Can you tell we've been rooting around in our warehouse a lot lately? Our most recent find: vintage copies of two thought-to-be-lost issues of the seminal magazine on classic comic strips (edited by Rosebud Archives' Rick Marschall):

Nemo: The Classic Comics Library #2 dates from 1983 and includes an exclusive interview with Siegel & Shuster and their early pre-Superman "Superman" story; a history of William Randolph Hearst; early Western funnies by Fred Harman; a history of superhero strips; a Caniff Terry and the Pirates tale; and a profile of Art Young.

Nemo: The Classic Comics Library #30 from 1989 features an introduction to Winsor McCay's Little Nemo in Slumberland; the evolution of Ernie Bushmiller's Nancy; a biography excerpt of Puck founder Joseph Keppler; and (20 years before our book collection) a selection of Sam's Strip by Mort Walker & Jerry Dumas.

We also still have copies of the final double issue, #31/32, with a rare long interview with Charles Schulz, a feature by R.C. Harvey on Milton Caniff (dealing with Vietnam), Edward Sorel on Krazy Kat, and 16 pages of Polly and Her Pals Sundays, shot from crisp black & white syndicate proofs. Supplies are limited, so get them while you can!

Today's Online Commentary & Diversions:

• Review: "Anyone coming to this volume [of The Complete Peanuts] looking for the rumored decline that is supposed to have happened in the second half of the 1970s might shut the book after its last page slightly confused. Energized by the Peppermint Patty/Marcie duo's emergence into the prime of their own vitality as characters and as a classic comic-strip team (I'd never thought of it before, but there are obviously elements of Easy and Tubbs there), Schulz's dailies were as strong and funny as ever." – Tom Spurgeon, The Comics Reporter

• Review: "...[N]ot being a big manga reader, I didn’t expect to like the stories nearly as much as I did. But then smartly done genre tales make for some of the best literature, comics, film, etc. What I liked most about the different pieces in A Drunken Dream is the psychological form of sci-fi she employs (strictly speaking, the title story is the only sci-fi one, but I think a looser definition that incorporates the social aspects of the genre also applies here). I thought often of Tarkovsky’s Solaris." – Nicole Rudick, Comics Comics

• Feature: "When historians compile lists of the stuff that helped make America America, they don’t even rank the DeMoulin’s Patent Lung Tester alongside even relatively minor inventions like the cotton gin, the telegraph, and the automobile, much less epic game-changers such as instant coffee and air conditioning. Surely this is an oversight. [...] Along with hundreds of similar devices, the Lung Tester appears in Catalog No. 439: Burlesque Paraphernalia and Side Degree Specialties and Costumes. Originally published in 1930 by DeMoulin Bros. & Co., this strange volume has been newly reprinted by Fantagraphics Books. Like the more iconic Sears, Roebuck and Co. catalog, it illuminates its moment in American history as deftly and instructively as any novelist has ever done." – Greg Beato, The Smart Set

• Review: "The Education of Hopey Glass, the latest collection of Jaime's work originally serialized in Love and Rockets, is one of the best ever and requires the least amount of work to figure out what's going on beneath the surface." – Colin Panetta (via The Comics Reporter)

• Plug: "Are you a fan of pop culture-related art? Or possibly just of distorted human features? Well run don't walk... to purchase [Too Soon?,] the new book by Drew Friedman, longtime illustrator for The Observer, Mad Magazine and other publications." – Dan Duray, The New York Observer

• Profile: At Il Sole 24 Ore, Luca Boschi looks at the work of Mort Walker & Jerry Dumas, calling our collection of Sam's Strip "an exceptional volume of comic strips... As always, Fantagraphics' presentation is superb and worth sharing." (Translated from Italian)

Periodic clips & strips — click for improved/additional viewing at the sources:

• Gonked, Glooked & Slurped! share a recently-acquired original Eightball page by Daniel Clowes

• Michael Kupperman hijacks Beetle Bailey — according to this recent TCJ article I think Mort Walker would approve

