: Comicdom continues their Top 100 of the 00s with Black Hole by Charles Burns at #2: "I start, taking for granted that with Black Hole, Burns played the blues of the pelvis with unparalleled mastery."
• Review: "…[A] love letter to 70s exploitation movies. Beto being Beto, there’s a depth of visual symbolism and complexity of character that provides an emotional structure to the narrative not seen in the source material that inspired these stories. …Elmore Leonard meets Roger Corman. … There’s a wonderful luridness to the story that Hernandez revels in… The Troublemakers… shows the artist at the height of his powers, capable of crafting characters with surprising depth even in the basest of genre stories." – Rob Clough, The Comics Journal
• Review: Chris McLaren gives his impressions after reading the first book of the "marvelous" Gahan Wilson: Fifty Years of Playboy Cartoons
• Plug: Paul Constant of The Stranger picks up on our report of the recent Fletcher Hanks discovery and says "If you haven't read I Shall Destroy All the Civilized Planets! and its sister volume You Shall Die by Your Own Evil Creation!, you're in for a treat."
• Plugs: At Comics212, Chris Butcher comments on our spread in the December Previews: "Wow, some good stuff this month."
• Interview: Comics Alliance talks to Mome and The Comics Journal contributor Noah Van Sciver
• Interview: Comic Book Galaxy's Alan David Doane presents an exactly-decade-old chat with Barry Windsor-Smith, conducted on the occasion of the release of OPUS Vol. 1: "I mean, if I'd really wanted to sell it, I could have called it 'Tits Galore' or something like that." (I pulled the goofiest quote, but really, it's a substantive read.)
• Tribute: Steve Brodner mourns David Levine
• Things to see: This week's Seattle Weekly boasts illustrations from Jeremy Eaton and Pat Moriarity