Holy Smokes! Check out Brian Domingos' list of "100 Things I Love About Comics:" Ursula, 1000 Steps to World Domination, Astronauts in Trouble, Scurvy Dogs, Sky Ape, True Facts, and a nod to the company itself all hit the list. Thanks, Brian.

A new Loose Cannon.

Astronauts in Trouble also made Steve Pheley's list of "100 Things I Love About Comics," which I sure do appreciate.

"As Adam Beechen says in his introduction, many people said about this book 'I laughed so hard I wet myself,' and although I have better bowel control than those people, it was close."

"It's that rarest of beasts in these days of syndicate margin management—a comic strip that's actually funny."

Rob Osborne's got a brand-new site. The letters this guy gets are hilarious.

Speaking of hilarious letters, read the February 25th posting of the Khepri site and see which one gets taken seriously.

And speaking of Khepri, it's that time again for THE TOP 05 GN/TPB/HC OF 2005, WEEK 07 (FEB 13-19)

05. Demo: The Twelve Original Scripts TPB (AiT/Planet Lar)
04. Battle Pope v1 TPB (Funk-O-Tron)
03. The Walking Dead v1: Days Gone Bye TPB (Image Comics)
02. The Couriers v3: The Ballad of Johnny Funwrecker GN (AiT/Planet Lar)
01. Channel Zero: Jennie One GN (AiT/Planet Lar)

Oh, that Kirkman. Some day, we'll have all five spots, oh, yes.

This was quite flattering: "Publishers both big and small might do well to take a tip from comics publishing wherein relentless huckstering, flim-flam and own-trumpet blowing is all par for the course. Both the 'big two' and all the smaller presses (AiT/Planet Lar being a great example) use every means known to man to promote their products (both upcoming and backlist) to the audience. To be fair, this is principally an online promotional effort but, from the previous comments, that's where we're all looking to find our new stuff anyway..."

For the nine thousand emails I've gotten about this already today, Couriers 03: The Ballad of Johnny Funwrecker would have ended up between VAGABOND VOL 18 TP and STRANGERS IN PARADISE VOL 4 POCKET TP on the ICv2 list of top 100 graphic novels for January. No, I don't know why it's not on the list.

Tom The Dog digs on the Scurv's "fantastic package." Mrs. Beechen will be happy with this line: "I was laughing out loud just at the foreword." while Mrs. Yount will like: "And finally, you can't beat the price -- $12.95, which is a real steal, these days. Try to tell me $12.95 isn't worth seeing a gasoline-drinking Rod Stewart carrying around Dr. Theopolis like Twiki from Buck Rogers. Just try!"

H over at The Comic Treadmill does something hilarious, as befitting the warped humor of Scurvy Dogs: he assembles his own pirated review from other Scurv reviews on the Internet. Whether his editing prowess is so mighty or that the Scurv hits the same notes with everyone, but the spray of collected accolades reads much less Frankensteinian than you'd think. Maybe it's just what I've long suspected: Graeme McMillan writes every comics review on the web.

Dorian Wright gets his Scurvy Dogs and writes: "This is a book that defies any kind of coherent description." He then goes on to wrestle with a coherent description of the book and pins it to the ground and wins the match: "It's got pirates in it. They drink a lot. They do terrible things to other people who may or may not have deserved to have had terrible things happen to them. And it's funny. One of the funniest comics to have come out in recent years, to be honest."

Scroll down a bit on Jog The Blog for more scurvy goodness: "It’s $12.95. It’s a very good deal considering the amount of stuff you’re getting, and I think that established fans of this series (and I know there are quite a few) will want to spend the money to upgrade. There’s been a real effort made to provide extra value to this compilation, beyond merely re-presenting previously published material. And as for new readers, well, suffice to say that if you enjoy gently surreal, heavily pop-culture laden humor, and can tolerate a certain amount of visual roughness, you’ll have a good time."

Also, today you can find us here:

Scurvy Dogs: Rags To Riches - If you missed out on this series the first time, I would definitely recommend this trade. It has more gags per page than should be legal. The naive art style was a bit off-putting at first, but you'll soon realize how well it complements the zany non sequitur comedy. This book seems to have been made by and for people who love comics and their limitless capacity for the sublimely ridiculous.

This book is filled with the sort of insane stream of consciousness pop culture referencing that takes place between friends late at night when you're stoned, drunk, hungover or just tired, and everything is funny. The miracle of Scurvy Dogs is that even in the bright light of day, when these gags have been put down on paper, they're still funny... When it comes to these deluxe trades, few do it better than AiT/Planet Lar, and they don't skimp on the extras this time out either. Yount and Boyd's commentary is surprisingly restrained, less wacky and more actually informative, but there are some extra laughs to be found there, and at any rate, it's interesting to get some insights into the creation of this unusual comic. I was also quite pleased by the sketchbook and pinup gallery, and by the inclusion of the Vampirella story, a comic tidbit that most Scurvy Dogs fans probably missed the first time around. Scurvy Dogs: Rags to Riches is a great collection of a great series. 10/10

Bill Sherman's got a great review of Couriers 03: "To my eyes, it's the most entertaining entry in the series yet, perhaps because it's most upfront about its own outlandishness." Bill's always a good read.

"I was looking for a different experience that the one given and the one I believe I was promised." Life is full of these little disappointments, Michael.

What I Liked About WonderCon: " - Running around with Larry Young"

An enigma called Nobius Black inexplicably blogged my "How to Make A Minicomic" post to Sean Maher. Seriously, I could spend my entire day writing things to improve that kid's life, and it'd all go to waste 'cause the dude just doesn't listen.