The Hooded Utilitarian

Moved Again!

2011-03-06T15:06:00.000-08:00

We're now at a new home; http://hoodedutilitarian.com.

Done

2010-09-25T11:29:00.000-07:00

Hey all. It's been 10 months since we moved over to out new home at tcj.com. I think that's hopefully enough time for everybody to know we're there rather than here, so I'm going to stop doing updates on this blog. If you'd like to see what HU is up to, please click thorugh the link. We continue to post every day on comics, culture and more. Hope to see you there!

Utilitarian Review 9/18/10

2010-09-18T12:08:00.000-07:00

Submit to the Hooded Utilitarian!

As regular readers have probably noticed, HU has been taking tentative steps away from group-blogness and towards kind-of-sort-of-magazineness. I don't think we'll ever abandon having a regular roster of bloggers, but I do hope to continue to get more guest writers.

Which is where you come in. I would love to hear from new writers. If you have an idea for an article, please contact me at noahberlatsky at gmail. The best way to get a sense of what sorts of things we write about is to look back through the archives...but if you don't see the kind of thing you want to write about there, don't let that discourage you. We probably just haven't gotten to it yet!

Also, this seems like a good time to announce that we are planning to debut several new columnists over the next couple of months.

Sean Michael Robinson, a cartoonist and art teacher (who you may remember from this article) will start with a new monthly column next week.

Stephanie Folse (aka Telophase), a former columnist for Tokyopop (and author of this article) will also be joining us as a monthly columnist starting in October.

Artist and critic Derik Badman will also be joining us. Derik is going to be organizing a feature where we reprint academic articles or (if we're lucky) excerpts from academic books that focus on comics. We hope to run this feature once a month, if we can find willing academics (if you are such an academic, and would like to see an article of your reprinted on HU, please contact Derik Badman: first name . last name AT gmail dot com (no spaces, all lower-case)).

In addition, Domingos Isabelinho, Derik Badman and possibly Alex Buchet are working on some translations of French comic criticism, which we should be publishing over the next few months.

And we've also got several interesting guest posts lined up, as well as some roundtables and, of course, our regular bloggers will keep doing our thing. Thank you all for reading and commenting!

On to your regularly scheduled Utilitarian Review....

On HU

We started off the week with a long post by Matthias Wivel about the great mangaka Yoshiharu Tsuge.

Ng Suat Tong followed up with a post focusing on Tsuge's manga Red Flowers.

Richard Cook discussed his experience at SPX.

Alex Buchet continued his series on comics and architecture, including a gallery and a half of examples.

Vom Marlowe discussed an anatomy book from ImagineFX.

I wrote about Alex Toth, minimalism, and realism, inspired by a post by Matt Seneca.

And death, sludge, doom, and some mud in your weekly music download.

Utilitarians Everywhere

At Splice Today I got paid to write poetry! Only five haikus, but still. This is the best one:

Drat. I have no pants.
The days are cold; the nights, cold.
Here I sit. Help me.

At Madeloud I reviewed the new album by the electronica outfit Dead Fader.

At the Chicago Reader I recommended an exhibit of Chinese Buddhist cave art at the Smart Museum.

Other Links

Robot 6 talked to Dirk Deppey about what he read last week.

Melinda Beasi continued the discussion of gender and shojo manga.

I enjoyed Tom Spurgeon's review of the latest complete Peanuts volume.

And I thought Nicole Ruddick's review of A Drunken Dream at Comics Comics raised some interesting issues.

Utilitarian Review 9/11/10

2010-09-11T07:50:00.000-07:00

On HU

Erica Friedman started off the week by interviewing Comic Fusion's Stacey Korn about Wonder Woman Day.

We then had a series of posts on comics and architecture, of all things.

Alex Buchet began with the first of a multi-part look running through the month on a comics and architecture exhibit at the French national museum of architecture.

Ng Suat Tong followed up with a look at the role of architecture in Josh Simmons' House.

Caroline Small wrote about Morris Lapidus, postmodern curves, and the boxy modernism of comics.

I wrote about Alan Davis' The Nail and why superheroes hate the Amish.

And I disputed R. C. Harvey's assertion that criticism and art are about making you happy.

Twilight, Shojo, Genre and Gender

Melinda Beasi's post from last month on Twilight and the contempt for female fans has sparked a bunch of discussion this week.

David Welsh explains why he agrees with Melinda and Melinda adds some thoughts about why it's wrong to group all shojo titles together. Brigid Alverson argues that the issue is that genre isn't that good, not that women are held in contempt. And finally Erin Ptah says she dislikes Twilight for lots of reasons that have nothing to do with female fans.

Murder, Misogyny, Multimedia

I've got an article about murder ballads up on Madeloud.

And to celebrate, I've uploaded a murder ballad playlist including all the songs I mention in the article. Revel in bloodshed!

Utilitarians Everywhere

At Splice Today I review the boring George Clooney vehicle The American.

Shortly thereafter, though, I began to have suspicions. So, as I do when such suspicions occur, I leaned over to my wife and whispered low, “He’s going to be redeemed, isn’t he?”

She looked at me over her glasses with mingled disgust and horror. “If he gets redeemed,” she said sternly, “I’m going to be upset.”

At Madeloud I review Wovenhand's latest record.

Other Links

I enjoyed this essay by Rachel Manija about why it's okay to write negative criticism.

And R.C. Harvey has a fun article about Wonder Woman's costume changes over the years. I love the eagle cartoon.

I don't know anything about Ke$ha, but this is really funny.

Oh, and Caroline Small is going to be on the critic's panel at SPX today at 3:00 PM eastern time. If you're attending the convention, go say hi to her!

Utilitarian Review 9/4/10

2010-09-04T09:28:00.001-07:00

On HU

We started the week off with a guest post by James Romberger, who discussed the reasons for and the wrongness of the fact that artists often don't get credited adequately in comics collaborations.

Melinda Beasi guest-posted about Twilight and the way some women try to distance themselves from fandoms that are too femme.

Richard Cook explained why The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo is lame.

Caroline Small reviewed comics and animation by Lilli Carré.

I talked about the eroticization of young Wonder Woman in Marston and Peters' Wonder Woman #23.

I talked about class in Twilight.

And this week's download is for Easy Lounging Hippies, featuring the Byrds, the Hollies, John Denver, and Italian soundtrack music, as well as other things.

Utilitarians Everywhere

At Comixology I talk about race and blackface in the work of R. Crumb.

In that sense, Crumb's image for the song could almost be seen as parody; a vicious sneer at Joplin's blackface pretensions, caricaturing her as both a wannabe black mammy and as the whining white entitled brat looking to the exploited other for entirely undeserved comfort. As I said, it could almost be seen as that — if Crumb hadn't thrown in another entirely gratuitous blackface caricature in the bottom center panel, just to show that, you know, he really is exactly that much of a shithead.

At Splice Today, I talk about Raymond Williams and the apotheosis of advertising.

Williams notes “Advertising was developed to sell goods, in a particular kind of economy,” but, “Publicity has been developed to sell persons, in a particular kind of culture.” The two are related, the second an outgrowth of the first, and while advertising has (arguably) experienced some setbacks recently, publicity has gone from hulking behemoth to master of the universe. Once professionals organized advertising campaigns. Now those same campaigns are conducted by you and me and everybody all the time with our personal web pages and MySpace pages and YouTube videos and self-Googling. The media consumers have taken the means of media production, and they’ve used it to create a virtual world where identity and consumption are more indistinguishable than ever before.

Also at Splice, I talk about the disappointment that is Fumi Yoshinaga's Ooku, volume 4.

For cultural goods, the analogue of planned obsolescence is called, as most everyone knows, “jumping the shark.” The phrase—which itself has jumped the shark—used to describe the moment when any serialized entertainment gratuitously abandons its dignity and begins to suck with an almighty suckage. Think of the episode of The Cosby Show where Cliff gives birth to a hoagie and a bottle of orange soda. Or don’t think of it. I’m trying not to.

At Madeloud, I reviewed the mediocre new album by Plants and Animals.

Other Links

Anne Ishii has a really funny interview with Johnny Ryan about the manga Detroit Rock City.

Tom Crippen has an excellent review of Alan Moore's new Cthulhu mash-up project.

Via Dirk, Dan Raeburn's classic comics crit zine, The Imp is now available online.

Tucker Stone and David Brothers continue their very entertaining look at the Black Panther.

Shaenon Garrity has a really superb essay about Cathy Guisewite's comic strip Cathy.

And this is a fascinating essay about Netflix. I think there are some lessons there about digital for comics companies — not that anyone's likely to pay any particular attention.....

Utilitarian Review 8/28/10

2010-08-28T19:17:00.000-07:00

TCJ.com Kerfuffle

This week on the TCJ.com mainpage Caroline Small, Ng Suat Tong and I participated in a roundtable on the Best American Comics Criticism anthology edited by Ben Schwartz. Jeet Heer, Brian Doherty, and Ben Schwartz himself also participated. In comments other critics joined in, including Rob Clough, Ken Parille, Robert Stanley Martin, and Kent Worcester. So check it out if you haven't already.

Oh, and there's a comment thread on the roundtable here as well which includes a discussion of French language and Japanese comics criticism.

On HU

Domingos Isabelinho discussed Dominique Goblet’s and Nikita Fossoul’s Chronographie.

Kinukitty talked about European fashion magazines, Dave Mustaine, and Makoto Tateno's Yokan Premonition.

In a guest post, teacher and artist Sean Michael Robinson explained that it's a good thing for art teachers when students are into anime and manga.

JR Brown wrote an extensive article about the history of the pretty boy in Japanese art.

I reviewed Issue #22 of the Marston/Peter run on Wonder Woman.

Vom Marlowe talked about gender issues in the young adult prose series Percy Jackson and the Olympians.

And a music download of Beatlesesque pop.

Utilitarians Everywhere

Caroline Small is going to be on the Critic's Roundtable panel at SPX, along with many other illustrious folks. (Via Robot6.)

Critics’ Panel: How We Judge
3:00 | Brookside Conference Room
The accessibility of online publishing alongside traditional media has enabled a diversity of critical voices who are addressing the broad spectrum of comics being published today. A diverse group of critics will discuss the disparate bases for their own critical opinions, and the extent to which they regard different kinds of work in different ways. Join moderator Bill Kartalopoulos for a discussion with Johanna Draper Carlson (Comics Worth Reading), Gary Groth (The Comics Journal), Tim Hodler (Comics Comics), Chris Mautner (Robot 6), Joe McCulloch (Jog the Blog/Comics Comics), Ken Parille (Blog Flume), and Caroline Small (The Hooded Utilitarian).

At the Chicago Reader I review JimCollins' Bring on the Books for Everybody.

In The Gift of Death, Derrida concludes that literature is an empty, parasitic untheology, constantly seeking forgiveness for its meaninglessness. Ever the tenured radical, he sees this revelation as an affront to the academic establishment. But cultural studies is a more callow establishment than Derrida anticipated, and members like Collins don't have a problem with emptiness. On the contrary, Collins is "delighted" just to find that literary fiction "forms part of the cultural mixes" that modern cultural consumers "assemble with such gusto to articulate who they are, and what is crucially important to them." The content of their identities and concerns is utterly beside the point. Are they Nazis? Misogynists? Drooling idiots? As long as they embrace it with gusto, who cares? The point of literature is to make a statement regardless of what's said. By the same token, Collins is aware that, say, The Oprah Show is witheringly stupid and the movie version of The English Patient is an apologia for imperialism—but he can't bring himself to take the next step, which would be admitting that some of the detritus of popular culture deserves to be scorned.

On Splice Today I talk about the new film The Last Exorcism in light of the criticism of James Baldwin.

For Baldwin, the bed floating, the fluid spitting, and special-effects gouting, were all part of a willful disavowal. The little girl with the deep voice uttering curses is an innocent possessed by the devil...but Baldwin argues that the upper-middle-class milieu in which she sits and writhes is anything but innocent, and that the movie is therefore an example of (in various senses) bad faith. Baldwin notes that at the end of the film, the “demon-racked little girl murderess kisses the Holy Father, and she remembers nothing.” This convenient amnesia is, for Baldwin, emblematic of America’s penchant for forgetting what they have done, to whom, and for what ends.

At Madeloud I have some recommendations for sexadelic lounge music. Groovy!

Other Links

R. Fiore was inspired by our Popeye roundtable to write a really entertaining appraisal of the Fleischer Popeye cartoons.

Utilitarian Review 8/20/10

2010-08-21T21:05:00.001-07:00

On HU

We started off the week with Andrew Farago's discussion of Popeye in multiple media.

Matthias Wivel examined Breugel, Rembrandt, and Crumb's Genesis.

Ng Suat Tong discussed The Playwright by Daren White and Eddie Campbell.

Caroline Small discussed Ivan Bilibin's illustrations for Russian folktales.

Robert Stanley Martin argued that Popeye shouldn't be canonical.

I analyzed one of Rembrandt's Biblical illustrations.

Peter Sattler criticized the insufficient literalness of R. Crumb's Genesis.

And we have an index of the entire Genesis roundtable.

And here's a doom metal mix if that sort of thing appeals.

Utilitarians Everywhere
At Madeloud I discuss some of the best releases by the Japanese psych-rock collective Ghost.

And also at Madeloud I contributed an appreciation of the Bangles reunion record to this discussion of counterintuitively good albums.

Utilitarian Review 8/13/10

2010-08-13T19:21:00.001-07:00

On HU

This has been a chaotic week for me, and so things are a little out of sync. Thanks to both our readers and guest posters for bearing with us. And thanks to Caro for keeping the trains running on time.

This week has mostly been devoted to our Popeye roundtable. There are going to be a couple more posts in the roundtable next week by Andrew Farago and Robert Stanley Martin.

Sunday incidentally will also see the delayed but much anticipated post in our series on Crumb's Genesis by Matthias Wivel.

Utilitarians Everywhere

I have a post on Splice Today about my enthusiasm for the Bangles

That’s the point of pop music in some sense, though; it’s addictive. Not like heroin that’ll land you in prison with the cool kids, but like sucking down a bagful of jelly bellies and then feeling sick and ridiculous before going out and buying another one. And part of the addictiveness and the ridiculousness is, really, that it’s jelly bellies; they’re right out there. Everyone can do it. It’s not a subculture you can call your own; it’s pop—it belongs to everyone. The Bangles don’t give you any cred. Everybody loved them and that was the point, and now everybody’s moved on and if you still love them you’re either remembering your youth or (like me) you’re subject to a meaningless and harmless idiosyncrasy. The ingratiating hooks are there to be ingratiating. What else could they be for?

Also at Splice I have a short essay about E. Nesbit's wonderful Book of Dragons.

At Comixology I writer about the Oprah comic book.

With comics, I'm never taken aback by lousy quality. After all, most things are lousy — maybe comics are a little worse than everything else, but not enough to squawk about. But the marketing confusion in even comics that have no point other than their marketing: I can never get over that. Why churn out this horrible Oprah Winfrey piece of dreck if not to make money? And how can you make money if you don't even know who you're trying to sell to? I mean, I bought this in a direct market store. What are they doing even selling it through the direct market? What venue could they find where folks would be less likely to pick this up?

