In our news section, we're pleased to bring you the lowdown on our books and comics slated for release in August, 2009, as will be seen in the pages of Previews. It's a big month! The list includes:

• The Complete Peanuts 1973-1974 by Charles M. Schulz
• The Complete Peanuts 1971-1974 Box Set
• Captain Easy, Soldier of Fortune: The Complete Sunday Newspaper Strips Vol. 1 by Roy Crane
• Rock Candy by Femke Hiemstra
• This Side of Jordan by Monte Schulz
• Usagi Yojimbo: The Special Edition by Stan Sakai
• Love and Rockets: New Stories #2 by the Hernandez Brothers
• Like a Dog by Zak Sally 

We also put up our actual Previews spread as a print-quality PDF file, just for fun. Jason Miles designed it and it'll clobber your eyeballs like a roundhouse from Capt. Easy himself. Click on through for the full dirt.

Your Online Commentary and Diversions for the day:

• Review: "It’s great to read comics that are fun, inventive, and delighting in the medium instead of dour, 'relevant,' and procedural. Supermen is a teasing look at a truly Golden Age." - Dave Lartigue, Dave Ex Machina

• Review: "Never before reprinted, Fantagraphics recently collected Humbug, complete with new essays, interviews, and annotations, in two handsome hardback volumes. [...] Jack Davis and Will Elder... elevated the comic-book parody beyond the standards of Mad and Trump. For Humbug, Davis produced some of the best work of his long career. Al Jaffee... tackled varied topics... all with equal skill and irreverence..." - Rick Klaw, San Antonio Current

• Review: "Blazing Combat... features a collection of some of the most beautiful black and white comic art you have ever seen... It also features interviews and some of the most beautiful printing I have seen. Honestly, put down those monthly comics for a week and buy something you will enjoy a lifetime. From cover to cover, this book is what keeps me in comics." - Jimmy Palmiotti, Newsarama

• Review: "Supermen! The First Wave of Comic Book Heroes 1936-1941 is the book I've been waiting for - a crazed whirlwind tour through the raw badlands of early superheroes, the best and the weirdest of the early days... Fantagraphics Books has assembled 20 of these quirky gems into a nicely designed, affordable full-color paperback. It's like a roadmap of alternative history, where you can imagine that a character like Stardust the Super Wizard became a star... It's one of the best comic collections of the year. Bring on a sequel!" - Nik Dirga, Blogcritics

• Plug: "Castle Waiting Vol. II #15: ...Linda Medley’s warm, winsome fantasy series continues at its relaxed pace." - Chris Mautner, Robot 6

• Profile: The University of Cincinnati describes how faculty member C. Tyler, inspired by her graphic memoir You'll Never Know, is teaming up her students with military veterans to tell the veterans' stories in comics format, in order to help veterans talk about their experiences and share them with the civilian public to increase awareness of veterans' issues

• Things to see: Insane comics from Turkey, presented by Johnny Ryan

Awesome, Ray.

Today's Online Commentary & Diversions:

• Review: "Just finished reading and cannot recommend enough the new Fantagraphics release Blazing Combat" - This Is Why I Hate You

• Review: "Something for everyone in this educational, humorous and borderline offensive tome. Communicated in Bagge’s trademarked bugged out style, [Everybody Is Stupid Except for Me] is a must-have for fans of incisive political commentary." - Kevin Mathews, The Power of Pop

• Review: "...Supermen! provides a concise glimpse into what the early comic books were like back when the medium was really fresh... Today’s readers will be surprised at how some of the material from a supposed more naive times really comes across rather grim and gritty... The 20 stories on view here provide an intriguing insight of where many of our modern day comic book heroes may have originated from, even if indirectly." - Kevin Mathews, The Power of Pop

• Preview: Fábio Moon previews and provides a bit of background about his and his brother's cover art for The Comics Journal #298

• Interview: Robot 6's Tim O'Shea talks with Bob Fingerman about his latest releases, including Connective Tissue

• Things to see: Another eye-melting page from Tim Lane's "The Passenger"

• Things to see: Roger Langridge takes a break from the Muppets for a Krazy Kat kommission

Seattle, getcherself some bargain-priced drawrings from the likes of Jim Woodring, Ellen Forney, and other Friends of the Nib at "Drift," a flurry of papery goodness opening this Thursday (May 14, 2009) at 7 PM at Cafe Racer on Roosevelt. Click the flyer for bigger info courtesy The Woodring Monitor. Bring your checkbook!

