Marc Mason from the "Should it be a Movie?" column over at Kevin Smith's www.moviepoopshoot.com site says "Larry Young has been referred to as comics’ version of Jerry Bruckheimer, but I don’t think that’s quite right; he’s more Francis Ford Coppola, making his own paper movies, producing other quality paper movies, and even producing prose works (such the way Coppola did with his Zoetrope magazine."

Bill Sherman: "Any consideration of Larry Young — or, more specifically, the books Young writes for his own indy comics line, AiT/Planet Lar — must inevitably be as much about the practice of self-advertisement as it about the work itself. Reading the first issue of Young’s new color comic mini-series, The Black Diamond: On Ramp, a neatly hard-edged series set in a dystopian near future, I was reminded how much canny marketing can add to a pop experience."

Laura Gjovaag, of Bloggity-Blog-Blog-Blog, on The Black Diamond: "I have had dreams/nightmares of a road similar to the Black Diamond on and off since I was in High School. The concept is simple, yet unthinkable. A lawless superhighway across the US? But AiT/Planet Lar specializes in the unthinkable, and that's why it appears that this story will work. Mix the unthinkable with the mundane, and you get a tale worth reading."

Missed the kind words from Alan David Doane, on The Black Diamond, as well: "...a beautiful, full-colour monthly comic written by Larry and with the best art I've ever seen by Jon Proctor. The near-future sci-fi premise — revolving around fast cars and a brutal solution to mass transportation — is so much fun it's amazing no one ever thought of it before.

"Testosterone-driven action comics don't often do it for me, but this one looks to be done right, with energy and smarts to spare, and the colouring is terrific, hyper-real and not quite like any comic I've seen before.

"Coming on the heels of Demo, I think The Black Diamond will be a genuine pleasure to pick up every month, very different from AiT's last monthly series, but looking to be equally as entertaining, and a good piece of fiction to spend your summer escaping inside."

Dave Hovy on The Black Diamond: "The first time I read through, I initially wasn't as draw to it as I thought I would. Something about the narration seemed off. But going through a second time, everything seemed to click with me. Reminds me of something an old English professor of mine would use to say, 'The first time you read something you're really just skimming it to get through it. It's the second time through that you actually read it.' And he's quite right. I skimmed it the first time just to get an idea of what was going, but the second time through I noticed all the little details, and nuances. The conversation about how there's only two kinds of plots, or how all of the sound effects are large, and look as if they were drawn by Paul Pope (which is good in my eyes). Especially with the full-page "CRASH" and the lime-green background. Porno. Completely and totally porno. Which is to say that Jon Proctor — based on this preview — does a smash up (pun so very much intended) job with the art, not to mention the coloring. It's vivid and wild, just like a video game."

Sean Fahey on The Black Diamond: "...one of the more interesting post-apocalyptic stories I’ve read in that (1) it’s not even post-apocalyptic and (2) it intelligently channels the reactionary anxieties of our post 9-11 environment to create the backdrop for a very original story setting."