Other Links

Tucker's Comics of the Weak this week is one of his all time all times, I think.

And Tucker and David Brothers are blogging their way through some interesting looking Black Panther stories. Good week on the Factual Opinion!

Utilitarian Review 8/7/10

2010-08-07T15:08:00.001-07:00

On HU

Erica Friedman started the week by asking a bunch of creators and cartoonists why they made art.

For his first official column, Alex Buchet looked at some inaccuracies in Harvey Kurtzman's war comics.

This is a delightful con wrap up by Kristy Valenti. The comments are even funnier.

Richard Cook continues his look at the Silver Age Flash.

I made fun of R. Crumb's Genesis, particularly his floating bearded heads.

Vom Marlowe looked at the illustrated children's book series Billy and Blaze.

Caroline Small compared Crumb's Genesis to work by Howard Finster and Basil Wolverton.

I reprint an old essay about war in literature.

And here's a random download mix with Thai music, funk, ZZ Top, and maypole dancing.

Utilitarians Everywhere

At Splice Today I reviewed Kelis' new album.

Flesh Tone isn’t horrible. It’s just anonymous—which is perhaps even more depressing. Kelis’ distinctive, not-quite-ready-for-primetime voice is processed into bland submission, and the Neptunes’ unique production is replaced with third-drawer dance-floor dreck. The lyrical nuttiness of Kaleidoscope is entirely gone; instead we’re left with groaners like “Just like the sky on the 4th of July/you make me high.” The low point is probably “Song for the Baby,” the cheery sentiments and perky beat of which put Kelis dangerously close to Amy Grant territory. There’s a bitter irony too in “Scream,” where Kelis insists, “You’ve won the right to scream and shout.” Unlike on Kaleidoscope, Kelis does not in fact scream. She barely whimpers.

Also on Splice, I talk about Kierkegaard, Abraham, puritanism, and aesthetics.

This shouldn’t be particularly surprising. If there’s one tendency in Protestantism that’s stronger than the loathing of aesthetics, it’s the veneration of the same. The Bible, after all, is a series of tales. Kierkegaard sneers at aesthetics because he takes them so seriously. The problem with stories is not that they’re stories, but rather that they’re not the one story. It’s because he loves the tale of Abraham so elaborately that Kierkegaard denigrates other narratives as sentimental balderdash. Sci-fi jelly creatures attacking—that doesn’t have the terror, the sorrow, the human interest and moral power of Abraham walking to the mountain to slay his son. Away, then, with the jelly creatures! Puritan philistines are just particularly foul-tempered critics; their iconoclasm is just one long bad review.

Other Links

Roland Kelts is writing some interesting stuff about the fate of manga in the U.S. over at tcj.com.

And in my continuing pursuit of blog amity: Jeet Heer's piece on Harvey Pekar is balanced and thoughtful.

Caro put me onto this really pretty great Newsweek article about Lily Renée

Derik Badman has a thoughtful assessment of Ben Schwartz's Best American Comics Criticism.

Utilitarian Review 7/31/10

2010-07-31T12:09:00.000-07:00

Announcement!

Alex Buchet, who wrote a lovely series on Tintin and racism last month, is going to be joining us as a regular columnist. His column will be called "Strange Windows" and will run the first Monday of every month except when it runs at sometime different because our scheduling is wiggy. In any case, we're very glad to add Alex (who resides in Paris) to our multinational cast, and look forward to his first column (on Harvey Kurtzman's war comics) which will run later this week.

On HU

Last week on HU began with Domingos Isabelinho's discussion of the boys' comics of Argentinian cartoonist Héctor Germán Oesterheld.

Ng Suat Tong looked at whether or not the interviews of Gil Kane could qualify as criticism.

Richard Cook continued his look at Silver Age Flash comics.

As part of our slow-rolling roundtable on R. Crumb's Genesis, Alan Choate offers a lengthy defense of the book (to enthusiastic plaudits form Jeet Heer, Matthias Wivel, and others in comments.)

Also, at his own site, Ken Parille discusses some further thoughts on Genesis.

And Ng Suat Tong offers a brief reply to Alan.

Vom Marlowe finds a mainstream comic that does not suck and there is much rejoicing.

And Caro talks about what comics can learn from film archivist Henri Langlois.

Also, because you demanded it an evil metal download!

Utilitarians Everywhere

At Splice Today I discuss the new Angelina Jolie vehicle Salt.

Perhaps this ties in to the most unexpected result of having a female protagonist: it seems to have completely drained all the sex from the film. The film is amazingly circumspect; Jolie is dressed sensibly throughout, and even at times (as when she disguises herself as a man) more than sensibly. There are no sex scenes, and barely even any romance—there’s one mildly intense kiss with her husband, but that spy-thriller staple, the seduction of the enemy, is nowhere to be seen. Perhaps part of the problem is the old double-standard; men can seduce lots of women and that makes them rakish; if Jolie were falling opportunistically in bed with the enemy in order to manipulate them, her character would be far less sympathetic. So instead the film opts to make her traumatized, humorless, and almost neutered; she might as well be in some sort of earnest movie of the week weeper.

Other Links

What the rest of the world thinks of Comic Con.

Utilitarian Review 7/24/10

2010-07-24T11:56:00.001-07:00

On HU

This week started out with Suat's reply to Ken Parille's discussion of R. Crumb's Genesis.

Then commenter/guest blogger Alan Choate replied to Suat.

And Suat replied to Alan. (Alan is planning a guest post for next week as well.)

Also this week, I talked about Gary Groth, Victorian dresses, and comics criticism. A huge comments thread resulted.

Kinukitty complained about the lack of sex in Otodama.

Richard Cook complained about the excess of nostalgia in Flash Rebirth.

I discussed Marston/Peter's original Wonder Woman 21 in terms of doll stories and atomic silliness.

And Caroline Small posted a gallery of images from John Vassos' Ultimo.

Also, this thread about elitism and standards and aesthetics and ethics just kept going, with Domingos Isabelinho, Matthias Wivel and Charles Reece weighing in.

Utilitarians Everywhere

I look at some crappy super-hero comics at Splice Today.

Marvel has ret-conned and alt-universed Spider-Man so many times it’s a wonder poor Peter Parker has enough brain cells left to pull his red tights out of the way when his nether web spinner incontinently dribbles. In theory this story is about an exact duplicate who’s replaced our favorite web-slinger, but I prefer to think that it’s just the same old Peter bashed one time too many in the head by the latest creative team and trying desperately to recover.

I've got a short note about Peanuts in Shaenon Garrity's discussion of comics that make people happy.

At Madeloud I review the latest blackened doom slab from Ruins of Beverast.

At the Chicago Reader I have a brief blurb about an exhibit on good design.

I haven't managed to read this yet, but Matthias Wivel has a massive discussion about Renaissance drawing at his site.

Other Links
I liked David Hadju's take on Harvey Pekar, though it would have been nice if it had been a little longer.

In the interest of inter-blog amity, I thought I would point out that this piece by Tim Hodler raised some interesting questions.

Utilitarian Review 7/17/10

2010-07-17T07:18:00.000-07:00

On HU

Matthias started the week off with a discussion of the Argentine comic strip Mafalda by Quino.

I wrote about the aphasiac power fantasy of Gantz.

Richard Cook talked about Wonder Woman, new costumes, and patriotism.

Suat wrote an extensive post comparing R. Crumb's Genesis to other works of Biblical illustration.

Vom Marlowe discussed the squick factor in Mick Takeuchi's Bound Beauty.

And I returned to my Bound to Blog run through all of the Marston/Peter Wonder Womans with a discussion of Wonder Woman #20.

Utilitarians Everywhere

At his own blog the Metabunker, Matthias Wivel provided a balanced appreciation of Harvey Pekar.

He hasn’t always been served equally well by his collaborators and seems to have been somewhat insensitive to the visual side of comics, leaving too many of his stories to the deadening hands of mediocre artists. But when it worked, it worked beautifully: notably Frank Stack brought the emotional turmoil of Our Cancer Year (1994) to life, and Crumb of course animated Cleveland and its inhabitants as only he could. A case in point is the story “Mr. Lopes’ Gift” (1978), which suggests a whole life in the fragments given us by Pekar. Crumb’s portrayal of a man he had probably never seen is empathetically real, providing the world for us to read in furrowed brow of this construct.

On Tcj.com, Matthias wrote about David Prudhomme's Rebetiko.

As chance would have it, I have two articles up this week about the television show Bones. First at Comixology I talked about an episode focusing on super-heroes.

Superheroes are sometimes regarded as modern day myths; archetypes harking back to ancient heroes like Gilgamesh who famously wore his underwear on the outside and engaged in curiously vigorous male-bonding activities with his youthful ward Enkidu.

Gilgamesh aside, though, the whole ancient myth thing is maybe obscuring the fact that superheroes have much closer cousins than Hercules. Cousins like, for example, Sherlock Holmes. Absurdly dedicated, supremely skilled guardians of right who bring evil-doers to justice — switch the moustache for the helmet, or even just paint the first on the second, and how much difference is there really between Iron Man and Hercule Poirot?

And at Madeloud I talk about the black metal episode of Bones.

Also at Madeloud I review an album of Nigerian disco.

Finally, as I mentioned yesterday on the blog, Caro had an extended, um, discussion with the folks over at Comics Comics yesterday. Tim Hodler and Frank Santoro were part of the back and forth, and I burbled some too. Here's one of the less incendiary bits from Caro:

I’ve heard and read this argument many times — that comics generate medium-specific, unique “new insights and ambiguities” that are comparable to those of fine art and literature. I’ve heard it over and over from the writers here and from other enthusiasts about the artistic possibilities of comics. But when critics like Suat put these comics in specific, detailed, analytical conversation with the high bar set by fine art and literature, they generally fail to measure up. And they generally receive comments, like the ones Ed Sizemore made over on HU, that the comparisons are unfair. This is contradictory: either comics are good enough for the comparisons and will stand up against them, or they’re not. Critical evidence tends toward “not.”

Other LInks

Kristy Valenti has an interesting article about volume and women in comics.

From Bookforum, I think this is a good, albeit short, review of Best American Comics Criticism.

Utilitarian Review 7/10/10

2010-07-10T08:22:00.000-07:00

On HU

We started out the week with Kinukitty's review of the fetishy yaoi Kiss Your Hair.

For July 4, Richard Cook provided a history of Captain America in covers.

Erica Friedman talked about her childhood love for Classics Illustrated (and in comments various Utilitarians debate the worth of Jane Austen.)

Ng Suat Tong discussed Jim Woodring and the world of the Unifactor.

Alex Buchet discusses his own racism in light of Tintin's.

I discussed the relationship between interviews and criticism, prompting an epic attack in comments from our esteemed proprietor, Gary Groth. Jeet Heer and Tom Spurgeon throw a few punches as well.

Vom Marlowe and her mother explain why Wonder Woman's new costume sucks.

Caroline Small discusses the art deco illustrations of John Vassos.

And Robert Stanley Martin's Frazetta thread went on and on and on, with further contributions from Robert, Jesse Hamm, Domingos Isabelinho, Charles Reece, and others. As those who read the TCJ message board have grown to expect, Mike Hunter appears to be the last man talking at the end....

Utilitarians Everywhere
At the Chicago Reader I discuss what's wrong with experts.

Willie Sutton was famously quoted as saying that he robbed banks "because that's where the money is." We go to experts because they're the ones with the expertise. Sure, we figure out that water is wet and the floor is hard on our own, but it's not long after we're up and walking that we start relying on outside sources for information. Electricity turns the lights on, seat belts save lives, the earth is round—for most of us most of the time the basic assumptions of our lives are based on expert knowledge. Which is to say that a lot of what we think we know isn't knowledge at all, but faith. When the laptop stops working most of us call the tech guy out of childish hope, just as a medieval peasant with a poisoned well might look for a witch to burn.

At Splice Today I express some mild appreciation for the new Kylie Minogue album.

So I hate it, right? Well, not exactly. This album is not good, but I don’t resent its existence. In part, that’s because of the resolute lack of pretension; Aphrodite is rote, but it isn’t going for anything but rote. Kylie isn’t trying to share her pain like Keyshia Cole; she’s not trying to be edgy like Lady Gaga; honestly, she doesn’t even seem like she’s trying to be sexy. You wouldn’t think you could declare, “I am Aphrodite!” without some concupiscent intent, but Minogue pulls it off through sheer plastic anonymity. This is the goddess of love as showgirl Barbie.

Other Links

I enjoyed this article about word balloons in manga and American comics.

Utilitarian Review 7/3/10

2010-07-03T07:06:00.000-07:00

On HU

We've been busy on HU this week. We started out with Domingos Isabelinho's discussion of Frans Masereel.

Guest poster Stephanie Folse (aka telophase) compared the visual language of manga and comics.

Guest poster Robert Stanley Martin provided a warts and all assessment of Frank Frazetta.

I provided a belated conclusion to the Komikusu roundtable by comparing the promotion of lit comics with the promotion of awesome manga. In a follow-up post I discussed my own ignorance.

Guest poster Alex Buchet wrote a three part series on race in Tintin. A fourth part to come next week.

And if any one is interested — disco mix!

Utilitarians Everywhere

The new Twilight movie came out this week, and I wrote several essays about Twilight to celebrate.

First at Splice Today I speculated on what Andrea Dworkin would think about the Twilight phenomena.

In short, the millions of tweens trooping in lockstep to the Cineplex to see the latest Twilight saga installment might as well be trekking over Dworkin’s corpse. It’s a wonder she doesn’t just rise right out of the ground, fangs bared, spitting blood, and personally castrate both Robert Pattison and Taylor Lautner with a rusty cleaver out of pure spite.

At the Chicago Reader I talk about class in Twilight:

If Edward is the aristocrat who treats Bella like a delicate queen, Jacob is the swarthy, sweaty working-class hero who won't take no for an answer. Edward is obsessively safety-conscious and will barely allow himself to kiss Bella for fear that he'll lose self-control and bite her neck. Jacob, on the other hand, literally overpowers her when he wants a smooch. In human form, he gives Bella a chance to be a little bit wild, riding motorcycles, diving off cliffs, and generally getting in touch with her inner delinquent. When he turns into a werewolf, Bella risks her safety just by being with him, since he has less control over himself than the proper, uptight Edward.

Also at the Reader, a capsule review of the film is here.

Other Links

This is old, but I just found it: Melinda Beasi on Twilight fandom.

An old friend and sometime commenter here, Bryan Erwine has a very entertaining article up about Superman vs. Muhammad Ali.

And this is a fun skewering of the MSM.