Expected to arrive in comic book shops this week: Castle Waiting Vol. II #15 by Linda Medley. Due to the intricacies of shipping and distribution, comic shops get new issues of Castle Waiting before we do ourselves, so you Wednesday warriors get the first crack! As always, check with your local shop to confirm availability.

Just a stack of original Gilbert Hernandez pages for Love and Rockets: New Stories #2 sitting around the office waiting to be scanned, bathing us all in the brilliant radiance of their presence. You know, nothing to get worked up over.

Now available for preview and pre-order: The Comics Journal #298, featuring interviews with Umbrella Academy artists Gabriel Bá & Fábio Moon; Perry Bible Fellowship's Nicholas Gurewitch; and Thriller artist Trevor Von Eeden, plus a gallery of Percy Crosby's Skippy strips and a whole lot more -- click here to check out the full Table of Contents. This issue is scheduled to be in stock and ready to ship in mid-June and in stores approximately 4 weeks after that (subject to change).

• Review: "Petey & Pussy is surreal, rude, crass, crude with studied obnoxiousness, and bitterly, bitingly funny in a perfect post-modern manner... an utterly captivating world of bawdy, grown-up laughs that only the most po-faced conservative could resist. Adult fun for slacker smart-asses of all ages guaranteed to make your beer spurt out of your nose so read carefully..." - Win Wiaceck, Now Read This!

• Review: "Humbug was cool beyond cool... fabulous art..." - Roger Sabin, The Guardian

• Review: "The Humbug set from Fantagraphics is out and it's great. Fine printing and binding will keep this slipcased two-volume set looking good long after the rest of us are gone." - Harry Lee Green, Hairy Green Eyeball 

• Review: "Maybe the business was too young, or maybe these characters were just a warm-up for what was to come so they didn't quite stick, but they are just as cool as any early Superman or Batman comic. The comics are all really neat to read, crude and unfiltered... So if you’re a comics fan, especially of the early stuff, this book is a must-have... [Supermen! The First Wave of Comic Book Heroes 1936-1941] is gritty and exciting, so definitely go check it out!" - Tom Hardej, CC2K

• Review: "A fantastic companion to 2007’s Fletcher Hanks retrospective I Shall Destroy All The Civilized Planets!, [Supermen!] is pure pop culture heaven... While it’s easy to see why these characters have been been consigned to the dustbin of history, there’s an undeniable charm to practically every story in here... The only problem with this book is that it leaves you wanting more..." - Kevin Church

• Review: "...Sam's Strip was an interesting comic in its own right. The phrase 'ahead of its own time' is one that's bandied about frequently when discussing it, and even now the juxtapositions within it are occasionally surreal enough to cause amusement through their sheer audacity... As small a fact as it may be, the near-flawless execution of the book helps to make it feel like more of a prestige package, a celebration of the series rather than just a cheap cash-in... [T]his straightforward but well-made collection is a thoroughly worthy purchase." - Andrew Williams, Den of Geek

• Preview: "Illustrator Nell Brinkley's women were the Roaring Twenties' answer to the aloof Gibson Girl. Curly-haired, rambunctious and more than a bit naughty, the Brinkley Girls were a national sensation..." - She's a Betty

• Preview: "For those of you familiar only with [Peter] Bagge’s Gen X tales of angry, lost youth in Hate, the realisation that Bagge has developed into an opinionated, curmudgeonly middle aged man may seem as disturbing as seeing your favourite band of your teens back on stage now they’re all 40 somethings. But there’s no need to fear -- Bagge’s middle age self displays all the angry, hilarious energy of his younger self, just with more direction and purpose. [Everybody Is Stupid Except for Me is] definitely one to look forward to." - Richard Bruton, The Forbidden Planet International Blog Log

• Interview: Amazon.com's Omnivoracious blog sat down for a chat with Jaime Hernandez at Emerald City ComiCon. Sample quote: "I like to get goofy, off-the-wall [comics], just to have a box of 50s or 60s stuff that doesn’t really make sense. You know, I like to open the box once in a while to look at it for fun stuff, inspiration. Looking at an old comic gets me excited to do comics sometimes."

• Life imitates comics: Trend de la Crème looks at the fashion runway, sees Peanuts (via Spurge)

Did you catch Snake 'N' Bacon last night? Kuppermania kontinues today with an exclusive 5-page preview of Tales Designed to Thrizzle Vol. 1 at ICv2.com!