• The Paris Review presents a gallery of Robert Crumb self-portraits through the years (via The Comics Reporter)

• It's your all-new weekly installment of "Cartoon Boy" from John Kerschbaum

• J.R. Williams has zillions of great prints for sale at his new J.R.'s Prints of Darkness site

• Robot 6 reports: Jon Adams does a Chick-style strip to promote a video game; also from Jon, a new Truth Serum strip

• From Kevin Huizenga: a new Amazing Facts and Beyond with Leon Beyond strip; new Fight or Run action; new New Construction business

• From Steven Weissman: this week's "I, Anonymous" and three more Post-Its

• Three ironically-labeled "copies from famous artists " from the sketchbook of John Hankiewicz

• Aha! All those teasers from Frank Santoro have been leading up to this, "page 1 of a comic for Internazionale, an Italian independent weekly newsmagazine. Coming soon!"

• Speaking of Internazionale, Marco Corona has an illustration in this week's issue

• Richard Sala presents the original art for the cover of Evil Eye #10 and a 1987 rarity called "Haircut"

• From Tim Lane, this week's Belligerent Piano and this illustration for the St. Louis Filmmakers Showcase

• On the Jim Flora Art Blog: Electromechanical Design sales brochure; a children's book illustration detail; half of a 1950s business card illustration (above); and a link to the 1959 UPA animated adaptation of Flora's The Fabulous Firework Family produced by Gene Deitch

• Johnny Ryan's Lovecraftian creatures, coming soon to a Stinckers machine near you

• "Girl in Black Dress and Scarf " by Mark Kalesniko

• It's Paul Hornschemeier's new weekly t-shirt design for his Forlorn Funnies Shirt Shop and it incorporates the logo from his 2007 art show at Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery

• From Josh Simmons, various Quackers blog shenanigans and Randy Gander tomfoolery with Wendy Chin (including her version of Josh's "Jesus Christ" from his Mome story of the same name)

• So much great new stuff from Renee French — just go to her main blog page, there's too much to link individually

• Buy a drawing of two Popeyes punching by Stephen DeStefano to benefit Gulf Coast cleanup

• Speaking of the Gulf, this is just one of a trio of videos by Steve Brodner on the topic, including his latest segment on Need to Know on PBS

• Two of Anders Nilsen's entries in Post-It V

• Page 29 of Hans Rickheit's Ectopiary

We're celebrating Father's Day with a one-week-only, first-time-ever sale on our collections of classic comic strips! Save at least 20% on volumes of The Complete Peanuts, Dennis the Menace, Krazy & Ignatz, Popeye, Prince Valiant, and much more, including one-off collections of rarities like Betsy and Me, The Brinkley Girls, Red Barry, Sam's Strip and more. The sale even includes the brand-new Captain Easy Vol. 1! Browse all sale items here. Order online now or by phone Monday-Friday 9 AM - 6 PM at 800-657-1100 (206-524-1967 outside the U.S.). Sale prices not effective at Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery. Sale runs through next Friday, June 25, 2010.

By the way, multiple belated hat tips to Robot 6, whose roundups of end-of-year links have been invaluable to the last few installments of Online Commentary & Diversions. On with the links:

• List: Publishers Weekly announced the results of their 2009 Comics Week Critic's Poll; among the top vote-getters are You'll Never Know, Book 1: A Good and Decent Man by C. Tyler ("I love this autobiographical family story as much for the way Tyler weaves between her own life and her father's, as for its painterly, illustrative panoramas of suburban neighborhoods and army scenes." – Sasha Watson) and Tales Designed to Thrizzle Vol. 1 by Michael Kupperman ("Milk and other liquids may come out your nose as you read one of the funniest comics ever put to paper. Kupperman's droll absurdism is matched by a stiff, woodcut-like art style that underplays the sometimes outre concepts. A comedy diamond." – Heidi MacDonald). Humbug by Harvey Kurtzman et al, Low Moon by Jason, Luba by Gilbert Hernandez, Supermen!: The First Wave Of Comic Book Heroes 1936-1941, West Coast Blues Jean-Patrick Manchette and Jacques Tardi, and You Are There by Jacques Tardi and Jean-Claude Forest all received single votes in the poll