Utilitarian Review 6/26/10

2010-06-26T10:07:00.000-07:00

On HU

This week at HU was devoted to Komikusu, a roundtable on selling awesome manga. Contributors included Erica Friedman, Kate Dacey, Brigid Alverson, Ryan Sands, Ed Chavez, Shaenon Garrity, Deb Aoki, and Peggy Burns. Also lots of insightful comments from folks like Xavier Guilbert, Melinda Beasi, Sean Michael Robinson, and more. Thanks so much to all those who posted, commented and read. I learned a bunch.

Utilitarians Everywhere

Over at Madeloud I provide an introduction to doom metal.

Dooooooooooooooooooooooooooooom. It sounds threatening and, well, doom-like, but in fact doom metal is a giant furry mammoth that just wants to cuddle and roll all over you…inadvertently crushing you into a gelatinous blot of assorted fluids.

Maybe we should start over.

Other Links

When people think NSFW, they think of things like this.

Utilitarian Review 6/19/10

2010-06-19T11:49:00.001-07:00

Starting tomorrow, HU is going to host a roundtable on the marketing of art manga. We're going to have a whole host of guest contributors...so click back through the week.

On HU

HU suffered a major outage and was down for 9 days. For a moment we thought we were going to lose about half our comments...but the folks at tcj, and especially blog admin Tom came through and managed to restore almost all the damage. More details here and here.

In less apocalyptic news; since the last link roundup, we completed our Asterios Polyp roundtable with posts by Caro, Robert Stanley Martin, me, and Matthias Wivel. Please note that all comments have not been restored to Caro and Robert's posts; we're hoping to fix that soon, but at the moment the threads may be a little disjointed.

Suat published a long two part discussion of The Times of Botchan. Part 1; Part 2.

Richard Cook reviewed Iron Man 2 the movie.

Vom Marlowe reviewed Connie Willis' novel To Say Nothing of the Dog.

Suat discusses Walter Benjamin and comics criticism.

And finally, I have a cheesy country download available, and also a Scandinavian black metal download.

Utilitarians Everywhere

Both kinukitty and I participated in a roundtable about an academic collection of essays analyzing the Boys' Love genre.

Kinukitty's posts are here and here.

As it turns out, I was reminded of an observation by G.K. Chesterton. In a 1911 essay, he said (in his cheerful, racist turn-of-the-20-century British way) that he felt Japan had imitated many Western things — the worst Western things. “I feel as if I had looked in a mirror and seen a monkey,” he wrote. And, reading “Rewriting Gender and Sexuality in English-Language Yaoi Fanﬁction,” I had a similar experience. I love yaoi. I love Weiss Kruez fanfiction. And, to be overly dramatic about it, this essay ground my longtime passion and obsession into dust and ashes. I looked in the mirror and saw a demographic slice, vaguely exotic, in a Dances with Manporn sort of way, and ready to be dispassionately observed.

My contributions are here and here.

This book really helped me come to terms with my past, my regrets, my desires. Speaking as a straight white cisgendered male, I occasionally regret my transgressive decision to drop out of grad school to explore the fluid, abject jouissance of the non-(i)voried and nontowered. But then I encounter a text like this, and in its quivering, jellylike prose I remember why, though riven by radical difference, still numerous numinous heterogenous communities speak with a single pleasurable speech-act when they utter: “academics fucking suck.”

Over at Comixology I discuss a classical Chinese Zen triptych featuring bodhisattva, crane, and monkey.

Kuan-yin's calm here may be in contrast to these unenlightened viewers, who squat like monkeys or strut like cranes, curious but oblivious. Or, perhaps, the joke isn't that the audience is unworthy of enlightenment; but rather that they are already enlightened. Because they are as undignified as the monkey or the crane, those who contemplate the picture have their own plain, contingent place within it, like cranes or monkeys who happen to be nearby when the bodhisattva comes.

At Splice today, I review new releases by Monica and Toni Braxton.

One of the more noticeable results of this transformation was that r&b semi-fused with rap, and the resulting homunculus took over the world. Less spectacularly, the change wreaked havoc with typical pop career arcs. In the normal course of things, you expect a pop act to release a few good albums, and then get progressively crappier until they finally attain a plateau of unlistenable awfulness and fade into oblivion. But after r&b as a genre exploded aesthetically, singers like Brandy and Mariah Carey found themselves doing their best work in their second decade rather than their first.

Also at Splice Today, I reviewed new albums by Christina Aguilera and black metal band Nachtmystium.

All of which leads me to conclude that, if given the choice, I’d rather hear Christina Aguilera perform black metal than listen to Blake Judd try his hand at pop R&B. Some musicians should stick to their roots; others can only get better the more thoroughly they betray themselves.

At Madeloud I have an interview with Norwegian black metal band 1349.

Many black metal musicians have been inspired by Satanism or alternately by traditional cultures or nationalism. Is that where you’re coming from at all? Or are there other beliefs and convictions you have which influence your music?

ARCHAON: For us this is about the art. But when that is said, it’s an artform coming from a background that had a great focus on such beliefs/convictions, and to a certain extent we are all believers of the individual being it’s own master - that’s where we would meet. Obviously, we are four individuals that would give you four different answers to this subject, but none of us are worshipers as such. And 1349 has never been a religious or a political band, and (most probably?) never will. Even though we’re all quite philosophical...I cannot see any of us going down that path, mate.

Also at Madeloud, I have reviews of two short albums by pop R&B group Allure, a review of 1349's latest album Demonoir and a review of a new album by the dubstep duo Vex'd.

Iron Man 2: Iron Harder

2010-06-15T03:57:00.001-07:00

Iron Man 2 (2010)

Directed by Jon Favreau

Starring: Robert Downey, Jr., Don Cheadle, Gwyneth Paltrow, Scarlett Johansson, Mickey Rourke, Samuel L. Jackson, Sam Rockwell

After watching the first Iron Man movie, I was curious as to how the franchise would deal with Iron Man’s lack of memorable villains. I suppose the Mandarin is relatively well-known, but Yellow Peril stereotypes don’t play well in Asian markets. And most of Iron Man’s remaining opponents are just guys in battle-suits, and at least half of them are Cold War commies. So they’re both interchangeable and out-dated.

The filmmakers behind Iron Man 2 addressed this problem by avoiding it as much as possible. Much of Iron Man 2 has nothing to do with Iron Man fighting Whiplash. Instead, the movie spends time on Tony Stark’s conflict with the U.S. government, or a subplot about Tony’s father issues, or a subplot about Tony’s impending death from palladium poisoning (due to the device in his chest), or a subplot about Jim “Rhodey” Rhodes becoming War Machine, or a subplot about Pepper Potts assuming control of Stark Industries, or a subplot about a rival weapons developer who wants to publicly upstage Tony, or a romantic subplot with Pepper Potts, or the introduction of Black Widow, or a couple of scenes that set-up the upcoming Thor movie, and a few scenes with Nick Fury that set-up the inevitable Avengers movie.

The avoidance strategy actually works well for most of the film. Easily the most enjoyable part of Iron Man is not the action but Robert Downey Jr.’s performance as Tony Stark. Downey-as-Stark can invent a new technology, outwit his business rival, and score a threesome with Swedish supermodels at the same time. In other words, he’s an unapologetic male empowerment fantasy, but without the trite moralizing of characters like Superman. And the best scenes in Iron Man 2 are when Robert Downey, Jr. hams it up as a self-aggrandizing (but lovable) jackass. Whether he’s mocking a congressional committee, or getting drunk while wearing the Iron Man suit, or flirting with Pepper Potts, Tony Stark is an entertaining character even without the superheroics. Unfortunately, Tony doesn’t get to have as much fun this time around. The Rules of Hollywood Trilogies demand that the second movie be darker than the first, so Tony has to spend a sizable portion of the film fretting over his mortality, which gets tiresome very quickly (spoiler: he doesn’t die).

And the film eventually has to get around to the external conflict. This is a summer blockbuster after all, so explosions are mandatory. And to be fair, there are a lot of explosions in the climax, and Mickey Rourke tries his hardest to make Whiplash seem like an intimidating character. But at the end of the day, Iron Man is still slumming it with a villain that shouldn’t keep him occupied for more than 15 minutes. As a comparison, imagine a Batman film where the only villain was KGBeast.

As for whether Iron Man 2 is worth your hard-earned money, it depends on your taste for big, dumb action movies. Iron Man 2 isn’t as good as its predecessor and it lacks a strong villain, but it does everything an action movie is expected to do, and in just over two hours.

Utilitarian Review 6/5/10

2010-06-05T04:15:00.000-07:00

On HU

Most of the week was devoted to the ongoing Asterios Polyp roundtable. Derik Badman, Craig Fischer, Vom Marlowe, Richard Cook, and me have all had our turns; Caroline Small, Robert Stanley Martin, and Matthias Wivel are still to come.

Also this week, Erica Friedman talked about condescension in comics.

Utilitarians Everywhere

On Splice Today I reviewed Prince of Persia.

So, okay, it’s true—this is a big, dumb, Hollywood action-adventure vehicle with nothing in its head except things blowing up, sword fights and pretty actors staring soulfully into each others eyes for a moment before more things blow up.

I’m okay with that.

Also on Splice Today, I talk about hook up culture, teens, and how the Atlantic Monthly is turning into an exploitation rag.

If you want to know whether girls have become more or less promiscuous, you don’t look at what they’re reading or listening to, or even at what big sex scandal occurred in which random college or prep school. You look at teen pregnancy rates. You can find out in less than 120 seconds that teen pregnancy rates fell in virtually every state between 1988 and 2005. After 1995, teen pregnancy rates nationwide declined every year for a decade, hitting their lowest point in 30 years in 2005, smack dab in the middle of Flanagan’s hook up decade. It’s true that the next year, in 2006, rates rose by three percent, and preliminary findings suggest they may have risen again in 2006. Even so, rates remain historically low; in 2006 teen pregnancies were only 71.5 per 1000, as compared to, 83.6 per 1000 in 2000, 99.6 per 1000 in 1995, and 116.9 per 1000 in 1990. To suggest, as Flanagan does, that teens were especially promiscuous in the past decade and a half is simply wrong. On the contrary, teen pregnancy has apparently declined for more than a generation, the growth of the Internet notwithstanding.

Other Links

Dara Lind explains why Facebook sucks.

Alyssa Rosenberg talks about MIA and Courtney Love.

Tucker Stone and Benjamin Mara have a long, thoroughly entertaining discussion about The Rise of Arsenal, of all things.

Utilitarian Review 5/29/10

2010-05-29T07:55:00.001-07:00

Asterios Polyp Roundtable

In the coming week (and a few days) we're going to have an extended roundtable on David Mazzucchelli's Asterios Polyp. Besides the usual Utilitarians, columnists Matthias Wivel and Domingos Isabelinho are also planning to weigh in — and we'll also have guest posts from Derik Badman and Craig Fischer. So please check back!

On HU

I started off the week by explaining why I wasn't that into Urasawa's Monster.

Domingos Isabelhino devoted his first monthly column, called "Monthly Stumblings", to Pierre Duba's Racines.

Vom Marlowe pointed and laughed at the art in Brave and Bold #33. Several commenters protested, and I did a follow up post speculating on visual tropes in super-hero art.

Richard Cook provided a history of Wonder Woman's panties in covers.

Caroline Small looked at Barbarella the movie and why it should not be a target for feminist ire.

Suat sneered at Gantz.

And finally Suat expressed some skepticism about the excesses of the market for original comic art.

Oh...also, here's a download of some semi-schlocky country weepers.

Utilitarian Everywhere

Former Utilitarian and current comics creator Miriam Libicki has been doing some guest blogging over at Jewish Books. You can see her talk about her creative process here.

Columnist Matthias Wivel is over on the tcj.com mainpage talking about the Komiks.dk festival in Copenhagan.

At Splice Today I talk about the best super-hero movie of all time.

Why is it the best superhero movie of all time? If you saw the TV show you know the general outlines. Adam West does not have foam-rubber pecs like his bat-successors, but he does have a cute little paunch which is clearly outlined in his skintight bat-costume, said paunch sitting unashamedly atop his shiny external bat-underwear. It seems Robin has poured a quart of rabid bees down his green short-shorts and is bravely fighting the pain by punching his fist into his palm while imitating a (much) skinnier William Shatner. And, of course, there’s the Batmobile, Bat Repellant Shark Spray, Bat Knockout Gas, and all other kinds of Bat ephemera, each carefully labeled for those who otherwise might confuse the Bat Repellant Whale Spray with the Bat Ladder.

At Madeloud I provide an introduction to black metal.

Whiteface corpsepaint, church burning, ungodly screams, and the odd unpleasant foray into fascism — from the outside, black metal looks fairly foreboding. But while that image isn’t exactly wrong, it is a little misleading. Some black metal performers have really and truly been associated with extreme excesses and ugly ideologies (Varg Vikernes, we are looking at you). But, if you can put that aside, the music is in general quite accessible — in some cases, even pleasant. If you enjoy shoegaze or indie rock or ambience, a lot of black metal will sound like a slightly satanic twist on some familiar tropes. Here are some places to start for those ready to immerse yourself in surprisingly friendly evil.

Also at Madeloud, I review the latest releases from folk black metal horde Blood of the Black Owl and indie folk band The Clogs.

Other Links

This is an adorable illustration of Lovecraft's Shadow Over Innsmouth.

I enjoyed this part of Kristian Williams' massive discussion of Oscar Wilde illustrations.

Even though I have no idea what House of M is, this is still a great post about the X-Men by Tim O'Neil.

Feminist Hulk Smash Patriarchy on Twitter!

Utilitarian Review 5/22/10

2010-05-22T05:19:00.001-07:00

On HU

Kinukitty started her monthly column by pointing at KISS lyrics and laughing.

I interviewed critic Tom Spurgeon about comics and criticism. In comments, he tells me what he really thinks of me. It's fairly unpleasant.

Richard Cook contemplates the Ant-Man, She-Hulk, and Cable films on the way in 2013.

Art critic Bert Stabler does a guest post in which he discusses bodies, essentialism, and feminist performance art.

I review Michael Kupperman's Tales Designed to Thrizzle.

And I talk about racism in my favorite terrifying Tintin dream sequence.

Also, we're going to be using captcha words for comments from now on in order to try to cut down on the crazed deluge of spam. You can avoid having to type in random characters when you comment by signing up in the upper right corner of the sight.

Oh; and I've uploaded a classic Scandinavian black metal mix.

Utilitarians Everywhere

I talk to Bert Stabler about Kant and God and other stuff over at his blog.

Bert: A God that pursues us, that moves in and out of us, is not an abstract principle of wisdom, nor a form of primal electromagnetism, but something else that contains elements of both of those things. Our wanting and changing and experiencing and relating are the things that are most relevant to God and to faith. I'm not totally satisfied with the way Kant addresses this, but he certainly tries, and for faith after the death of God, that's an important start.

I review a passel of reissues of Johnny Cash's 70s albums over at Madeloud.

