At the Austrian Cultural Forum NYC, on Weds. June 3 at 6:30 PM (note that this overlaps with Jason's Low Moon signing at The Strand in NYC):

6:30 PM WHAT IS "FUNNY" ANYWAY?

A comics conversation with award-winning cartoonists Nicolas Mahler and Mark Newgarden.
Moderated by Mark David Nevins.

Join us for a lively and visually rich conversation with Nicolas Mahler and Mark Newgarden, in which we will explore how comics work, the marketplaces for graphic humor, where these cartoonists get their ideas, and, yes, the answer to the eternal question, "What is 'Funny'?"

ACFNY
Reservations required.

The Ephemerist has more details. (Via The Comics Reporter.)

Once more, Online Commentary & Diversions goes on vacation tomorrow.

• Profile/Review: Cincinnati Magazine talks to C. Tyler about You'll Never Know Book 1: A Good and Decent Man, calling it "a dense, triangulated tale (war and madness; father/daughter coming-of-age; familial reconciliation) made accessible by Tyler’s detailed yet straightforward storytelling and impeccable renderings... Switching artistic styles to connote the passage of time, Tyler’s graphic narrative deftly moves between her childhood and her father’s war experiences, between dream sequences, real time, psychology, and family lore. The book transcends mere documentation; it is a valentine sealed in genealogy, footnoted in history."

• Interview: At SuicideGirls.com, Alex Dueben talks with Bob Fingerman about his latest projects, including Connective Tissue (and Bob slides in some great plugs for Peter Bagge's Everybody Is Stupid Except for Me and John Kerschbaum's Petey & Pussy)

• News: Here's an announcement about Mike Vosberg, the artist of our forthcoming RIP, M.D. series of kid-oriented graphic novels

If you're one of the first 10 people who ordered the exclusive Luba: Collectors Edition (signed, numbered, and sketched in by Gilbert Hernandez, with a special deluxe cloth binding), your copy is on its way to you this week. Gilbert is sending them back to us in batches of 10, so the next 10 orders will go out as soon as we get the next shipment from him. Only 30 copies exist and they are nearly all spoken for, so if you've been on the fence about ordering it, get off that fence and make your order now! It's the ultimate collectible for the elite Beto fan, available ONLY direct from Fantagraphics.

600-page black & white 7" x 10.25" hardcover • $100.00
SOLD OUT

Appearance by Jules Feiffer 6/21! Poster by Johnny Ryan! So much great comedy I weep explosively for not living in L.A.! Info/tickets here. (Via event co-sponsor The Sound of Young America.)

Start yer plannin'! These are all subject to last-minute change; we'll try to give advance notice of any changes if we can. We'll have more MoCCA-related announcements in the coming days so stay tuned.

FANTAGRAPHICS MoCCA SIGNINGS

SATURDAY SIGNINGS

11:00 am - Noon • Paul Hornschemeier, Dash Shaw & Derek Van Gieson (Mome - just added!) (Unfortunately Nate Neal, previously scheduled for this time, won't be able to make it to the Fest.)

Noon - 2:00 pm • Jason & Michael Kupperman

2:00 pm - 3:00 pm • Paul Karasik & Bob Fingerman

3:00 pm - 4:00 pm • Lilli Carré, Miss Lasko-Gross & Ted Stearn

4:00 - 5:00 pm • Arnold Roth & Al Jaffee

5:00 pm - 6:00 pm • John Kerschbaum & Dash Shaw

SATURDAY PANELS

3:00 pm - 3:50 pm
 • AH, HUMBUG! Arnold Roth and Al Jaffee in conversation

4:00 pm - 4:50 pm
 • Scandinavian Comics 101, With Steffen P. Maarup, Thomas Thorhauge and Ib Kjeldsmark (From Wonderland with Love)

5:00 pm - 6:00 pm
 • Paul Karasik on the Twisted Genius of Fletcher Hanks

SUNDAY SIGNINGS

11 am - Noon • Steffen P. Maarup, Christoffer Zieler, Ib Kjeldsmark, Allan Haverholm, Thomas Thorhauge, Simon Bukhave and Søren Mosdal (From Wonderland with Love)

Noon - 1:00 pm • Paul Karasik, Sara Edward-Corbett (Mome) & Ted Stearn

1:00 pm - 2:00 pm • Dame Darcy & Dash Shaw

2:00 pm - 4:00 pm • Jason & Michael Kupperman

4:00 pm - 5:00 pm • Bob Fingerman, Paul Hornschemeier & Miss Lasko-Gross

SUNDAY PANELS

11 am - 11:50 am
 • Kent Worcester and Tom Kaczynski in conversation

Noon - 1:00 pm
 • The Astonishing SVA Roundtable with Dash Shaw

3:45 pm - 4:45 pm
 • Gary Panter and Frank Santoro in conversation

WHAT:

2009 MoCCA FESTIVAL

The 8th annual art festival celebrating comics and cartoon art.

WHEN:

Saturday, June 6th and Sunday, JUNE 7th

11:00am - 6:00pm each day

WHERE:

The 69th Regiment Armory

68 Lexington Avenue at Lexington Avenue at 25th Street

New York City
By subway: 6 Train to 28th Street Station

Your daily dose of Online Commentary & Diversions:

• Profile: The Oklahoma Gazette dedicates a cover feature (pictured above) to native son Boody Rogers, talking to Yoe, Nadel and Spiegelman about his work. Of our collection of his comics they say "Boody: The Bizarre Comics of Boody Rogers reprints 13 of Boody Rogers' comic-book stories between 1948 and 1950. Although they have fallen into the public domain, publisher Fantagraphics has restored the color and images to its typical standards of quality ... not to mention standards of unapologetic weirdness."