• List: At comiXology, Tucker Stone counts down his top 25 Best Comics of 2009, with Grotesque #3 by Sergio Ponchione at #23 ("...every once in a while, I get a reminder how vast the world of comics really is. Grotesque — European, unusual, brilliant — was one of those, an experimental passport to another universe"), Ganges #3 by Kevin Huizenga at #7 ("...Ganges captured the thing that all of us spend a lifetime doing — thinking — and turned it into something deserving of examination") and, in the top spot, Prison Pit: Book 1 by Johnny Ryan ("Aggro, obscene, hilarious, compulsive: Prison Pit. It wasn't just the greatest comic of the year, it was one of those comics that operated like the end result of a math equation, a definitive answer to the question of what comics are, and what they should be...")

• List: Johnny Bacardi's Personal Best of the Decade includes Eightball #22 by Daniel Clowes

• Review: "Each [panel] almost vibrates with the frenetic, desperate energy of the characters as they try to pull off their cons. That energy explodes in the final pages, as the story comes to a dramatic but ambiguous conclusion. In the end, the work offers an homage to B-movies while standing out as a graphic novel. The Troublemakers will please long-term Hernandez fans. It also should serve as a good introduction to newcomers looking to jump into the Love and Rockets universe." – Publishers Weekly

• Review: "...Giraffes [in My Hair], a collection of anecdotes from Bruce Paley's teens and twenties on America's countercultural fringe, is a breezy read. ... Swain's art rarely calls attention to or gets in the way of itself, and in that it meshes seamlessly with Paley's deadpan 'here's what happened' narrative style, his reluctance to overstate or oversell the import of the anecdote reminiscent of Harvey Pekar's." – Sean T. Collins

• Review: "...[The Comics Journal] has reached issue 300 and is celebrating with a fascinating collection of creator-chats as industry tyros and giants come together to interview, share, bitch and generally shoot the breeze about graphic narrative: a tactic that makes this the most compelling read of the year for anyone truly interested in what we all do and why." – Win Wiacek, Now Read This!

• Review: "Fantagraphics Books continues its series devoted to chronologically packaging [Peanuts] and has not missed a step along the way. ... I’m pleased to inform that the latest edition, the twelfth in the series, is as lovingly curated as the first... [I]t is nice to know that one of the form’s greatest achievements is being held up as the accomplishment it really is." – Dw. Dunphy, Popdose

• Review: "It’s clear from editor/publisher Steffen P. Maarup’s survey [From Wonderland with Love: Danish Comics in the Third Millennium] that, contradicting Horatio’s famous line in Shakespeare’s Hamlet, there is nothing 'rotten' about the state of comics in Denmark today. If anything, it’s nurturing a number of major talents as well as sprouting exciting new shoots." – Paul Gravett (via Robot 6)

• Review: "[In Sam's Strip] Walker and Dumas clearly take pleasure in working in callbacks to classic comic strips... [and] many of the metatextual gags are funny and fun. ... Dumas’s drawings of classic comic-strip characters are excellent... The result is a frustrating, compelling curiosity: the soul of an underground comic trapped in the mortal coil of a Hi and Lois." – Shaenon Garrity, The Comics Journal

• Plugs: At Comics Alliance, Douglas Wolk's recommended comics of the week include The Troublemakers by Gilbert Hernandez ("It's crazy, vivid, grindhouse-y stuff") and The Unclothed Man in the 35th Century A.D. by Dash Shaw ("intriguing")

• Plugs: The Gosh! Comics Blog also highlights The Troublemakers by Gilbert Hernandez and The Unclothed Man in the 35th Century A.D. by Dash Shaw among the week's noteworthy releases

• Plug: Rob Orange of Seduced by the New features Conceptual Realism: In the Service of the Hypothetical by Robert Williams