Still, the real standout here is the title track. Built around an irresistible banjo hook, swirling swings, and a cheesy but somehow still aching horn riff, the lyrics neatly invert the standard gotta-ramble-baby trope, as Cash laments the fact that his woman won’t stay with him. “I know she needs me about as much as I need someone else. Which I don’t,/ And I swear some day I’ll up and leave myself. Which I won’t,” he sings, with plainspoken helplessness. Cash has always had an admirable willingness to look like a fool, and here the overblown, foofy production seems to emphasize his emasculation. "I know the only reason that she ever has to leave me is she wants to." The song is, like unequal love, both ridiculous and heartbreaking.

Other Links

This is one of my favorite of Tom Crippen's reviews so far.

Robert Boyd has some interesting speculations about the impace of criticism on theater productions embedded in an (also interesting) discussion of Jules Feiffer.

Utilitarian Review 5/15/10

2010-05-15T05:16:00.000-07:00

On HU

We started the week off with Matthias Wivel's new column titled DWYCK (in honor of Guru; Matthias has a lovely obit here.) This month's column on HU focuses on the relationship between cartooning and classical art.

I sneered at the title of Ben Schwartz's Best American Comics Criticism. (Prompting Matthias to call me "asinine" in comics — welcome aboard Matthias!)

Suat reviews Dan Clowes' Wilson.

Richard Cook reviewed Peter Milligan and James Romberger's Bronx Kill. (James himself weighs in in comments.)

Old HU hand Tom Crippen returned for a guest post about writing criticism.

Vom Marlowe discussed comic character perfumes and the virtues of fandom.

And I digitized one of my old zines, titled "Superheroes I Have Known.

Utilitarians Elsewhere

At comixology I have an essay about pregnancy and homosexuality in Junji Ito's Uzumaki.

Ito seems to be suggesting that all men secretly want to — that the only thing preventing constant man-on-snail coupling are a few thin taboos which will warp and dissolve like cardboard before the smallest liquid spray of desire. This is, of course, the fever-dream behind the most alarmist kinds of homophobia; the terror, not so much that gays are recruiting, as that, with just a little prompting, men will embrace any excuse to abandon heterosexuality, and with it humanity. From a Freudian standpoint, you can see it as the combined fascination with and horror of the father; a desire for the power of the phallus which must be carefully regulated through totem and taboo if we are not to all slide into cannibalism and anarchy.

I review Pam Grier's new memoir over at Splice Today.

Foxy: My Life in Three Acts certainly is affecting in parts. As the father of a six-year-old, I found Grier’s account of being raped at that age actually nauseating. Less somberly, Grier’s discussion of one of her visit’s to the gynecologist has to be one of the top gossip anecdotes of the year so far. In her account, Grier explains that the doctor discovered “cocaine residue around the cervix and in the vagina” and asked Grier if her lover was putting cocaine on his penis. “ Grier responds, “That’s a possibility … You know, I am dating Richard Pryor.”

Then she admits to the doctor that during oral sex her lips and tongue go numb because, apparently, Pryor did so much coke that it made his semen an opiate.

Other Links

Tom Crippen sneers wearily (and effectively) at John Constantine.

Utilitarian Review 5/8/10

2010-05-08T19:42:00.000-07:00

On HU

This week on HU, Erica Friedman wrote her first column, in which she discussed whether or not feminine and lesbian perspectives in comics exist.

I highlighted some comments from the Fiore/Berlatsky grudge match.

Suat explained why the Unwritten doesn't deserve an Eisner.

I discussed time and change in volume 3 of Ooku.

I reprinted a review of Lilli Carre's The Lagoon.

Vom Marlowe looked at Bran Doll

Caro talked about how Anke Feuchtenberger writes the body.

And Suat provided an appendix of Feuchtenberger drawings.

Tomorrow we'll have the first of Matthias Wivel's columns — so be sure to click back!

Utilitarians Everywhere

Speaking of Matthias, he's got a discussion of the Fumetto festival online at tcj.com.

Anyway, good art tends to thrive on the fringes, and Fumetto is as great as any showcase of the best contemporary comics have to offer. Amongst the highlights was an inventively curated exhibition of the work of Nadia Raviscioni, with focus on her new, autobiographically inflected fantasy, Vent frais, vent du matin, ten years on the making. Beautiful, funny and inventive work synthesizing big-nose cartooning and textural illustration in pages that alternate naturally between gag mode and oneiric suggestion, this promises to be a major book.

Also on tcj.com, I reviewed a really bad coffee table book about Wonder Woman.

Instead, we get a hodgepodge, mishmash Wonder Woman; a Wonder Woman thrashing about helplessly, but alas, not fetchingly, in the piss-golden strands of indifferent storytelling, sub-par artwork, nonchalant exploitation, and endless, grinding, remorseless continuity. Author Robert Greenberger [Update: with art Director Chris McDonnell] is a wonder himself, choosing illustrations by blindfolding himself and stumbling around DC’s offices after closing hours, while all the while cheerily and randomly retailing the intimate minutiae of idiotic, best-forgotten subplots.

At Splice Today I compare Shelby Lynne to of all things, death metal.

I’ve been obsessed with death metal recently. Decapitated, Disincarnate, Dismember, Deicide, Demilich and, of course Death; the best fucking band names in the world of music, and these are just the ones that start with “D.” I love that listening to death metal on an iPod is like collecting every word in the dictionary that could possibly be considered morbid and gross and putting them together almost at random. And yes, I’m sure there’s a band named “Morbid Gross” out there somewhere, and their singer sounds like he’s gargling knives and the music is like being bashed upside the head with a decaying goat tied to a spinning helicopter motor because that’s what death metal is, damn it. Just ask Carcass or Cancer or Cannibal Corpse or Kreator.

And at Madeloud I review the latest by nu-doom metallers Apostle of Solitude.

Other Links

Bert Stabler muses on faith, capitalism, and my recent fracas with R. Fiore.

Also in re said fracas, Charles Reece pointed me to this great essay about cultural and psychological darwinism.

And coffeeandink has a quietly but bracingly negative review of Natsume Ono's Not Simple.

Utilitarian Review 5/1/10

2010-05-01T07:24:00.001-07:00

On HU

Caroline Small started the week off by talking abotu ethics in Dr. Who.

Richard Cook looked at the current state of crime comics.

Blogger and Atlantic pop culture writer Alyssa Rosenberg did a guest post on pop culture and criticism.

I sneered at R. Fiore's take on the South Park imbroglio once, and then again.

Vom Marlowe reviewed Junjo Romantic.

And I reprinted an essay on how Torchwood presages the manporn future.

Utilitarians Everywhere

At Madeloud I have an intro to death metal for beginners.

Death metal has to be one of the most inaccessible forms of structured noise ever to have passed itself off under the loose rubric of “popular music”. With vocals that are more growled than sung, drumming that sounds more like a jackhammer than a beat, a brutal insistence on lack of groove, and lyrics that embrace Satanism, decay, and being torn limb from limb — well, let’s just say that the genre isn’t everyone’s cup of steaming pus.

I have a death metal download here if the article inspires you.

At Splice Today I make fun of Walter Benjamin.

Yes, 80 years ago Benjamin was touting the newspaper, or at least the Stalinist newspaper, as a truly democratic voice. Newspapers were the bright new genre that would allow the people to take an active role in their culture and cease to be the stoned recipient drones of capitalist trash. The press (or “at any rate” as Benjamin says “the Soviet Russian press”) is changing everything; it “revises the distinction between author and reader.” The means of production are now in the hands of all, and the revolution is sure to follow.

And I have a brief review of an art opening over at the Chicago Reader.

Other Links

Sort of inspired by the R. Fiore dust up, Bert Stabler pointed me to this article arguing that Christians should dispense with questions of objective truth.

Utilitarian Review 4/24/10

2010-04-24T19:43:00.000-07:00

On HU

We started the week with some Mary Sue links by Vom Marlowe.

I had another Swamp Thing post about gender and hawk women.

Suat had a lovely tribute to one of Tony Millionaire's Sock Monkey stories.

We highlighted some comments on the Swamp Thing roundtable from Andrei Molotiu, Charles Reece, and EricB.

I sneered at Kingyo Used Books.

We announced four (count 'em, four!) new columnists on HU.

And we've got some black and doom metal for download.

HU....Live!

You can hear audio of the C2E2 comics journalism panel in which I participated.

There's also commentary on the panel by Matthew Brady; Johanna Draper Carlson, Michael May,> and Heidi at the Beat.

Utilitarians Everywhere

I have an interview about copyright issues with songwriter Bill Ritchie over at Splice Today.

Bill: As it happens, there's a silver lining to my problems with getting paid. I can always trump someone who's ranting away about how downloading is stealing, it's wrong, it's immoral, all that stuff because I can always point out that even if downloading were theft (which it isn't, it's copyright infringement), it sure wouldn't be me any downloaders were stealing from if they copied thus-and-such a song because I don't get paid for the sales of the record it's on anyway, somebody else has got the money. So, "Whom are you defending?" is a question that I'm happy to be able to raise in that sort of discussion, because I just want to put it out there to people that this isn't all cut-and-dried. I'm a music rights holder and I'm fine with downloaders, and not okay with the hyper-righteous criticism of them, because, hey, I'm out actual dollars that were already paid for my work, so why are we sitting around debating whether or not someone who downloaded represents a potential lost sale for someone who's not me anyway, right?

Also on Splice Today, I review the new Merle Haggard album.

Haggard had a lot of hits besides “Okie from Muskogee,” and as a singer, guitarist, and songwriter he remains hugely important, a major influence on everyone from George Strait to Alan Jackson. Still, “Okie” was a telling moment. Even though somewhat tongue in cheek (white lightnin’ is every bit as illegal as marijuana, after all) it was still a line in the sand. And though Haggard has recorded with Willie Nelson and was idolized by Gram Parsons, that line hasn’t ever really disappeared. Over the years, he’s added strings at various points, but he’s never put together a New Age album with Daniel Lanois, or written with Jack White, or recorded a cover version of a Trent Reznor song. His latest album title, I Am What I Am, pretty much sums it up. And what Haggard is, is country or bust. He doesn’t have an alternative career path.

I have a couple really mean-spirited short book reviews at the Chicago Reader (you need to scroll a bit to find them.)

And a review of death-doom band Hooded Menace at Madeloud.

Other Links

In response to our own Richard Cook's question, Can Comics Be Scary?, Curt Purcell put together an all star panel, including Sean T. Collins and Richard Sala(!) Check it out.

I'd seen this letter before, but it remains a truly transcendent example of snark.

Utilitarian Review 4/18/10

2010-04-18T13:39:00.000-07:00

On HU

This week was mostly devoted to our Swamp Thing roundtable which isn't done yet! Jog's got another post and I've got another post. Swamp Thing — he shambles on.

Also, I suggested that comics journalists might maybe want to get over themselves a little bit..

Utilitarians Everywhere

As Splice Today I talk about Zen ink drawings and why art is corrupt:

As it is, the painting seems to be a deliberate effort to unenlighten. A viewer can’t help but turn the Bhodhidharma from nothing—abstract lines on paper— into something; the Bhodhidharma, who is not there and then, despite his own parable, is. When the emperor asks, “Who stands before me?” the response “I don’t know” is not a statement of ignorance, but the declaration of a name. Similarly, the calligraphic message here twists back on itself. You cannot read, “not know” without knowing; the words inevitably convey the message that the wrong message has been conveyed. And even the broken strokes; do they really suggest a presence that is more ghostly than real? On the contrary, the gaps in the line serve instead to emphasize the hand of the artist; looking at this image, Jiun’s brush seems like the stiffest, most solid thing in the universe—more solid by far than the centuries he’s dragged it across. More solid, too, than the person looking at the image, who, along with the emperor, is less an individual than a dumb, appreciative foil—a blank, sympathetic page upon which the seer inscribes his own outline.

I have a conversation about Kant and evil over at Bert Stabler's blog:

Bert: According to Zizek, the sublime thing in Kant's Law is that it makes the individual responsible for her own decisions, since the Law does not give specific instructions-- which addresses your idea of the Law being in one's heart. But paradoxically (surprise!), that's what takes the responsibility out of the person's hands, since they're acting in the name of this nameless, faceless injunction, in which all desire and pleasure is pathological, and pleasure comes from and desire reaches toward humiliation (punishment).

At Madeloud I interview artist and musician Matt Steinke of the band Octant.

Steinke: I have been making drum robots since I graduated from college in 1997. They seem glamorous when you talk about them, and they are often more complex than they appear and sound, but technically speaking, they are mechanical drum machines – acoustic electronically-controlled musical instruments. I have a mechanical toy piano, a mechanical bass guitar-like instrument, and a mechanically bowed zither. I use guitars that I have modified or customized, a toy guitar, a toy accordion, a music box that has magnetic pickups, and my sampler theremin watch. I also now have a homemade harmonium.

And I'm still posting stealth downloads for a friend or two if anyone is interested. Death Metal is here. And a folksy/country one is here.

Other Links

Shaenon Garrity had a couple of good articles this week, including this essay wondering where all the porn comics went and this hysterical cartoon version of Ken Smith's philosophy.

Russ Smith at Splice Today has an acid take on Hank Williams' belated Pulitzer.

And posts like this are why I continue to really like Andrew Sullivan.

Utilitarian Review 4/9/10

2010-04-09T18:32:00.001-07:00

Utilitarian LIVE at C2E2

I'm going to be part of a panel on Old Media, New Media, Comics Media at C2E2 in Chicago, April 16, 7: 45:00 PM - 8:45:00 PM. Heidi McDonald is moderating, and other panelists are Brigid Alverson, Johanna Draper Carlson, Ron Richards and Lucas Siegel. It's in Room E352.

This will not only be my first time on a con panel, it will be my first time at any sort of con ever, to the best of my recollection. So do come by if you're not watching the simultaneous Dr. Who screening — or if you're not seeing my cousin Ben Winters, author of Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters who is also, and improbably, on a different panel in the same con at the same time.

On HU

I didn't like the Tintin adventure The Castafiore Emerald very much.

VM was confused by Song of the Hanging Sky vol. 2.

Richard wondered if comics can be scary.

Caro criticized Chris Ware for his poor handling of criticism, leading to a massive comments thread (some of it critical.)

And finally I killed off Music for Middle-Brow Snobs.

Utilitarians Everywhere

Kind of a ridiculous number of publications this week.

On Splice Today I have a long discussion of Terry Eagleton's new book On Evil

Eagleton’s objection to the use of “evil” to describe Islamic fundamentalists or Mao or bank robbers seems, in the end, more pragmatic than theological. The word evil, he says “is generally a way of bringing argument to an end, like a fist to the solar plexus.” Eagleton, for reasons which aren’t entirely clear, (his Catholic upbringing? His own common sense?) doesn’t want to chuck the word entirely, but he does want to bracket it off. Evil does have “an intimate relation with everyday life,” he argues, but when it comes to defining what that relation is, he more or less punts, offering a laundry list in place of an actual mechanism. Envy, he says, is kind of like evil, schadenfreude is kind of like evil, Freud’s death drive is kind of like evil, and, hey, by the way, Adolf Eichmann looked like a bank clerk. Evil … it has something to do with us. But not much. Can we talk about something else please?

