Utilitarian Review 3/27/10

On HU

Biggest news this week is that we got an exciting new banner courtesy of artist Edie Fake.

I defined comics, and everyone from Eddie Campbell to Charles Hatfield to Jeet Heer agreed with me.

Vom Marlowe reviewed Song of the Hanging Sky.

Richard Cook reviewed Girl Comics.

Suat discussed Streak of Chalk.

And finally this week's download is a little bit funky and a little bit Thai. Also mashups.

Utilitarians Everywhere

Over at FlashlightWorthyBooks I contributed to a list of graphic novels by and about women. Other contributors include HU friends and acquaintances Jog, Kate Dacey, Melinda Beasi, David Welsh, Matt Brady, and more.

Utilitarian Review 3/20/10

On HU

This week we finished up our copyright roundtable.

Richard Cook reviewed Nola, a piece of Katrinasploitation.

Suat compared Hal Foster's work on Tarzan and Prince Valiant.

I published an interview with Best Music Writing series editor Daphne Carr.

And this week's download features lots of metal.

Utilitarians Everywhere

Suat is over at Robot 6 discussing what he read last week.

And I review High on Fire's latest over at Splice Today.

Utilitarian Review 3/13/10

On HU

This week was devoted to our (still ongoing) roundtable on copyright.

Utilitarians Everywhere

At Comixology I talked about Steven Grant's Punisher series, Circle of Blood and the connection between super-heroes and noir.

From the neck up, though, the Punisher isn't hyper-competent at all. Instead, he's more like the classic noir dupe. Though he has a certain tactical animal cunning, his inner monologue is obsessively repetitive in a way that suggests borderline idiocy — where Batman's traumatic backstory has, supposedly, made him smarter, the Punisher's has left him, in Grant's writing, a monomaniacal mental and emotional basket-case. The Punisher is, like most noir men, childishly easy to fool. He stumbles into traps, is bamboozled by a shady conglomerate called the Trust, and, inevitably, betrayed by a woman. His solve-it-by-shooting-it approach to every problem results in heaps of dead bodies, including that of one child. Said child's death sends our hero into a self-pitying funk, complete with flashbacks and profound utterances ("It's got to stop. The poor children.") which, at least from my perspective, makes him appear more damaged, dangerous, unsympathetic, and unheroic than ever.

On tcj.com I reviewed Fumi Yoshinaga's All My Darling Daughters.

At Madeloud I interviewed Best Music Writing series editor Daphne Carr: Part 1; Part 2.

Also at Madeloud I reviewed Priestess' prog metal opus, Prior to the Fire.

Other Links
Dirk kicks ass.

Jason Thompson on incest in manga.

Tucker argues that illegal downloading is bad because it betrays the can-do rapacious imperialism of our forefathers.

And Tucker also pointed me to this article about why contemporary poets should just go ahead and die already.

And here's a long, academic, and pretty fascinating article about yaoi and homophobia.

Utilitarian Review 3/6/10

On HU

We started the week off with my six-year-old son commenting on Peanuts.

Suat offered an appreciation of Alison Bechdel's Fun Home.l I still didn't like it.

Richard surveyed current horror comics.

I explained why I hate Chip Kidd's Peanuts book.

Vom Marlowe reviewed the manga A Wise Man Sleeps.

And this weeks download features mashups and more.

Utiltarians Everywhere

On Splice Today I review Johnny Cash's last album.

At the Reader I survey my neighborhood's bookstores.

And on tcj.com I review The Cartoon History of Economics.

Other Links

Tucker's been on fire recently.

Shaenon has a highly entertaining take on the idiot copying panels from Bleach controversy.

Comics Comics brutally pwns TCJ.com again (and the rest of the comics blogosphere too) by doing the so-obvious-it's-brilliant, and asking Jog to do his weekly previews on their site.

Alyssa Rosenberg is so so wrong to prefer Solange to Beyonce.