Your Online Commentary & Diversions for the first day of June '09:

• Review: "Holy cats!... Wolverton's illustrations [in The Wolverton Bible], done in the same unmistakable, stippled style that characterized his grotesqueries, show off the grim, the violent, and the destructive in the Old Testament, putting the blood and guts in the spotlight. The result is like no illustrated Bible you've ever seen... This is a side of Wolverton I never suspected, but it is perfectly him, humorous, grisly, mad and wonderful." - Cory Doctorow, Boing Boing

• Review/Profile: "...Unlovable by Esther Pearl Watson... was for me like discovering a nugget of gold in a sieve! ...really original and fun." - Lezinfo (translated from French)

• Review: "With great candor and wit, [Peter] Bagge tackles [the] issues... in Everybody Is Stupid Except for Me, a collection of his strips from Reason Magazine. As in his previous works like Hate and The Bradleys, Bagge deftly manages to simultaneously anger and amuse the reader with his intensely personal stories about larger topical issues." - Rick Klaw, The SF Site: Nexus Graphica

• Review: "The Bradleys have more vices than virtues and Bagge explores them with a violent and insolent humor." - Intergalacticrobot (translated from Portuguese)

• Review: "...[T]he comics in this collection [of Blazing Combat] are astounding... The art is reproduced from 'the original printer’s films,' so the work is clear and detailed, with the washes and shading providing depth and a feeling of realism... The stories are still timely." - Johanna Draper Carlson, Comics Worth Reading

• Review: "ISB Best of the Week: Tales Designed to Thrizzle #5... Michael Kupperman is hands-down one of the funniest guys in comics." - Chris Sims, Chris's Invincible Super-Blog

• Reviewer: For The Wall Street Journal, Alexander Theroux reviews The Complete Letters of Henry James Vol. 1

• Plug: Jason Permenter spotlights "Twain and Einstein, from the new issue of [Tales Designed to] Thrizzle, which is 'out any day now.' Makes me laugh, audibly."

• Interview: The Comics Reporter's Tom Spurgeon talks to Bob Fingerman about his latest projects, including Connective Tissue. Sample quote: "I think if I did nothing but comics, I would end up hating comics. For a while there I was actually beginning to hate comics."

• Interview: Robot 6's Tim O'Shea talks to Supermen! editor Greg Sadowski about the collection of Golden Age hero stories. Sample quote: "I never liked those 'Archive' editions where they bleach out the old colors and replace them with modern coloring methods printed on glossy paper. That whitewashes all the distinction out of those vintage books and transforms them into a cloyingly slick and artificial product."

• Event: On the MTV Splash Page blog, Rick Marshall talks about meeting Dash Shaw at our booth at BEA

• Video: From Paul Hornschemeier's blog: "Via Tuono Pettinato on Facebook: A Peanuts documentary (broken into 5 parts on YouTube) where Charles Schulz discusses the making of the animated Peanuts and the role of music. It's great footage, and makes me miss Schulz's genius all the more."

• Things to see: On the Covered blog, Johnny Ryan takes on Real Deal #3

• Things to see: Pappy's Golden Age Comics Blogzine presents a vintage Gene Deitch-created rarity, "Clint Clobber"

• Contest: Dorian Wright is giving away "a copy of Boody, the collection of amazingly bizarre and eccentric Boody Rogers comics," to whomever guesses his most-hated comic character

Daniel Clowes envisions the future of print on the cover of the new issue of The New Yorker.

You might have heard a tiny bit of buzz about the 11-page excerpt of Crumb's Book of Genesis in the issue, too.

Pummelin' Paul Karasik provides details of the Fletcher Hanks-travaganza planned for this coming weekend's MoCCA Festival in NYC:

"The Fletcher Hanks Experience" will debut at MoCCA Comics festival on Saturday, June 6 at 5:00.

"The Fletcher Hanks Experience" is a safari over the craggy landscape of the psyche of Fletcher Hanks. Combining archival audio of Hanks' son with comic book panels, Paul Karasik takes the audience into the mind of the man whom R. Crumb called, "A Twisted dude".

PLUS: "You Shall Die By Your Own Evil Creation!" the 2nd of volume of collected Hanks tales will also debut at MoCCA!

PLUS PLUS PLUS: Each Hanks book purchased at MoCCA comes with a complimentary coloring book, "Color Me or DIE!" with a cover drawn by Charles Burns!!!

Paul Karasik will be signing books on Saturday, June 6 from 2-3 and Sunday, June 7 from 12-1

(For more Fantagraphics signing times and activities, click here.)

NOT TO MENTION: Paul appeared on the mighty WFMU this morning on Benjamen Walker's show, "Theory of Everything." We weren't able to alert you in time but fortunately you can stream or download the interview right now from WFMU's online archive!

Conan O'Brien takes a break from preparing to take over The Tonight Show tonight to sing the praises of Michael Kupperman's comics in the pages of this week's Entertainment Weekly:

Congratulate Michael in person this weekend at the MoCCA Festival! The new Thrizzle hardcover will be on hand.