On Comixology I had an extremely snide review of Grant Morrison's Batman and Robin.

What Morrison understands, through a Jungian intuitiveness born of years of intensively soldering corporate slogans onto the sacred flesh of his unnameables, is that crazy throw-off moments from the past gain weight and profundity by being repeatedly embalmed and disinterred. Every time Bob Haney hawked up a loogie, Grant Morrison was there, mouth open like a baby bird, ready to ingest, digest, and re-emit it for the sole purpose of waddling his sublimely stained Bat underoos over to the nearest university English Department for professional sterilization and veneration.

At the Chicago Reader I review Diane Ravitch's new book about school reform.

Everyone knows that teachers have class—but which class that is, exactly, isn't clear. As educated people working with brains, pens, and paper clips, they look white collar. Those indicators are superficial, though. In most ways that matter, teachers are working class. Charged with controlling a potentially dangerous population, they toil through a regimented workday at the butt end of a faceless bureaucracy. A teacher is a prison guard disguised as a college professor—a combination that gives nearly everyone some reason to despise them.

Again on Splice Today I talk about the confused class politics of the TV sitcom The Big Bang Theory.

The Big Bang Theory isn’t alone in pretending that brainworkers are evolutionarily disadvantaged beta-males. Everyone knows that Bill Gates is (a) happily married, and (b) the most powerful person on the planet, but no one seems to want to generalize from there even a little bit. The fact is, though, that scary-smart geeks are not just smarter than folks like Penny—they’re also in a higher social class.

I have an interview with mashup artist DJLobsterdust over at Madeloud.

Do the mashups have to be songs that are popular, or do you try to put together things that are less well known?

In the beginning I really didn’t care and I’d just use songs that I like. But since I find myself playing in front of crowds...I do mashups for myself, songs that I like, and at the same time every couple of weeks I put something out there that everybody knows just so people don’t forget about me. At the same time — I do this because I like pop music. So I have no problem mixing anything with anything.

I have a short review of the Numero Groups Good God: Born Again Funk compilation over at Metropulse.

And I have a review of the horror/fantasy manga Dorohedoro over at tcj.com.

Utilitarian Review 4/3/10

2010-04-03T07:08:00.000-07:00

We're going to take a day off tomorrow for the holiday. We'll be back on Monday.

On HU

This week I talked to artist and critic Bert Stabler about art, criticism, pragmatism, and materialism.

Suat explained why comics will never be as exciting as video games.

Caro explained why this thing she found is comics (and in comments folks speculate on whether or not it might be by William Steig.)

Suat discussed Chester Brown's gospel adaptations.

And Caro interviewed novelist Jonathan Lethem.

Utilitarians Everywhere

At the Reader I discussed the black metal band Ludicra and women in extreme metal.

The fact that when the women in Ludicra sound like women they're essentially being used to replace a synthesizer is emblematic of how gender works in extreme metal. Which is to say, it doesn't work at all. Extreme metal doesn't care about men and women. It barely cares about bodies. Johnny Rotten howls "I'm not an animal!" and extreme metal responds with a louder and even more hideous howl of indifference. Misanthropy, to say nothing of misogyny, is for the living. Extreme metal's aggression may sound male on the surface, but a corpse isn't masculine even if it has a penis. Extreme metal seeks a monstrous oblivion; it uses unrelenting noise to destroy not just the dying animal but also the angel fastened to it. "Teach me to mask the spirit . . . The farce of human bonds / Of dignity and respect," Shanaman howls. "Let me be the clean white void / The slate . . . the unwritten." You don't have genitals when you're a mask upon a void.

I gave a one-star review to >Kath Bloom's remarkably lame new album over at Madeloud.

I reviewed the new Twilight Graphic Novel on tcj.com.

Other Links
This is a fascinating article about the copyright difficulties of producing a documentary about sampling.

And I enjoyed Erica Friedman's wrap up of her and her wife's trip to Japan.

Utilitarian Review 3/27/10

2010-03-27T10:37:00.000-07:00

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

2010-03-20T06:57:00.001-07:00

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

2010-03-13T17:55:00.001-08:00

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

2010-03-06T07:53:00.000-08:00

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.

Utilitarian Review 2/28/10

2010-02-28T07:02:00.000-08:00

On HU

This week was devoted to a roundtable on Ariel Schrag's graphic memoir Likewise. The roundtable finished off with a lengthy guest post by Ariel Schrag herself. Jason Thompson also kindly contributed a guest post.

Utilitarians Everywhere

It was a slow week for me in other published writing, but this essay about the spiritual purity of crappy art was reprinted over at Proximity Magazine.

Other Links

Bucking the general trend, Jeet Heer says that there's nothing wrong with tcj.com (though he's not so sure about HU.)

Derik Badman has a entertainingly snarky review of Crumb's Genesis. Bonus appearance by Suat in comments.

I've been semi-obsessed with mashups recently. Here's one I liked:

Utilitarian Review 2/19/10

2010-02-19T14:46:00.000-08:00

TCJ.com/fail

Much of the blogging this week was devoted to sneering and snarking at our host, TCJ.com. I started things off by noting that, after two months, the site still sucks. Suat concurred, only moreso. In comments, former TCJ editor Robert Boyd also agreed. Bill Randall, somewhat despite himself, did a guest post offering tcj.com his professional advice as a web marketer.

A number of folks also weighed in from around the blogosphere, including Johanna Draper Carlson, Heidi at the Beat and Sean Colllins.

In coincidental eat-your-hear-out-news, Comics Comics got a lovely redesign and Fantagraphics publisher had a major article analyzing the direct market and book market which he wrote for...the Comics Reporter. (Both links and schadenfreude courtesy of that Sean Collins link above.)

And also coincidentally — while we were all sneering, tcj.com had what was probably it's best week thus far, at least in terms of content. They posted a brand spanking new knock down drag out Kevin O'Neil interview conducted by Douglas Wolk; a monumental three part history of the Direct Market from the archives courtesy of Michael, Dirk, and Gary; a short but very good essay by Dirk about the shake-up at DC; and a timely essay on the Captain America vs. tea partiers brou-ha-ha, which even energized the comments for a moment there.

On the one hand, this hits a lot of the things I said I'd like to see more of on tcj.com: interviews, a greater presence from editorial; and more creative use of the archives (I don't know if I said that last one, but I should have.)

On the other hand...it's when the content is going great guns that you really feel the crappiness of the site design. The direct market essays have already disappeared down the pooper shoot. Sticking the O'Neill interview to the top of the page seems like a good move given the options — but it still looks amateurish, and results in everything else essentially being invisible for the entire week. And there are still those what-the-fuck moments, this week provided by Ken Smith, who, love him or hate him, needs to be moved to his own blog.

Still, improvement is improvement. I feel more hopeful about tcj.com's future than I did when I wrote my post at the beginning of the week, and I am duly grateful.

Also on HU

Our new blogger Caroline Small (better known as Caro if you read our comments sections) started out with a bang, reviewing The Bun Field and discussing copyright and free culture.

Richard Cook reviewed the Planet Hulk DVD.

And I did a short review of the comic about copyright, "Bound By Law?"

Also, inspired by all the web design talk, I added a couple of features to the sidebar there, including a search function and a Recent Comments section. Let me know if the changes work for you all, or if there's something else I should try to put over there. My wordpress skills are pretty lame...but I can always give it a try.

And no download this week...because I'm busy working on my essay for our Ariel Schrag roundtable, which will start tomorrow. We are focusing on her last book, Likewise, and Ariel herself is going to guest post (probably at the end of the week.) Critic Jason Thompson is also going to do a guest post, so there'll be a lot of activity here. We're starting tomorrow, so click back.

Utilitarians Everywhere

At Splice Today I explained why indie rockers Untied States can't get out of the avant garde alive:

Not that Untied States has just one influence. “Not Fences, Mere Masks,” has a few bars lifted from the Beatles to break up the Sonic Youth. “These Dead Birds” sounds like Sonic Youth pretending to be the Beatles until it shifts into just sounding like Sonic Youth. And “Grey Tangerines” sounds like Robyn Hitchcock fronting Sonic Youth.

Other Links

I liked this discussion of the politics of yaoi.

I liked these awesome Japanese gag cartoons.

And though I maligned him earlier in the week, I nonetheless liked this essay on abstract comics by Kent Worcester.

Utilitarian Review 2/13/10

2010-02-13T09:44:00.001-08:00

On HU

We started out this week with me explaining why R. Fiore is wrong about the Watchmen. A lot of comments, some of them even about Watchmen.

I posted my report on a panel on Gender and Cartooning in Chicago.

Richard reviewed the first volume of Parasyte.

Suat discussed a classic comics adaptation of the Chinese novel Dream of the Red Chamber.

I reviewed Manhwa 100, a catalog of Korean comics.

And this week's download featured Beethoven, prog, and other things.

Utilitarians Everywhere

In my monthly Comixology column I review Craig Yoe's recent collection of Joe Shuster's fetish comics.

So Shuster was into kink, then? Yoe does manage to uncover some evidence that the artist had an eye for chorus girls and the female form. But while that's interesting, it's not really the main issue. The point here isn't that this or that creator had a personal thing for spanking or sadism or masochism. Rather, the point is that as a genre superhero comics simply aren't that far removed from the kind of pulp fetish porn that Shuster retailed in Nights of Horror. Read through Yoe's plot synopses of the sixteen plus issues that Shuster illustrated and you'll get a definite feeling of déjà vu. Damsels in distress, evil hooligans, manly private dicks, and fiendish torture devices — didn't Shuster illustrate all of this somewhere before? You've even got a fair number of men getting shown up just like that milquetoast Clark Kent…though, admittedly, Kent's humiliation didn't usually involve a French maid.

On tcj.com I sneered mean-spiritedly at kid's manga Dinosaur King.

Also on tcj.com, also sneering, my review of the shojo title Book of Friends.

On Metropulse I review Sade's new album.

And on Splice Today I talked about why John Le Carre's famous novel, The Spy Who Came In From the Cold, is an idiotic, melodramatic piece of horse dung.

Other Links

I enjoyed this mean-spirited manga review by Erica Friedman.

Shaenon defeats Captain America.

And Matt Yglesias
makes with the Watchmen reference.

Utilitarian Review 2/6/10

2010-02-06T11:17:00.000-08:00

On HU
We started out the week with Adam Stephanides returning to xxxholic. He read the whole thing and eh. Could have been worse.

In memory of Howard Zinn's passing, I sneered at the graphic adaptation of his book.

I mocked the prevaricating title of The Mammoth Book of Best New Manga.

And doing her part to convince Suat that people really do write mean things about manga, Kinukitty dumped on the yaoi Madness.

Vom Marlowe does her part as well by not much liking Book of Friends.

And finally this week's download features women in extreme metal.

Utilitarians Elsewhere
On Splice Today I join the long line of those who have sneered at Pauline Kael.

In other words, Kael uses “we” because there is no “we”; the point for her is always self-referential; her thesis is always, “I am right.” And that solipsism is, in turn, a function, not of rampant egotism, but of the categories she uses. As “Trash, Art, and the Movies” suggests, Kael is obsessed with what is art and what isn’t art and with the evil “businessmen” who muck up everything and make it “almost impossibly difficult for the artists to try anything new.” To read Pauline Kael, therefore, is to be confronted with a capitalism whose worst sin is making mediocre movies; with a bourgeois society the worst sin of which is enjoying those same mediocre films. Smack dab at the end of the 60s, Kael has nothing to say about Vietnam, or Lyndon Johnson, or civil rights, or any of the cataclysmic upheavals of her day. She manages to write a review of Godard’s La Chinoise in which she explicates Godard’s feelings about revolutionary youth but doesn’t tell us anything about her own position except, “Yep, I think Godard is really clever!”

On Madeloud I look back at the Rolling Stone Record Guide from 1993.

Still, if the Album Guide isn’t exactly useful as reference anymore, it retains sentimental and historical interest. Consider, in 1993:

- Nirvana was a decent band peddling a more pop-laden version of the “metal-edged punk” that typified Soundgarden and Soul Asylum. “At their best,” J.D. Considine says, Nirvana’s songs “typify the low-key passion of post-MTV youth.” Bleach (three-and-a-half stars) is faulted for relying on “metal riffage” as much as on “melodic invention,” while the poppier Nevermind gets four stars. Since Nirvana has not yet been named rock royalty, no one needs to trace its bloodline, and bands such as the Melvins and the Vaselines don’t exist.

On Splice Today I have a review of the latest in dubstep meets doom metal by Necro Deathmort.

On Madeloud I review the quite-good-but-unfortunately-named Scandinavian thrash band Rimfrost.

Also on Madeloud I review the latest slab of endless doom from Holland's Bunkur.

Other Links

Tom Crippen has been writing some great super-hero pieces on TCJ.com this week, including this sad song for MODOK. Also, a great discussion of Ebony White.

Jessica Hopper's takedown of Vampire Weekend is nicely done.

Utilitarian Review 1/31/10

2010-02-02T05:47:00.001-08:00

On HU

I started out the week by reviewing the Mike Sekowsky run on Wonder Woman.

The discussion of whether or not manga critics are too nice continued with some snark by m. of coffeeandink and a long, long comments thread.

Kinukitty reviews the yaoi Sense and Sexuality.

Suat talked about problems with Town of Evening Calm, Country of Cherry Blossoms. There's a long comment thread as well, with Kate Dacey, Jog, Derik Badman, Bill Randall and others commenting.

Vom Marlowe reviews a good white ink.

Utilitarians Elsewhere

At the Chicago Reader I reviewed Garry Wills' new book Bomb Power.

There's no doubt that the bomb and nuclear fears are regularly marshaled in defense of unlimited executive power. And Wills makes a good case that the Manhattan Project provided institutional impetus for, and training in, federal secrecy. But his claim that the bomb "caused a violent break in our whole government" is less persuasive.

He argues, for instance, that our foreign policy following World War II was in large part predicated on our need for missile bases—a claim I don't see any reason to dispute. But in the course of that argument he also states that the need for bases "began a long history of friendly relations with dictators." This neatly elides America's extended, inglorious prebomb encouragement of tyrannies abroad, starting with our support for the slave-holding regime in 18th-century Haiti and finding perhaps its most spectacular expression in our brutal and extended battle against a popular insurgency in the Philippines in the early 1900s.

At metropulse I review a number of recent Thai luk thung release.

Luk thung is often characterized as Thai country music, which is both accurate and misleading. It’s accurate in that, yes, luk thung is mostly created and consumed by folks from rural backgrounds, and its lyrics reflect their concerns—the love left at home, the joys of rural cooking, the shock of moving to the city and discovering that your new urban flame is a he rather than a she, etc.

It’s misleading, though, in that luk thung doesn’t sound anything like country music. It sounds like film music exotica. Also garage rock. And like J-pop and Bollywood and AM radio balladry. And like hip-hop. In other words, and very much unlike American country, luk thung is almost pathologically omnivorous.