• Plug: Illustrator Joanna Barnum spotlights Nell Brinkley as an inspiration

• Plug: Mark Langshaw of Digital Spy takes note of the upcoming Kim Deitch book The Search for Smilin' Ed

• Analysis: Robert Boyd examines Popeye's propensity for cross-dressing, with evidence from Popeye Vol. 4 (via Jeet Heer)

• Coming Attractions: Wayno, whose work appears in the forthcoming Newave: The Underground Mini Comix of the 1980s, talks about the book and the (announcement!) upcoming exhibit at Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery

• Events: Star Clipper is sponsoring a screening of Ghost World at Schlafly Bottleworks in St. Louis tonight — oh jeez, in like half an hour! — and copies of the graphic novel and other Clowes books will be on sale

• Things to see: Follow your nose to a new Kevin Huizenga-drawn Amazing Facts and Beyond with Leon Beyond strip

• Things to see: Finished pages from Robert Goodin's 19-page story "The Spritual Crisis of Carl Jung"

The U.S. Postal Service honors Bill Mauldin and his creations Willie & Joe with this first-class stamp, available March 2010.

And Hank Ketcham's Dennis the Menace gets his own stamp as part of the "Sunday Funnies" pane going on sale in July, along with Mort Walker's most famous creation, and hopefully that's a Dan DeCarlo Archie drawing. (Can anyone knowledgable out there confirm it?)

(Via The Comics Reporter.)

Gird yourself for an epic installment of Online Commentary & Diversions:

• List: Critic Robert Boyd names his top 15 Best Comics of 2009, with You Are There by Tardi & Forest at #2, Popeye Vol. 4 at #7 ("top-notch, Segar at his greatest"), Everybody Is Stupid Except for Me by Peter Bagge at #12 ("very, very funny") and You'll Never Know, Book 1 by C. Tyler at #13 ("a glorious mess, but a moving and beautiful one")

• List: Comic Book Resources columnist Greg Hatcher names his Best Reprint Collections of 2009, including The Complete Peanuts ("truly wonderful... not to be missed")

• List: Joe Gross of the Austin American-Statesman names notable comics of 2009, including Pim & Francie by Al Columbia ("It's a bit like peeking at J.D. Salinger's notebooks, if his notebooks were pure nightmare fuel") and You'll Never Know, Book 1 by C. Tyler ("A terrific addition to the canon of literature about baby boomers, their parents and their children")

• List: Hillary Brown and Garrett Martin of SHAZHMMM... both include Tales Designed to Thrizzle by Michael Kupperman in their top 5 comics of the year

• List: On the Forbidden Planet International Blog Log, comics writer Mike Carey (Unwritten) names Boody: The Bizarre Comics of Boody Rogers one of his favorite comics of 2009 ("utterly fantastic")

• List: The Oregonian's Steve Duin places The Red Monkey Double Happiness Book by Joe Daly  at #6 on his top-10 list of The Best of 2009: Comics and Graphic Novels

• List: Greek site Comicdom names Ivan Brunetti's Schizo #4 to the #4 spot on their Top 100 of the 00s countdown. From the Google translation: "With words or silence, with an excellent sequence between the panels and embroidered with punchlines, reading this comic becomes a personal matter, even though the association, the painfully honest confession, is more or less familiar to everyone."

• List: Fústar awards The Clanging Gong of Doom for "Weirdest & Most Brain-Searingly Wonderful Book of the Year" to You Shall Die by Your Own Evil Creation! by Fletcher Hanks, which "might be testament to rage-filled, borderline psychosis – but it's thrillingly vital and magnificently (uniquely) strange for all that."

