Daily OCD: 8/5/11

Today's Online Commentary & Diversions:

• List: To the surprise of few, The Hooded Utilitarian's International Best Comics Poll tops out with Charles M. Schulz's Peanuts in the #1 spot. HU editor Noah Berlatsky writes, "If you like charming, Peanuts is charming, and if you like dark, it’s dark, but it isn’t just charming, or just dark, or even just charming and dark. There are countless ways to like Peanuts, which is no doubt why it — deservedly, inevitably — tops this poll." 

• Review: "The squeaky-voiced character from the animated shorts was especially bold in his daily newspaper comic strip [Walt Disney's Mickey Mouse]. Its memorable continuities were largely the responsibility of one man: Floyd Gottfredson. …Gottfredson and his collaborators crafted two-fisted tales that remain entertaining, thrilling and funny up to 80 years on…. This inaugural issue in a planned Gottfredson library is a handsome hardback, prepared with the same care as Fantagraphics's archive of Charles Schulz's Peanuts." – Owen Heittman, The Australian

• Review: "Sibyl-Anne vs. Ratticus is a wonderful time and read!… The writing and art are grade A for this, and I cannot recommend it enough. It does have a feeling much like Peyo’s Smurfs, but I prefer Macherot’s Sibyl-Anne over it. His story telling is a bit more better put together, and action scenes are more exciting (if one has to compare to something, that is). Plus Sibyl-Anne is just cute…. Sibyl-Anne vs. Ratticus has something every comic lover can enjoy."  – Drew McCabe, ComicAttack.net

• Review: "Knowing me, if I wait until I’ve finished all 624 pages of [The Comics Journal #301], I’ll never get around to reviewing it, so I figured I’d just do it in parts. After a solid Introduction by Editor-in-Chief Gary Groth, in which he extols Crumb’s virtues as a cartoonist, and explains the reason Genesis deserved TCJ’s lengthiest critical symposium ever (the reason is that Groth thinks the book deserves it), we get a long and surprisingly warm and easygoing chat between Groth and Crumb. Neither has ever come off this…normal." – Christopher Allen, Trouble with Comics

• Plug: The Beguiling features The Comics Journal #301, with some nice photos

• Profile: Martin Dunphy of The Georgia Straight profiles Rand Holmes and previews the Holmes exhibit and presentation this Saturday at Vancouver comic shop Lucky's

• Profile: At SF Signal, Galen Dara explores "the odd cognitive dissonance" of divergent forms of comics by contrasting the work of Joyce Farmer with that of mainstream comics illustrator Jo Chen