Bert Stabler and I discuss Inglorious Bastards and Zizek and other things.

At tcj.com I review two crappy manga: Biomega and Ikigami.

At Madeloud I review Drudkh's fantastic first album, Forgotten Legends.

Utilitarian Review 1/23/10

2010-01-24T08:19:00.001-08:00

On HU

This week was devoted to a roundtable on Clamp's xxxHolic. Guest posts, lots of comments, and pretty scans abound if you missed it.

Also, this week's music download is here.

Last week's doom metal playlist is here.

Utilitarians Everywhere

On Madeloud I review Hamsoken's Foul Harvest.

On tcj.com I review a collection of James Bond comic strips.

On Metropulse I review a collection of 60s Cambodian pop.

Other Links

Marc Singer has a balanced essay about using Scott McCloud's Understanding Comics in a classroom setting.

Utilitarian Review 1/16/10

2010-01-16T13:51:00.000-08:00

Best Comics Criticism 2009

The big news about the blog this week was Suat's announcement of the Best Online Comics Criticism of the year.

All the judges beside Suat weighed in with discussions of the list and of their own choices. And those judges were me, Tucker Stone, Frank Santoro and Matthias Wivel.

In other reactions around the web, Johanna Draper Carlson pointed out there could have been more women and manga critics on the list. Melinda Beasi responded by putting up a list of her favorite female manga critics. And David Welsh picked some of his favorite criticism of the year.

Finally, Brigid Alverson notes that she was supposed to be involved in the judging but had to drop out at the last minute due to work and family pressure. She also provides a look at her picks for best criticism of the year.

On HU

Also this week on HU:

Kinukitty reviewed Age Called Blue.

Richard Cook reviewed Sayuki.

Vom Marlowe reviewed Godchild.

I sneered in passing at The Dirty Projectors and Michael Chabon.

And last but not least, this week's free music download features early doom metal.

Utilitarians Everywhere

At Splice Today I review a newish graphic biography of Johnny Cash.

The exercise does affirm Cash’s power as a storyteller, mainly through contrast. Kleist is a pretty good artist—his drawing of a young Johnny standing at the microphone, head cocked, preparing to deliver “Big River” is lean and striking. But the effort to show the narrative itself is determinedly bland: Images of the mooning swain and his traveling lover lack the lonesome sparseness of the sung original, not to mention its barely contained, self-parodying humor. The pictures seem generic, taken out of any Twainesque riverboat setting, where the original reveled in its specificity as Cash’s deep baritone caressed each place name and ventrioloquized voice. It’s like Kleist decided to draw the sequence without ever stopping to wonder what made the song worthwhile in the first place, with the predictable result that he gets the general framework and leaves out the soul.

And I have another discussion of Zizek with Bert Stabler over at his blog.

Bert: It's been occurring to me that Jesus defined modern social relations-- defining a private sphere apart from state interference, rejecting traditional value systems and extended and even nuclear family relations in favor of abstract inner pursuits, extolling radically egalitarian values, dying for his principles. He despised work and ownership. And, strangely, he was completely the ideal for which our civilization continues to strive. He was a humanist, without the solipsism, nihilism, and hubris.

On tcj.com I have a review of Lilli Carre's illustrated version of Hans Christian Anderson's The Fir Tree.

At Metropulse I review the really strikingly bad new Vampire Weekend album.

And finally, Tom Spurgeon has the final wrap up of his massive end-of-decade interview series in which I participated.

Utilitarian Review 1/9/10

2010-01-09T17:09:00.000-08:00

On HU

Lots of bytes through the sluice on HU this week.

To start off, I sneered at the Yeah Yeah Yeahs and wondered about Fantagraphics' marketing policy (Fantagraphic marketers showed up to explain in the comments.)

I denounced Lady Snowblood, movie and comic, on the grounds that they are evil. Suat came back with a lengthy defense

I defended blogging and even got all emo about it. In another meta moment, I defended my right to think Ganges is boring and sneer at other comics critics and spit bile more or less indiscriminately, damn it.

Kinukitty reviewed the yaoi Dining Bar Akira.

Richard kicked off a new series, Anything But Capes, in which he looks at genres other than super-heroes. He started off by looking at the state of Barbarian comics.

Suat reviewed Ooku, which he doesn't like as much as me.

I explained what my son has and has not learned from Peanuts.

Vom Marlowe drew a comic expressing her disinterest in X-Men Forever.

And this week's music download features lots of doomy drones and other metal. (Last week's, if you missed it, features Thai country music (Luk Thung.)

Utilitarians Everywhere

My enthusiastic review of Dokebi Bride is up on Comixology this week.

That departure, I think, points to the core knot at the heart of Dokebi Bride. The book, like many ghost stories, is about grief and dislocation and how the two circle around each other like black, exhausted smudges. The first volume opens with Sunbi's father carrying her mother's ashes back from the grave; that volume ends with the death of Sunbi's grandmother, who raised her and cared for her. The central loss of a parent, and therefore of self, returns again and again through the series, a literal haunting. Sunbi can't function without putting the past behind her, but the past is everything she is — she can't let it go. When a fortune teller offers to read her future, Sunbi rejects the offer angrily. "No, I don't want to know about my stupid future!" she bites out through her tears. "Just tell me what all this means to me! Tell me why they've all died and left me, why they're even trying to take away my memories!"

On Tcj.com I reviewed Strange Suspense: Steve Ditko Archives Volume 1.

Did you read that whole thing? If you did and you enjoyed it, you’re a hardier soul than I. “I got my letter and then I thought about my letter and then I thought about my letter some more and then I used a metaphor: ‘leaden feet’!” That’s just dreadful. And, yes, that’s the one romance story in the book, but the horror and adventure comics are not appreciably better; there’s still the numbing repetition, the tin ear, and the infuriating refusal to finesse said tin ear by leaving the damn pictures alone to tell their own story.

Bert Stabler and I talk about Zizek and art over at his blog Dark Shapes Refer.

I like the idea that you need a transcendent background in order to appreciate, or even allow for, multiplicity. I'm thinking about this a little bit in terms of culture and art, and the impulse that I think most everyone has to want people to consume/listen/read/whatever the right thing. It seems like that's coming from a place where the transcendent is material; that is, your worshipping the art itself, therefore moral choices become essentially consumer choices. Alternately, you just cut culture and morality apart altogether, and argue that neither has anything to do with the other. Whereas if you have a transcendent ground of some sort, you can say, well, culture connects up to morality and or important things in various ways, and you can talk about it in those terms, but choices about art are not in themselves good or evil.

On Madeloud, I review the soundtrack to the BBC miniseries Life on Earth, which profoundly affected my life when I was, like, 8.

Over at Metropulse, I have a review of avant Japanese guitarist
Shinobu Nemotu's Improvisations #1.

At the same site there's also a review of the slab of black doom that is
Nihil's Grond.

At the Chicago Reader I review the fairly amusing gimmick book Twitterature.

Other Links

I enjoyed Tucker Stone's Best of at Comixology, especially since he picked the right thing for book of the year.

Ta-Nehisi Coates explains why he wants to be able to check "Negro" on his census form.

And finally, Johanna Draper Carlson has a nice summation and round up of links relating to the devil's bargain between MOCCA and Archie Comics.

Utilitarian Review 1/2/10

2010-01-02T04:52:00.000-08:00

In case you're new stopping by here, the blog has moved over to a new home on www.tcj.com/hoodedutilitarian/. So please click over there/bookmark us/spread the word to friends and family.

I've been continuing to post our weekly roundups here as well because, eh, why not?

HU Elsewhere

HU took last week off, but I still had a few pieces up elsewhere around the webs.

I snuck in to the tail end of Tom Spurgeon's holiday interview series over at the Comics Reporter with a discussion of the Elephant and Piggie children's book series.

I don't think it's an issue of seeing it in the context of comics; Willems' work is comics. He uses cartoony simplified animal characters and makes extensive use of comic tropes like motion lines and speech bubbles. The narrative is entirely advanced through sequential action; the movement and words of the characters directly tell the story; it's absolutely not text with illustrations. Some of the chicken books even use panels. The only reason you wouldn't call it a comic is because it's not sold through the direct market, basically.

The second half of my survey of Thai Luk Thung videos is up on madeloud.

Still, there are other approaches. For example, there’s Por Parichart’s “Krai Sak Kon Bon Tarng Fun,” or “Someone on a Path to My Dreams.” It basically follows the usual luk thung formula — with a slight conceptual twist. Luk thung is often referred to as “Thai country music” because its audience and lyrical themes are both mostly rural. However, “Krai Sak Kon Bon Tarng Fun” is unusual in that it actually sounds like American country music. The band hits a Nashville groove like they’ve been listening to Hanks and Merles all their lives, while Por, the singer, imitates Dolly Parton down to the breathy yodeling quaver. And as for the video — well, the set designers appears to have seen Hee Haw.

Also on Madeloud, I have a review of a reissue by shoegaze legends Teenage Filmstars.

And at Metropulse I review the blaxploitation comp "Can You Dig It?" and the gospel comp "Fire In My Bones."

Other Links

There are a couple of amazing essays by former Utilitarians up on tcj.com. First, Tom Crippen has a spectacular essay about Alan Moore and geekism. And then Bill Randall has an equally spectacular essay about the odd progression of manga in America. You really need to go read both of them; they've both kind of outdone themselves.

Also on tcj.com, Steven Grant has a brief, acerbic, and hysterical take on the Spirit pop up book.

Then Shaenon Garrity has an even briefer, even more acerbic, and even more hysterical take on Acme Novelty Library #19.

I enjoyed Chris Mautner's discussion of Scott Pilgrim, a comic I've never read but am now thinking I should.

The one-woman comics-news dervish that is Brigid Alverson has a thorough round-up of this year's manga news over at Robot 6.

Utilitarian Review 12/26/09

2009-12-26T11:41:00.001-08:00

A little quiet this week over at the new site, what with the major holiday and all. Still, we blogged away...

On HU

We started out the week with a return to my halcyon days of writing scatological prose-poems.

Kinukitty posted about the joys of reading yaoi novels on the Kindle.

Vom Marlowe reviewed How to Draw Manga: Ultimate Manga Lessons Vol. 5: Basics of Portraying Action.

I sneered vigorously at Chris Ware's Halloween New Yorker cover. If the comments to the post aren't sufficient, there's also a thread on the TCJ message board devoted to the topic.

Richard discussed his reaction to the first volume of Lone Wolf and Cub.

And finally this week's download included no Christmas music at all.

Utilitarians Everywhere

Over on tcj.com, Suat reviews Suat on Carol Tyler's "You'll Never Know"

Written in 1994, Carol Tyler’s “The Hannah Story” was a tribute to her mother, Hannah, and her strength in dealing with her in-laws as well as the death of her daughter, Ann. Despite the intervening years, Tyler’s sensitive “voice” remains easily recognizable in her latest book, You’ll Never Know.

At madeloud I have up the first of a two part series on Thai luk thung music videos.

Even more flamboyant is “Arom Sia” by actress and singer Apaporn Nakornsawan. The title means “Sick of It All,” and indeed the performer appears to have become so disgusted at her romantic troubles that she has turned to super-villainy, luring the Justice League into some sort of catastrophic defeat at the hands of a gay pride parade.

At Splice Today I talk about the overcarbonated new dolphin show at Chicago's Shedd Aquarium.

The most heart-tugging moments in the show, though, involve not the cute penguins, nor the noble hawk, but rather the trainers. Demoted from educators to props, they are ruthlessly dressed up in penguin suits or decked out like British hawkers or hoisted up on pulleys and dropped from a height into the water. Yes, they seem cheerful enough about it in general but good lord-it all seems like a rather cruel punishment for the comparatively minor sin of being a zoologist.

Over at Bert Stabler's blog we continue our conversation about the book of Job, and discuss Stanley Milgram's experiments, among other things. The quote below is from Bert.

Basically, if you lose everything for no moral or practical reason, whether it's because God decides to destroy your life arbitrarily or because he can't stop bad things from happening or because it's part of some grand scheme for the betterment of the universe, we cannot ultimately hold God to account. He's God, he's not a limited being with petty motives. God is like a petty dictator, but he's also not. He's not a transparent, contingent demiurge-- he's a remote yet ubuquitous source of energy.

And at metropulse I contributed to a pretty entertaining best of music list.

Other Links

Tom Spurgeon's been doing a bunch of interviews with critics about some of the best or most influential books of the decade. I think my favorite so far is his discussion with Kristy Valenti about Little Nemo.

Shaenon Garrity has an interesting discussion of manga translation issues on tcj.com.

And finally, I've mentioned a couple of times that I often disagree with Jeet Heer on most everything. I have to say, though, that this essay about representations of homosexuality in classic comics is pretty great from start to finish. The essay carries a lot of learning very lightly, and includes a number of zingers, most notably: "Like most professional moralists, Bozell has no real sense of history: he’s a traditionalist with no grounding in the past." Andrew Sullivan linked to it, and deservedly so.

Utilitarian Review 12/19/09

2009-12-19T07:44:00.001-08:00

As mentioned before in this space, our blog has moved over to the Comics Journal website. I thought I'd post our weekly round up here as well, though, just to spread the word about what we're doing.

On HU

Our first week on the tcj.com has been busy. I started out the week with a post explaining why the tcj.com website design is problematic. I then went on to tell our proprietor, Gary Groth, that he doesn't know what he's talking about.

The main event of the week though was our lengthy roundtable on Dan Clowes' Ghost World. There are some epic comment threads, where critics like Matthias Wieval, Mark Andrew, Bill Randall, and Jack Baney way in. Also special thanks to critic Charles Reece for guest blogging with us.

As an extra bonus, Shaenon Garrity wrote a response to the roundtable over on tcj.com.

Utilitarians Everywhere

Around the web, both Suat and I had a bunch of writing this week. I'll start with Suat, all of whose reviews were on tcm.com.

Suat wrote a discussion of comics lettering.

Most people with an interest in Chinese brush painting realize that the calligraphy frequently found at the edge of such pieces form as much a part of the art as the image itself. Chinese calligraphy is of course a major art form in the Chinese cultural sphere.
The place of the letterer in the overall aesthetic of comics is less certain. Are letterers merely craftsmen, or are they artists in their own right? And if they are artists, what constitutes their contribution to the art of comics?

He also wrote a lengthy review of Richard Sala's Delphine.

We are of course led to believe by the standard mechanics of comics that the rectangular panels represent reality and the hazy ones memories and fantasies. The reverse is often the case in Delphine where the more formless panels frequently represent painful reality while the rigid ones delve deep into the protagonist’s soul. These interconnected realities begin to meld beginning with issue 3 of the series.

He had a long review of How to Love, by the group Actus Tragicus.