• List: Christopher Allen of Comic Book Galaxy informally lists some Best of 2009 choices, including the year's Love and Rockets releases, Strange Suspense: The Steve Ditko Archives Vol. 1, and Prince Valiant Vol. 1: 1937-1938

• Review: "...[T]he great pleasures of each story [in The Red Monkey Double Happiness Book] are the odd, idiosyncratic details Daly includes, and the way in which he reveals them. ... I’ve never read anything like it—and now I want nothing more than to read more of it." – J. Caleb Mozzocco, Newsarama

• Review: "Sublife Vol. 2... is John Pham’s gorgeously designed one-man anthology book, including about a half-dozen stories of various genres, formats, sensibilities and even art styles, each impeccably laid out on longer-than-it-is-high, 8.5-by-7-inch rectangular pages. ... They’re all pretty great on their own, and taken all together, they make up a downright remarkable book." – J. Caleb Mozzocco, Newsarama (same link as above)

• Review: "...[C. Tyler's] autobiographical comics display a shocking, unruly wholesomeness: they are visually and morally beautiful, suffused with a scrap-doodle amateurism and palpable maternal love... You’ll Never Know, Tyler’s newest book, is modeled on a scrapbook and is a tribute to craftsmanship, much like the home repair and plumbing we see her father, the 'good and decent man' of the title, often undertaking. ... Tyler mitigates this directness of heart with a dynamically pesky drawing style, splattering each panel with the democratic debris of life." – Ken Chen, Rain Taxi

• Review: "While we’re torturing geeks, I have to put in a good word for Andrei Molotiu’s Abstract Comics: The Anthology... The collection has a wealth of rewarding material, some of it awkward, some groundbreaking — on the whole, it is a significant historical document that may jump-start an actual new genre." – Doug Harvey, LA Weekly

• Review: "Some of the writing [in Humbug] may seem a bit quaint in our ‘irony coming out our asses’ present day, but the artwork is uniformly mind-blowing. ... This collects the whole ill-fated run in a luxurious hardbound package including top-notch background material. Worth it for the mammoth Arnold Roth & Al Jaffee interview alone." – M. Ace, Irregular Orbit

• Review: "The Education of Hopey Glass... [is t]he proverbial artist at the peak of his powers — except he keeps taking that peak higher every time." – M. Ace, Irregular Orbit

• Plug: "...Willie & Joe: The WWII Years... might make a veteran in your life very happy." – David Allen, Inland Valley Daily Bulletin

• Plugs: In an interview with Newsarama, Chris Ureta Casos of Seattle comic shop Comics Dungeon gives a nice shout-out to our recent reprint efforts and names Paul Hornschemeier's Mother, Come Home as a personal all-time favorite

• Plug: Robot 6's Chris Mautner got our collection of Jerry Dumas and Mort Walker's Sam's Strip for Christmas ("you can sense the two of them having fun")

• Plugs: "Fantagraphics (again) certainly delivered big-time on the second (and probably final) collection of primitive comic savant Fletcher Hanks’ You Shall Die By Your Own Evil Creation!, as well as with the almost-as-weird Supermen!: The First Wave of Comic Book Heroes 1936-1941." – Doug Harvey, LA Weekly 

• Interview: The Wall Street Journal's Jamin Brophy-Warren has a brief Q&A with Gahan Wilson: "The other thing that dawned on me was we were destroying the planet or at least we were destroying it as a feasible environment. There’s a little grandiosity in saying we’re destroying the earth — we’re just screwing it up so we can’t live. For one, that was hilarious that we’d be determined to continue and it keeps getting worse and worse."

• Interview: The Daily Cross Hatch's Brian Heater continues his conversation with Carol Tyler: "I…can’t…the secret of life? I’m not giving away the secret! I’ll just tell you this — it’s funny around here, because I have to go and pick up dog poop or something. And I’ve heard something like, 'Robert and Aline [Crumb] are in the New Yorker, this week. Oh, they’ve got ten pages.' And I’m just picking up dog poop, but I’m happy, for some reason. I’m happy!"

• Interview: It's the Comics Journal #300 conversation between Stan Sakai and Chris Switzer at TCJ.com

• News: Polish blog Kolorowe Zeszyty reports that Joe Sacco's Safe Area Gorazde is about to be published in their country by Mroja Press

• Things to see: Gabrielle Bell's latest strip co-stars Anders Nilsen and Barack Obama

• Things to see: Kevin Huizenga's "Postcard from Fielder" part 4; also, a kitty!

