Here's today's batch of Online Commentary & Diversions:
• Comic-Con: More on the big show from Brian Heater at The Daily Cross Hatch & The Comics Reporter's Tom Spurgeon
• Comic-Con: We love you too, Tom
• Comic-Con: Looks like Kelly Kilmer scored a bunch of great stuff at our booth on Sunday
• Review: "The first four issues of Michael Kupperman's awesome comedy comics zine Tales Designed to Thrizzle have been collected into a single hardcover volume that is a superdense wad of funny, surreal, bent humor… This is weird, funny, Subgenius-esque toilet reading that will keep you very regular." – Cory Doctorow, Boing Boing
• Review: "Thomas Ott's Dead End, & Tales of Error, (Fantagraphics Books) – This Swiss artist's comics are a moody blend of irony, horror and silence. (Most of his stories have no dialogue or captions.) The stark black-and-white pages – thanks to Ott's use of scratchboard – bring to mind such German Expressionist films as Robert Wiene's The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari and F.W. Murnau's Nosferatu. Like those films, Ott knows how to build suspense and maintain a sense of looming dread as each story reaches its foregone and tragic ending." – Steven Kwan, "Your new textbooks: Comics you need to read," University of Arizona Daily Wildcat
• Review: "The key to [Mome]'s continued success has been flexibility regarding its mission. It's still a place where young artists are sought out and spotlighted… It's also a place where key foreign comics can find a home… Lastly, it's a place where great American cartoonists can publish their short stories… This variety of approaches… positions it as a sort of descendant of Weirdo and RAW. It may not represent the absolute cutting edge of comics the way that Kramer's Ergot does, but it's still the widest available survey of alt-comics in publication and will be increasingly valuable in that regard as it continues to evolve." – Rob Clough
• Preview: The Comics Reporter reports: "I saw John Pham briefly at his studio on Monday. He's a little bit late — although nowhere near comics-late — with the second issue of his Sublife series from Fantagraphics, and the original art he showed me was really, really pretty."
• Plug: Irwin Chusid, co-editor of The Sweetly Diabolic Art of Jim Flora, shares some words and thoughts on the book upon the occasion of its official publication date today
• Plug: Boing Boing's Mark Frauenfelder hypes The Sweetly Diabolic Art of Jim Flora, relating the following: "Tim Biskup told me the the first time he saw Flora's work (when he was in a used record store) he felt his brain rewiring on the spot, forever changing his approach to art."
• Plug: On C-SPAN2's Book TV, Reason's Nick Gillespie recommends Everybody Is Stupid Except for Me by Peter Bagge (link goes to YouTube)
• Plugs: Jog looks at some of our new releases arriving in comic shops today
• Plugs: "If you picked up I Shall Destroy All the Civilized Planets! and delighted in the surreal mayhem therein (and who didn’t) you’re going to have to grab a copy of You Shall Die by Your Own Evil Creation! to make your life complete… It’s completely insane and very funny and will probably encourage you to indulge in a spot of unnecessary exclamation pointing… The Summer 2009 edition of MOME has arrived and, as usual, it's packed… Sergio Ponchione's Grotesque #3… is one of those lovely-looking Ignatz books… If you're a fan of weird Lynchian fantasy you should definitely check it out." – Gosh! Comics Blog
• Plugs: "The Complete Crumb Comics, Vol. 9…: Classic Crumb from 1972 and ‘73, reprinted once again. Lots of great politically incorrect material, including Crumb's assault (of sorts) on feminism. All in good fun, of course… The Complete Peanuts, Vol. 12: 1973-1974…: This one contains what I sincerely think is one of the greatest extended stories in the history of comics, where Charlie Brown starts seeing baseballs everywhere and gets a baseball-shaped rash on the back of his head. Hopefully you're buying the whole series, but if you only want one volume, I'd suggest this one. If you want more, though, you can buy the box set with Vol. 11 included… Mome, Vol. 15 (Summer 2009): …[T]his one looks intriguing if only because it features both the debut of up-and-coming artist T. Edward Bak and a 16-page story by the Spanish artist Max, who we don't nearly get enough of in these parts." – Chris Mautner, Robot 6
• Reviewer: Dash Shaw has begun contributing to the Comics Comics blog; here's his inaugural post, on an anime art book