With the dawning realization that doing comics in Israel was never going to be “profitable” for them, the founding members resolved to focus exclusively on their own interests and “stop trying to be commercial”. Actus has since become a staple on both sides of the Atlantic with a reputation for good production values, interesting formats, high technical skill and well told stories. How to Love is their first collection in four years and the five key members of the group namely, Mira Friedmann, Batia Kolton, Rutu Modan, Yirmi Pinkus and Itzik Rennert have all returned with a single guest artist in the form of illustrator David Polonsky.

And finally a shorter review of Takashi Nemoto's gross out comics.

As for me, I had a review at the Chicago Reader comparing Craig Yoe's Anti-War Cartoons to Kate Beaton's "Never Learning Anything From History."

I'm enough of a knee-jerk pacifist to entertain the suggestion that even the Union's decision to fight the Confederacy and U.S. participation in World War II did more harm than good. But those are arguments you actually have to make. Lots of smart folks from Obama on down think you sometimes have to fight wars to maintain peace. You can't just show me a picture of a skull or a fat industrialist and expect me to agree that we shouldn't have blocked secession or stopped Hitler. Indeed, Yoe admits that many of the cartoonists represented in the book weren't pacifists, but opposed particular wars at particular times (or, in the case of the many Communists represented, opposed all war except class war). By throwing all the artists together under the label "anti-war" without describing the particular issues that engaged them—by making their message universal—he's made them irrelevant.

Another article at the Reader about the Thai pop singer Pamela Bowden and the thankful limitations of best of lists.

It's December, which means it's time for me, as a dutiful blogger, critic, and self-appointed cultural arbiter, to put together my best-of lists. I need to listen to that Raekwon album again to confirm that I really do think exactly the same thing everyone else thinks. I need to check back in with that Mariah Carey album to make sure I really do think exactly the opposite of what everyone else thinks. I need to compare Of the Cathmawr Yards by the Horse's Ha with Grizzly Bear's Veckatimest and Antony & the Johnsons' The Crying Light to figure out which romantic, indie-folk-tinged work of idiosyncratic genius is the most geniuslike. I need to decide if I have to download the new Lightning Bolt album (legally, of course) and form an opinion on it, or whether it'd be safe to simply put it on my list on the assumption that it sounds like all the other Lightning Bolt albums.

Simultaneously, and ironically, over at The Factual Opinion I have a best of metal list of the year, or decade, or something.

I kept taunting Tucker and Marty for being wussy little twee indie rock/electronica/emo fanboys who’d hide behind their Mommy’s skirts if the Cookie Monster spoke to them too loud, or, you know, if the apocalypse occurred. "Oh I love Cut Copy because they’re so much fun." Yeah, well, let’s see how much you enjoy dancing in hell with your feet torn off and your bloody stumps slipping and sliding in the shredded scraps of Cut Copy’s intestines. Huh?! How would you like that?!

Over at the Knoxville Metropulse I explained why Alicia Keys' new album is lousy.

Over at Madeloud I explained why < ahref="http://www.madeloud.com/review/marduk_wormwood">Marduk's latest album is great.

And finally my illustrations for the Flaming Fire Illustrated Bible project are back up after the site was offline there for a while.

Other Links

Danielle Leigh's review of Ooku has more of the gushing enthusiasm I was looking for from other reviewers.

And Tom Crippen, formerly of HU, has a long post on tcj.com about Alison Bechdel's Dykes to Watch Out For.

It’s a method and aesthetic based on control, dominance. In the old days, any good resident of Happy Vulva would have said dominance was a dick kind of thing — phallocentric. But for Bechdel this method and aesthetic work just fine. From the beginning, she says in the Essential introduction, her impulse was to pin down the girls she drew; check out the rod-like instrument her cartoon self has in hand when demonstrating this thought. For what it’s worth, the approach has a lot in common with the picture Fun Home gives of her father and his compulsive, unending attempt to nail down family and home into a tableau; Sydney and her father also look and act a good deal like Mr. Bechdel, what with their glasses, their bookishness and luxury, and their high-handed way with students.

And do check out the whole top 30 albums of the year list at the factual opinion. I write a brief blurb in there somewhere too if you can find it.

HU Is Dead...Long Live HU

2009-12-11T10:10:00.000-08:00

As we've mentioned a time or two, HU is moving bit, byte, and barrel over to the new! improved! Comics Journal website!

Though we'll be at a different location, our content will not change; you'll still have your long meandering posts about Wonder Woman and gender, your enthusiastic manporn reviews; your quest for mainstream titles that do not suck; your erudite explorations of comics classics.; your irritatingly named roundtables,; your music downloads no one listens to, your occasional Thai pop videos, and all the other fun features which you've come to expect when you click over here.

Also, coming up later this week at the new space, I'm going to try to get myself fired, and then (presuming that doesn't work) we're going to have a knock-down drag-out roundtable on Dan Clowes' Ghost World.

All of which is to say, I hope you'll follow us to our new location. And if you have a link to us on your site (and thank you!) I hope you'll redirect it to where the new content is.

This address will stay in place as an archive. I thought, as long as we're going, I would post some links to a few of my favorite posts from the past years. Feel free to just skip ahead to the new site if the maudlin nostalgia seems too intense.

______________________

The first post I did to this site was my long, complete interview with Johnny Ryan, an expurgated version of which ran in TCJ a ways back.

Also going back a bit is this gallery of cartoons by the amazing editorial cartoonist Art Young. From that page you can click around to some other images and my essay on the cartoonist, if you're so inclined.

One of my favorite roundtables on the site (featuring Bill Randall, Tom Crippen, and Miriam Libicki) was our discussion of the feminist Japanese manga Helter Skelter by Kyoko Okazaki. That discussion also links up at the end to the Mary Sue roundtable, which is also one of my favorites, so you can click over there if you're just not getting enough roundtableism.

Tucker Stone and I did a back and forth discussion of Bob Haney's Brave and Bold.

Tom Crippen's epic discussion of Marvel Comics and Civil War is the piece that really won me over to his writing when I saw it in the Comics Journal. It's great.

Miriam Libicki's post on Rogue of the X-Men is shorter, but also a favorite of mine.

I also love Bill Randall's apocalyptic vision of manga as apocalyptic coccoon.

And Kinukitty's even more obsessive than you've grown to expect discussion of "In the End."

And for more recent highlights: our Sandman roundtable and Steven Grant's great guest post on race and comics, and Richard's review of Image United.

_________________

And...I think that's it. I'm kind of reluctant to go; it's a little sad to say goodbye to the place, even if we're not really leaving the internets. Thanks to all the bloggers who have been kind enough to lend their talents here, to the folks who have linked to us, to our commenters, and to our readers. Hope to see you all soon on the flip side.

Empowered, Vol 1

2009-12-10T11:11:00.000-08:00

Empowered, Adam Warren

You know one of those weeks where you're so tired you're stumbling and your boss of course chooses to give you yet another boring but incredibly difficult project, and there is yet another freak ice storm which kills all your pansies, and you clean off your dog's muddy foot and discover that you've just smeared dog poo around on your bare hand?

Yes, that would be my week.

I flopped onto my La-Z-boy one day during that awful hideous week and sighed. I was not up for another bad comic with lumpy people in spandex, I just wasn't. I couldn't face beautifully drawn pretty boys, either, in case there was random non-con. I just wanted something, well, fun. And funny, if it could be had. I pawed around my stack of to be read books rather listlessly, spilling them all over the floor and tossing them over my shoulder as I went. Tenant of Wildfell Hall--good, but too long. Toss. In Praise of Idleness--nice idea, but who needs philosophy? Toss. MARC 21 For Everyone--yeah, right. Toss.

Empowered. Huh.

That was supposed to be good, I thought, and wrestled off the aggressive shrinkwrap.

An hour later, I was still chortling when I had to go wrestle my Pookie back inside from where he was telling the facts of life (Thou Shall Not Look at my people, Thou Shall Not approach my yard, Thou Shall Not even think about coming over this fence) to the new yappy dog next door.

In this volume, we meet Emp, the heroine of the tale and the eponymous Empowered. She has this supersuit that gives her powers, but it's shrinkwrap tight and very thin. When it gets torn--as it does very easily--it loses powers. She's famous for getting taken hostage, tied up and gagged with a ball gag, wearing her torn and scanty suit. Despite this, she's a better superhero than the rest of the Super Homeys, of which she is an Associate Member.

I found this comic incredibly endearing, direly funny, and rather feminist. Also, hot. Emp is beautiful, but she's not hot just because she's beautiful. I can flip through a lot of lovingly drawn bodacious babes in spandex and be bored. No, it's Emp's spunk and humanity that make her so hot. Also, she has a nice butt.

This is drawn by a man who likes women to have actual thighs, and unlike many superhero comics, her thighs are fat. It's cute and hot. Emp, of course, is worried about how she looks. There's a very spot on portrayal of her concern about the suit--which reveals everything--when Sista Spooky makes fun of Emp for having a panty line. Which means thereafter she goes without. Which means, ahem, that she has to take care of certain things down there so as not to show, well, wiry realities to all and sundry.

Emp is both brave and real--her concerns I would have and can relate to. Her bravery is amazing because she has these human feelings and failings. Supeman's bravery is not interesting or amazing, because he's never worried about how the tights looked on him and he's not too worried that the train will smash him, either. Emp has to worry about both and she dashes into danger anyway.

She also has a terrible part time job in retail.

I laughed and laughed through this comic, because so much of it is so painfully true. Who hasn't had a crappy job, struggled to make ends meet, and lied through their teeth to their mom when she's called to ask how things are going? 'Oh, fine,' we say, eating consolatory ice cream, the only good thing in our lives and probably costing more per pint than half our grocery budget for the week, 'things are going well.' And Emp does this.

Along the way, she is joined by Thug Boy, who is a great boyfriend and Ninjette, who is a great best friend. But it's Emp that I feel for and who I'll be buying the next volume to get more of. There's also a possessed alien device, superheroes who got their mutant powers through alien STDs, and some hilarious side jobs for Thug Boy. But I think Noah covered all of that.

Highly recommended if you are in need of a sexy and funny comic to cheer up your week.

Original Art : Some Lessons from the Contemporary Art Market

2009-12-09T07:30:00.000-08:00

When you combine ignorance and leverage, you get some pretty interesting results.

I never attempt to make money on the stock market. I buy on the assumption that they could close the market the next day and not reopen it for five years.

Price is what you pay. Value is what you get.

- Warren Buffet

The reason why I've chosen to start this blog entry with some quotes by the world's most famous investor is, in a sense, the same reason why an economist by training chose to write a book about the contemporary fine art market (the book in question is Don Thompson's The $12 Million Stuffed Shark: The Curious Economics of Contemporary Art). It is also the reason why the same book has been mentioned sporadically in original art (OA) circles including industry professionals like former TCJ editor, Robert Boyd.

While original art was never designed as an investment tool, that is exactly what it is often viewed and discussed as - often by default considering the high prices commanded in recent years for certain pieces. Certainly original art is viewed as a business by many of the significant players in the hobby and a working knowledge of the original art market is indispensable if anybody has a mind to acquire comics art without losing one's shirt. It is a rare thing indeed for a discussion of comics art to revolve around the aesthetic qualities of the page in question. Discussions inevitably return to questions of price. Questions of value are often more discretely handled through the privacy of personal messages if at all. Such is the nature of a hobby which values a degree of sensitivity to fellow collectors and their tastes.

Buffet is long term investor who aims to divorce emotions from any act of investment. In contrast a skilled professional trader successfully preys upon the emotions of the amateurs who form the bulk of the market. Buffet's reminder to assess the underlying value of a stock also applies to a piece of original art. Yet the average collector would have great difficulty in calculating the equivalent of a PE ratio or NAV for a piece of original art. What makes it doubly hard to put various time tested ideas in investing into practice in the original art market is the fact that the appreciation of a significant proportion of the art is predicated to a large extent on fluff - emotions filtered through nostalgia. It is a market ripe for manipulation.

Don Thompson's book has gained more notice in recent times because of the collapse of the contemporary fine art market.The original art community's interest in Thompson's book pertains to its accurate description of the irrational aspects of collecting art, the market forces which can be applied to a hypothetical original art bubble and the apparent immunity of the original art market to such forces.

Here are a few quotes from the book up here which may be relevant to original art collecting not only for their similarities but for their significant differences. I present them without commentary so it would be wise to evaluate Thompson's statements and facts with care:

"The experienced art collector will take a work home before buying it, to look at it several times a day. The question is whether a week or a month hence, after the novelty disappears, the message and painter's skill will still be apparent."

""Never underestimate how insecure buyers are about contemporary art, and how much they always need reassurance." This is a truth that everyone in the art trade seems to understand, but no one talks about. The insecurity does not mean art buyers lack ability. It simply means that for the wealthy, time is their scarcest resource...So, very often, the way the purchase decision for contemporary art is made is not just about art, but about minimizing that insecurity."

"Of the thousand artists who had serious gallery shows in New York and London during the 1980s, no more than twenty were offered in evening auctions at Christie's or Sotheby's in 2007. Eight of ten works purchased directly from an artist and half the works purchased at auction will never again resell at their purchase price. In the end, the question "what is judged to be valuable contemporary art" is determined first by major dealers, later by branded auction houses, a bit by museum curators who stage special shows, very little by art critics, and hardly at all by buyers."

"[Jasper] Johns was in awe of [Leo] Castelli's ability to market art. In 1960 Willem de Kooning said of Castelli, "That son of a bitch, you could give him two beer cans and he could sell them." Johns laughed and created a sculpture of two Ballantine Ale empties. Castelli immediately sold the work to collectors Robert and Ethel Scull. The cans are now in a German museum."

"One former Gagosian employee claims that in about a quarter of the cases, clients says "I'll take it" without ever asking "What does it look like?" or "How much?". These are not cold-calls; they are made to existing clients only. Gagosian says he avoids what he calls "impatient money," that which chases art only as a short-term investment."

"The reassurance given by the dealer's brand is reinforced by the behavior of the crowd. As critic Robert Hughes says of New York collectors: "Most of the time they buy what other people buy. They move in great schools, like bluefish, all identical. There is safety in numbers. If one wants Schnabel, they all want Schnabel, if one wants Keith Haring, two hundred Keith Harings will be sold.""

"When a work appears at auction, some dealers bid up to what it would sell for at the dealership, to protect the gallery market. Some buy back the work to protect the artist from going unsold. Opinion differs as to whether such price support is necessary. Some claim that it is an absolute obligation for dealers..."

"When, after a long bidding battle, the auctioneer hammered down Mark Rothko's painting White Center (Yellow, Pink and Lavender on Rose) at $71.7 million, there was sustained audience applause. What was being celebrated? The buyer's oil wealth? The triumph of his ego? His aesthetic taste? A new record price, sometimes well above that asked for a similar work earlier that day by the gallery down the street? When the auction hammer falls, price becomes equated with value, and this is written into art history." [bolds mine]

"Robert Storr...says one of the challenges facing museums is "getting the public to forget the economic history of the object once it leaves the market; the more stress on how much a museum or donor paid...the more likely people will miss seeing the work of art because of preoccupation about the price tag."....Art critics and curators also follow the dictates of art prices. Expensive work becomes meaningful in part because it is expensive. Critics write essays interpreting the work of Jeff Koons or Tracey Emin - and many articles about Damien Hirst - but never admit that the reason the work has meaning is because so much has been paid for it...The history of contemporary art would be different if there were no reported auction results..."