• Things to see: Hans Rickheit's Ectopiary page 4 (with commentary)

• Things to see: Robert Goodin's first-ever record-cover art

• Things to see: Anders Nilsen, still killing it in his sketchbook

When we were putting together our current holiday catalog, somehow Sam's Strip: The Comic About Comics ended up being accidentally left out. This innovative strip is a clever and funny slice of comics history which deserves its place in our roster and on your bookshelf — read more about it here, and for the next week (through next Friday) you can order it at 20% off! Plus read more about the strip and the rest of co-creator Mort Walker's storied career in The Comics Journal #297 from earlier this year, also on sale at 20% off through next week!

The final Online Commentary & Diversions update for June '09:

• List: CBC Radio's Canada Reads: The Book Club posts the result of their month-long poll to determine "The Top 10 Graphic Novels": Black Hole and Love and Rockets come in at #5 and #6, respectively, with Ghost World and Jimmy Corrigan close runners-up

• Review: "Issue #3 of Jordan Crane's Uptight serves as a wonderful example of just how good pamphlet format comics can be... Uptight #3 delivers 24 pages of beautifully focused storytelling... If you like Crane's work or simply want to try something a little different, do go out and buy this. Uptight represents everything single issue comics should be but so very rarely are. Fact is, we need more comics like this, so vote with your wallets and support the fine folks at Fantagraphics..." - Matthew Dick, Exquisite Things

• Review/Profile: "...[Boody Rogers's] command of dream-state narrative logic and language-mangling dialogue remains unnerving and uproarious in about equal measure... Now comes the Fantagraphics edition of Boody: The Bizarre Comics of Boody Rogers — a 144-page whopper, rich in humor and dreamlike oddities..." - Michael H. Price of the Fort Worth Business Press recounts meeting Rogers in the 1980s and also reviews Rogers's memoir, Homeless Bound

• Review: "For his latest... book [Low Moon], Jason has decided to try something a bit different... In attempting to stretch himself, though, he offers some of his weakest work to date, but some of his strongest and emotionally wrenching as well... Longtime readers... will definitely want to pick it up..." - Chris Mautner, Robot 6

• Review: "The temptation is to shut up and let Hal Foster's panels speak for themselves... Designed by Adam Grano, Prince Valiant [Vol. 1:] 1937-1938 is a beautiful book." - Steve Duin, The Oregonian

• Plug: "Literally jam-packed with strips that constantly vary in sizes, [Tales Designed to Thrizzle Vol. 1] shines with [Michael] Kupperman's earth-shattering wit, his excellent vintage-comics-inspired draftsmanship and his genius comedic timing. Thanks Fantagraphics!" - Librarie D+Q

• Plug: "You'll Never Know [Book 1: A Good and Decent Man] by C. Tyler arrived this week... it is funny, moving, sad -- highly recommended." - Librarie D+Q 

• Plug: "Dash Shaw = emotional psychedelic genius." - i want to spend the rest of my life everywhere, with everyone, one to one, always, forever, now.

• Plug: "The Comics Journal #298: Man, only two issues until the big Siege of Asgard prelude." - Jog - The Blog

• Plug: "The Comics Journal #298: Lotsa good interviews in this issue... For me though, the meat of the issue is the wealth of daily Skippy strips by Percy Crosby reproduced in the gallery section." - Chris Mautner, Robot 6

• Interview: Publishers Weekly has a Q&A with Peter Bagge about his new collection Everybody Is Stupid Except for Me. Money quote: "I could have taken the Doonesbury route and pandered to my fellow libertarians by pretending I (and they) had all the answers, but that would have been both too easy and dishonest."

• Interview: Newsarama's Zack Smith talks to Sam's Strip creators Mort Walker and Jerry Dumas about the creation of the strip and the new Fantagraphics collection. Sample quote from Walker: "You always put something personal in every strip, so it’s wonderful to see all these old strips again."

