Today's Online Commentary & Diversions:
• List: On the Forbidden Planet International Blog Log, guest critic Chris Marshall's top 10 graphic novels of 2009 places Blazing Combat in a tie for 4th place: "There was a time when War Comics told War Fact. They showed us the blood, death, camaraderie and horror. [This] series did just that and didn’t hold back."
• Review: "Fantagraphics has truly pulled out all the stops on the production of [Gahan Wilson: Fifty Years of Playboy Cartoons], giving it such marvelous style and pizzazz. … But it’s the content, of course, that is truly king. If the 20th century was indeed the American century, then Wilson is a cartoonist who had a hell of a time chronicling it, mocking it, signifying it, and holding it up to the light—albeit through his own twisted lens… The work is tremendous and witty and, as always with an excellent retrospective, it offers the reader an excellent chance to walk back in time through decades of experiences, memories, turbulences and triumphs, and just plain old human oddities. What’s truly amazing is how, for more than 50 years, Wilson rarely misses a witty beat." – John Hogan, Graphic Novel Reporter
• Preview/Plug: FEARnet presents some favorite pages, with commentary, from Portable Grindhouse: The Lost Art of the VHS Box
• Plug: Chris Jacobs of Sub Pop Records plugs the "predictably, really great" Mome Vol. 17, which includes artwork by Rick Froberg, who plays in Sub Pop band Obits, and the release party this Sunday at Bergen Street Comics in Brooklyn, where Rick will be signing
• Plug: There's much love for Jordan Crane at French blog La Soupe d'Espace
• Plug: At Comic Book Galaxy, Johnny Bacardi, a Jaime Hernandez partisan when it comes to Love and Rockets, says "But this upcoming Troublemakers looks kinda interesting… despite my preference for Jaime, I think I'll pick this up when I see it…"