Your Online Commentary & Diversions for the day:
• Review: "…Supermen!: The First Wave Of Comic Book Heroes 1939-41 pulls together some of the goofiest, most innocent, most violent superhero comics ever penned… The forematter (a lovely, insightful, nostalgic essay by Jonathan Lethem) and the afterword (a collection of bibliographic and historical notes on each strip) make perfect bookends for the hot stuff in the middle. This is pure and unadulterated Id, the kind of thing that inspired a moral panic about the corruption of the young. It's every bit as potent today." – Cory Doctorow, Boing Boing
• Review: "Miss Lasko-Gross takes us into the skankiest basement makeout sessions of our teenage despair in [A Mess of Everything]… Her fictional stand-in figures out how to work the system and achieves redemption through beautifully ugly comics that aptly capture the darker hallucinogenic melodramas of teenage geekdom." – Richard Gehr, The Village Voice
• Review: "[A] wild and woolly collection of pre-Superman supermen… As Jonathan Lethem notes in his introduction, our appreciation for the bizarre otherness of these characters in retrospect suggests that our contemporary icons might well appear no less 'totally opaque and infinitely awkward' to future readers." – Richard Gehr, The Village Voice (same link as above)
• Review: "Bob Levin's new book [Most Outrageous: The Trials and Trespasses of Dwaine Tinsley and Chester the Molester] sheds light on the legendary HUSTLER cartoonist without passing judgment or picking a side. Nevertheless, the author paints a fascinating picture of the good ol' boy folks around here called Uncle Dwaine." – K.K. Le Roque, Hustler (from print)
• Review: "Rory Hayes was nuts. I mean, really, truly insane… Hayes was tapping into a rich vein of paranoia and insanity that was truly disturbing… Rory Hayes work has the authentic voice of a true outsider artist, a genuine madman in a world full of posers… Where Demented Wented… is a fascinating collection and well presented. Recommended." – Colin Upton, Inkstuds
• Plug: "Monologues for Calculating the Density of Black Holes: […] No more adventurous a way to spend $22.99 in comics monies this week." – Jog
• Oddity: "I Dream of Popeye"??
• Oddity: R. Crumb sneakers from Vans?? (via Spurge)
• Oddity: Marc Palm mashes up Crumb & the Muppets (via everywhere)