• Charity: ComicList reports that Jaime Hernandez will participate in Comic Book Legal Defense Fund fundraising at Comic Con with an autograph card and original art auction

• Oddity: What does Popeye have in common with Michael Jackson? Well, now they're both subjects of Jeff Koons artwork, according to this Reuters story

• Oddity: Did you hear about the former Drawn & Quarterly intern who attempted to navigate a handmade houseboat named the Velvet Glove Cast in Iron down the Mississippi River?

Let's see what Online Commentary & Diversions popped up over the weekend:

• Review: "Abstract Comics: The Anthology is an impressive collection of old and new work with unique pages covering exactly what the title says... bold... intriguing... This is a book for readers who like fine art or those who would like to expand their sequential art experiences. A hearty slap on the back for Fantagraphics for choosing to create this marvelous example of a widely unknown artistic expression." - Kris Bather, Comic Book Jesus

• Review: "I had always equated [Prince] Valiant with everything that is dull and lifeless and boring and supposedly good for you, but it turns out I was completely and utterly wrong. On the contrary, it's a rip-snorting good time, full of high adventure and thrilling escapades. And Valiant, far from being the schoolmarmish goody two-shoes I imagined him being, is full of piss and vinegar and quite a bloodthirsty young chap, which makes him a good deal more interesting than some of his contemporaries on the comics page." - Chris Mautner, Robot 6

• Review: "Tales Designed to Thrizzle #5, like all the previous issues by Michael Kupperman, did not fail at thrilling or dazzling me." - Brian Cronin, Robot 6 (same link as above)

• Review: "...C. Tyler's You'll Never Know Book One: A Good and Decent Man isn't... much like any other autobio comic I've encountered... It’s a really rather fascinating work, and the longer one thinks about it, the more important and universal it seems to be. On the surface level, of course, it’s an extremely interesting, rather unique story of a couple different life’s stories, and how they overlap, but there plenty of other levels waiting to be discovered and ruminated over. I won’t be at all surprised to see this book taking slots on a lot of best of the year lists in another six months or so." - J. Caleb Mozzocco, Newsarama

• Review: "Don’t think of [The Wolverton Bible] as an exception or a bizarre footnote in religious art but one and maybe the 20th century continuation... By the end of the book, pages after pages of doom and destruction, you realize that Wolverton is maybe the only person to illustrate the The Old Testament and the Book of Revelation -- the most 'savage' books of the bible." - Are You a Serious Comic Book Reader?

• Plug: "Tales Designed to Thrizzle Vol. 1: It's the collection of the first four issues of Michael Kupperman's hilarious series, now in color! This stuff is comedy gold, so get it if you haven't read it already, and hell, spend the extra money to see the non-monochromatic version if you want." - Matthew J. Brady

• Plug (?): Robot 6's Chris Mautner proposes Ti-Girls and Snake 'n' Bacon action figures. I'd buy 'em!

• Preview: Comics And... Other Imaginary Tales gives thumbs up to two of our upcoming releases: Captain Easy Vol. 1: Solidier of Fortune by Roy Crane and Like a Dog by Zak Sally (both previewed here)

• Interview: The Comics Reporter's Tom Spurgeon talks to Trina Robbins about about the genesis and assembling of The Brinkley Girls: The Best of Nell Brinkley's Cartoons 1913-1940: "It's really great to have The Brinkley Girls, and I was pleased when Robbins agreed to answer some questions about it."

• Events: Jared Gardner reports from a panel he moderated with Arnold Roth, Mort Walker and Brian Walker as part of the celebration of the merger of the International Museum of Cartoon Art with Ohio State University's Cartoon Library and Museum, adding that Jean Schulz has set up a matching grant to raise needed funds for the combined museum to move into a new permanent home

• Oddity: At Guttergeek, Chris Reilly interviews himself: "I actually am a big fan of Michael Kupperman and Eric Reynolds from Fantagraphics just sent me a copy of the hardcover Tales Designated to Thrizzle Vol. 1 and I would like to conduct this interview by commenting on the quotes of this book – would that be cool?" Um, 'kay...

• Things to see: Two more classic Michael Jackson illustrations from Drew Friedman