• Review: "...Terr'ble Thompson is... playful fun... [Gene] Deitch’s upbeat mangling of the English language and silly twists will keep readers of many ages entertained." - Michael C. Lorah, Newsarama

• Things to see: Bookforum commissions illustrations from such notables as Paul Hornschemeier, Tony Millionaire, Dash Shaw, Chris Ware and others for their "Fiction Forward" feature (there's a bunch of fiction excerpts to read, too)

• Things to see: Dick Cheney's gonna get that wascally new Pwesident. By Drew Friedman, for The New Republic

Due to holidays, vacations and conventions, our webcomics posting schedule is a little goofed up these next few weeks; our apologies.

Blecky surfs the social networks in this week's Blecky Yuckerella strip by Johnny Ryan...

It's the big, shocking reveal in this week's installment of Steven Weissman's in-progress pages from "Blue Jay," an epic 51-page story from Chocolate Cheeks, the next collection of the Yikes! gang's adventures....

And this week's Mon.-Fri. batch of Martin Kellerman's Rocky includes advice on dealing with a partner's intimacy-killing habits... and a birth!

Paul Karasik poses with his two "sons," the Fletcher Hanks collections I Shall Destroy All the Civilized Planets! and what looks like an unbound proof of the forthcoming You Shall Die by Your Own Evil Creation! (debuting at MoCCA 2009). Proud papa.

Let's catch up on our Online Commentary & Diversions:

• Review: "...Monologues [for Calculating the Density of Black Holes is] spare and scratchy where [Anders Nilsen's] other work was detailed; loose and spontaneous where his other work was considered; and funny where his other work was melancholy. It's interesting to see the many influences that inform Monologues; there's a bit of absurdists like Ionesco, elements of Tom Stoppard's wit and philosophical musings, stream of consciousness dada in the style of Tristan Tzara, and oblique New Yorker type gags with the scratchy looseness of James Thurber and Saul Steinberg." - Rob Clough

• Review: "...[O]nce again, I’m engaged in Blazing Combat. What a thrill! And the art!... Highly recommended. Don’t argue! Just buy it!" - David McDonnell, Starlog

• Review: "This collection of the 1965-66 Blazing Combat war comic magazine is a stellar publication... It's a master class on how to tell a short story, and I highly recommend checking it out." - Sandy Bilus, I Love Rob Liefeld

• Review: "Blazing Combat, a new hardcover collection from Fantagraphics, showcases some truly fantastic work from a multitude of comics greats... The collection itself is sharp as a tack... Fantagraphics really packages it nicely..." - Litany of Schist

• Review: "This omnibus of all 11 issues of Humbug is equal parts giddy genius and period piece. The satire is razor-sharp... [T]here are such subtleties here and such rapier wit that the line is clearly visible from the Algonquin Round Table to Kurtzman to Crumb to Ralph Bakshi to Mr. Show to The Colbert Report." - Byron Kerman, PLAYBACK:stl

• Review: "Tales Designed to Thrizzle #5... is really funny." - Tucker Stone, "Advanced Common Sense," comiXology (fast-forward to the "Speed Round")

• Review: "In his way, [Michael] Kupperman's just as concerned with making comics' formal aspects work for him as Chris Ware. In his way he's every bit as effective. Goddammit this book [Tales Designed to Thrizzle #5] is funny." - Sean T. Collins

• Review: "[Beasts! Book 1] is captivating, wistful, funny and truly extraordinary - a Bestiary of the traditionally fantastic for the dreary 21st century where imagination and wonder have been formularised as crypto-zoology... a vivid package of sheer fantasy and artistic excellence..." - Win Wiacek, Now Read This!

• Review: "Now, with Low Moon, [Jason] has clenched his fist around me and won’t let me go - this is easily my favorite of his works to date... Top to bottom, I enjoyed Low Moon very much... A worthy addition to one’s bookshelf." - Marc Mason, Comics Waiting Room

• Review: "[In Abandoned Cars] Tim Lane presents a personal study of what he calls 'The Great American Mythological Drama,' a fog of events / thoughts / dreams / disappointments in music / literature / North American life... Lane leads to something more introspective and extremely sad." - Churrasco la Naje (from Google translation)

• Review: "...[A]lmost nothing is casual in Bottomless Belly Button and almost nothing is superficial in its narrative structure, nor its authorial intentions... [Dash] Shaw's work delves into the interior of the personal relationships of its protagonists, but also in the basic foundations of linear narrative... Shaw transcends the sphere of intellectual narrative to enter the much more epidermal level of physical sensations... Dash Shaw has composed a monumental work, sometimes puzzling, sometimes bordering on melodrama, but always strong and brave, a work full of qualities and findings that will, we believe, be a reference for future comics. His experimentation, his daring and his solutions can't help but remind us of an equally ambitious and dense work, Jimmy Corrigan... Do not miss this." - Little Nemo's Kat (from Google translation)

• Plug: Jonathan Ross gives us ("the company that flies the flag for independent, ground-breaking comics"), and The Comics Journal ("the only widely read and serious publication of comic-book criticism"), a nice shout-out in The Times

• Interview: The Daily Cross Hatch continues their conversation with Michael Kupperman. Sample quote: "I think the artist I feel closest with is Tony Millionaire, because he really lives in those comics. He could never be anything else."

• Profile: The Beat spotlights Eleanor Davis as part of their survey of Russ Manning Award nominees

• Profile: Vice looks at another side of Jim Blanchard: curator of wacky/creepy/sleazy music compilations

• History: The Beat engages in a bit of "Comics Archaeology," discussing several releases from our past (and present: "...it must be said, of all the art comix anthologies, Mome is probably the most perfect distillation. Sometimes evolution works.")

• Things to see: These two sample pages really make me wish that Roger Langridge had landed the Wallace & Gromit gig