"How does a work then come to be worth $12 million or $140 million? This has more to do with the way the contemporary art market has become a competitive high-stakes game, fueled by great amounts of money and ego...The value of one work of art compared to another is in no way related to the time or skill that went into producing it, or even whether anyone even considers it to be great art."

"Perceived scarcity also produces inflated prices. It does not have to be real scarcity; it can occur when an artist's primary dealer withholds her work and announces the existence of a queue of high-status buyers. It isn't that anyone believes the artist's work might never again be available; it is a combination of fear that prices will go up, coupled with the "I will pay to have it now" approach of the wealthy young collector.""

"Art prices are propelled by what is known in economics as a ratchet effect. A ratchet turns in only one direction, and then locks in place...The ratchet effect in art occurs when two collectors bid up the auction price of a Matthias Weischer oil to ten times the gallery's list price, and this becomes a new reference price below which no collector wants to sell. In an auction, a form of ratchet is at work when the first five items sell for double their estimate. The higher quality items that follow must be worth more."

"If the ratchet, perceived scarcity, and too much money consistently push prices up, is the entire contemporary art market just a bubble, a form of Dutch tulip craze? Art dealers and auction specialists never use the word "crash", and hate the word "bubble". The immutable rule in a buoyant art market is that the participants suspend all doubt."

"Tobias Meyer famously claimed that "The best art is the most expensive because the market is so smart." Jerry Saltz responds, "This is exactly wrong. The market isn't 'smart', it's like a camera - so dumb it'll believe anything you put in front of it...everyone says the market is 'about quality', the market merely assigns value, fetishizes desire, charts hits and creates ambience."

_______________________________________________

One of the most acrimonious public debates this year pertaining to the wheeling and dealing in the original art market occurred sometime in July on the Collector's Society original art message board where the collectors Felix Lu (a relatively new collector with a penchant for digging out dirt) and Jonathan Mankuta (a self-described big player in the original art market) clashed over a piece of art. It also involved the dealer Mike Burkey (one of the oldest and most canny dealers in the business) who runs Romitaman.com. It is a dispute which will be very familiar to original art collectors but a short summary might be of some interest to people who don't indulge.

In short, a Kirby splash page from X-Men #2 appeared on Burkey's website with an asking price of $150,000. Lu suggested that it was overpriced and actually on consignment with Burkey with Mankuta as the possible consignee. It was a dispute which escalated to accusations of the page being shopped to various collectors with no success prior to the alleged consignment, imputations of nefarious dealings and, not unexpectedly, mutual belittlement. The thread in question can be found here (with a parallel discussion on the Comicart list) and takes in talk (real or suggested) of a black listing, humorous asides concerning black robed original art cabals and exclusive "sandboxes" for the big players in original art collecting. Readers of Seth's Wimbledon Green will be amused.

Questioning the "ethics" of comic art dealers would also appear to be a particularly touchy subject in the hobby. I suspect that many of these complaints would fall by the way side if most collectors viewed original art dealers in the same way they viewed professional stock traders who I do not consider definitively immoral but who should probably be held at arms length by those seeking to dive into such waters.

It is of course a far cry from the straightforward market manipulation in the contemporary art market as described in Don Thompson's book or Ben Lewis' documentary. The asking price of $150,000 for the X-Men splash was probably inflated because of the expectation of a mixture of trade involved in such deals (i.e. deals in which other similarly inflated pieces of art are exchanged). A whole different economy comes into play when cold hard cash is the medium of exchange as it is with most auction houses and sites such as Heritage Auction Galleries which only accepts cash (sometimes leveraged I do believe but still "cash"). This historically important and very early Kirby and Ayers Journey Into Mystery #84 Thor splash which was recently sold for $44,182.50 at a Heritage auction (a mere fraction of the asking price for the X-Men splash) is a case in point.

There are signs though that the original art market is far more healthy than some collectors had hoped. The incredulity which greeted the sale of a Steve Ditko Mr. A splash page (which sold for close to $38,000 at the same auction) is the "freak" result getting the most mileage at present.

For those not in the know, this dollar value is higher than most of the Dtiko Amazing Spider-Man pages sold recently at auction. The same auction saw this Prince Valiant Sunday going for $21,510.

Some believe the depreciation of the US dollar against the Euro is a factor in these relatively high prices but a quick look at the Prince Valiant Sundays which have come up in recent auctions would suggest that the price has also been bumped up by the quality of the Sunday in question. Similarly, a very respectable and historically important Krazy Kat Sunday went for $27,485 at the same auction. It is not the best Krazy Kat Sunday that has come up for auction in recent years but it is perhaps in the top 20% in terms of aesthetic quality if such things can even be gauged accurately.

I believe that the most important reason (and there are many I assure you) for the original art markets apparent resistance to the global economic downturn is that in absolute terms, the sums of money being discussed are still small - even more so in global terms with the falling US Dollar and incipient inflationary pressures. Certainly the sums involved are small enough that any leverage involved is minimal. The entire original art market is insignificant enough in economic terms that it will never be provided with very large amounts of excess liquidity - an important component in the formation of asset bubbles. Nor does it provide anything close to the requisite amount of bragging rights which fueled the madness seen in the fine art market. If there is a bubble forming in comics original art, it is a small one.

This is not to say that current original art prices present themselves as value buys - that's anyone's guess. Still it must be said that you couldn't buy a car (a depreciating "asset") in Singapore for the cost of the Krazy Kat Sunday mentioned above and there are many of those zipping around the streets where I live. Actually, you couldn't even pay for the right to buy a car (called a Certificate of Entitlement or COE) in Singapore for the price of an average Krazy Kat Sunday.

I present these facts in order to provide some perspective on the real cost of original art. Prices for original art seem crazy only because of the provincial attitude with which the entire original art market is viewed. I say this even though I'm a collector (albeit a lackadaisical one) of original art myself. While there is something to be said for a certain kind of naïveté there are a number of associated traits which collectors might do well to leave far behind in these shark-infested waters.

Crime Pays

2009-12-08T12:00:00.000-08:00

Filthy Rich
Writer: Brian Azzarello
Artist: Victor Santos

We live in a society of rules: no killing, no stealing, no coveting thy neighbor's hot wife. Most of us obey these rules without question, and we tell ourselves that society is better off when everyone does the same. There's also the fact that breaking the rules can lead to punishment, ranging from fines to imprisonment and even death.

On the other hand, screw the Man! Nobody wants to be a square their whole life. Every now and then a little murder, theft, and debauchery adds spice to an otherwise hum-drum existence. And as much as our society demonizes the criminal, we all fantasize about what it would be like to throw the rules out the window and do whatever we want. This is why crime fiction never goes out of style. In fact, crime fiction gives us the best of both worlds. We can vicariously break the rules and indulge our every depraved fantasy even as we condemn such behavior in others. Crime pays, as long as it's someone else who suffers the inevitable consequences.

Crime fiction has a long history in American comics, but over the decades it became marginalized or subsumed by the dominant superhero genre. In recent years, however, crime comics have made a modest comeback, and Vertigo is set to capitalize on this trend with its new imprint, the prosaically named Vertigo Crime. And what better way to launch a series of crime comics than to recruit Brian Azzarello, one of the few comic writers with a proven track record in the genre?

Filthy Rich is the story Rich "Junk" Junkin, a broken-down ex-football star who's been reduced to selling used cars (in crime fiction, used car salesman is one step below crack-addicted prostitute in terms of shameful jobs). Junk is terrible at selling cars, but he's big and tough, so the owner of the car dealership offers him a different job; shadowing his trampy daughter Vicki around town and ensuring that she doesn't get into too much trouble.

Of course, there wouldn't be much of a story if Junk just did what he was told. Enamored with both Vicki and her luxurious lifestyle, Junk quickly gets sucked into a wild plot filled with sex, violence, and the promise of a big payout. If this story sounds vaguely familiar, it's because Azzarello is relying heavily on the tropes of the crime genre: Junk is the two-fisted hero, Vicki is the femme fatale, and even the "good" characters have ulterior motives. The story is also set during some undisclosed period after World War II, allowing Azzarello to evoke the spirit of classic film noir such as Double Indemnity.

But if Filthy Rich doesn't exactly reinvent the crime wheel, it's far more than a rehash of earlier works. Azzarello knows how to craft a pot-boiler, and this story moves briskly even as it throws a few surprise twists at the reader. Another strength in Azzarello's writing is his ability to give each of his characters clear, relatable motivations. Junk commits monstrous acts not simply out of abstract emotions like greed or lust, but because of the sting of classism and frustrated dreams.

Victor Santos is a good partner for Azzarello. Much like Azzarello's writing, Santos relies upon the look of film noir and classic crime comics from the 1940s and 50s (if you click on the link, you should check out the covers for Crimes by Women. If ever a Golden Age comic called out for a reboot...) Men are either square-jawed or shifty, women are sultry, nighttime takes up 90% of the day, and even during daytime every room is half in shadow. This look is aided immensely by the fact that the Filthy Rich is in black-and-white. I can only shudder to think how digital coloring would have ruined the contrast between light and dark.

If Vertigo Crime continues to publish comics of this caliber, then all I can say is down with superheroes, up with crime!

Gluey Tart: The Wallflower

2009-12-07T18:42:00.000-08:00

The Wallflower, Tomoko Hayakawa, Del Ray

I've been following this series for a long time – I started with the first volume in 2004. I have all 21 volumes out so far (the run is 24), although I stalled out somewhere in there and I've only read 1-16. This has caused me mild anxiety. "But why, Kinukitty?" I hear you asking. "Please, tell us all about it, no matter how boring!" Well, how nice of you. I think I will.

When I fall in love, I become irrational. As I finish each volume of a manga, the specter of having to wait several months for the next one makes me twitch and yell out random obscenities and become despondent and stuff. Cue the irrational hoarding behavior. I try to wait until I've accumulated three or four volumes before I'll start reading again, trying to, I don't know, concentrate the anxiety. Or minimize the bouts of insanity. This strategy plays out in various ways. Sometimes I forget the series exists for six months at a time, which is perfect. Then I buy the last three volumes, read them in one big, happy wallow, and the cycle repeats. Sometimes I fall out of love with the series and decide I'd rather eat pocket lint than finish it. This usually happens only when I've actually bought several volumes in advance. But sometimes, when I really, really, really love a series, I just won't let myself read it for, like, a year, hoping to completely forget about it for so long that eons will have passed by the time I think of it again, and all the volumes will be available, and I can sit down and read them in one long, orgasmic orgy of happiness and completion.

And that, gentle reader, is my situation with The Wallflower. I keep buying each new volume as it comes out because I'm deeply afraid they will disappear from the face of the earth in the interim and I won't even be able to buy them used and then I'll die. But, at the same time, I pretend I don't know the series exists, because I'm not ready to break down and start reading it again. This is where a genuine case of multiple personality disorder would be helpful. Every time I buy a new volume and add it to the stack, I'm in danger of upsetting the delicate "balance" I've established.

Which is what happened with volume 21. I'd been holding out on actually reading Wallflower since volume 12 – released in, holy shit, June 2007! That's a lot of holding out. I am amazing! (Ahem.) But it's all over. I fell off the wagon. I just read volumes 13-16, and I will be mowing through 17, 18, etc. until I finish them all. Don't get in my way; you might lose a finger.

After finishing volume 16, I decided I must write about The Wallflower. No, I really must. But I also felt strongly that I should wait until I've caught up. And it will take me a little while to read the next five, since I'm really quite busy working in soup kitchens and advocating for world peace and getting my health-care plan passed and such. Oh, wait. That's not my life at all. What the hell am I spending all my time doing? My house is a mess, I haven't cooked since 1997, and all my clothes are stained or rumpled. Sometimes both. (I do have some very cool shoes, though.) Well, it's a mystery, although I suppose the damned job might factor into it. At any rate, it'll take me a while to finish five more volumes of this manga, and Gluey Tart the column waits for no man or woman, not even Gluey Tart the person. Content! The Internet demands content!

I worried, at first, that it would be wrong to just write about it without reading all the volumes. But then I thought about the 16 I've read, and I decided – as I so often do – oh, fuck it. In fact, that's sort of my personal motto. The truth is, it just doesn't matter where I am in the series. Volume 16, volume 21 – it doesn’t matter. This is an episodic comedy, not a linear narrative. And there are not, shall we say, huge deviations in plot along the way. There is a certain sameness. We're good. It's fine.

Let's talk about the plot, then, such as it is. The main character is Sunako, who is described as Goth. It would be tremendously geeky and pedantic of me to point out the reasons why she isn’t really Goth, so I’ll try to restrain myself. She’s something like Goth. She likes to stay in her dark room, which is decorated with skulls and anatomical figures and skeletons and stuff, and her favorite thing to do – besides cooking – is shut herself in her room – in the dark – and watch horror and slasher films – with the anatomical figures and skeletons. Which all have names. Sunako’s appearance is terrifying to others, and when she isn’t drawn as a sort of hyper-deformed dumpling, she looks like the girl from Ringu. She lives with four hot young men, whom she refers to as “creatures of light.” She is, obviously, magnificent.

The foundation joke is that Sunako’s aunt, a fabulously gorgeous and wealthy jet-setter, has promised the four beautiful boys free rent in her opulent mansion, where they live with Sunako, if they can turn Sunako into a lady. Which is, as they say, not bloody likely. Hi-jinks ensue, and after ten volumes or so, Hayakawa reveals herself to be an irrepressible cock tease. We are all but promised that Sunako will get together with Kyohei, and maybe it will actually happen by the end of the series, but I’m not holding my breath. Their weird little romance plays out sweetly, though, so I’m happy enough. More on that in a bit, though. (Their romance, not my happiness, which might, possibly, not be your primary concern or interest. Strange as that sounds.)

Throughout the series, the boys cook up stupid plans to lady-ify Sunako, and through the unbeatable forces of her indomitable will, kick-ass martial arts skills, and breath-taking craziness, everything goes wrong and one or more parties often needs to be rescued. Sunako does about as much rescuing of the boys as vice versa, so I’m fine with that. This is all complicated by the epic attractiveness of the boys, who are basically being chased through life by crazed, rabid fan girls from all over the country. They are very pretty prettyboys, drawn to look like Hayakawa’s favorite musicians. (Most of her filler notes are about the bands she loves fanatically, and these are really charming.) (The rest are about her cat.) The boys spend a lot of time posing provocatively, getting their clothes torn off, and/or suddenly indulging in inexplicable bouts of cosplay. Which is kind of awesome. If I were drawing volume after volume of beautiful boys over and over, I’d throw them into weird, sexy costumes for no reason, too. I mean, why wouldn’t you?

OK, back to that romance. It is a very low-key romance, but it pleases me immeasurably. Every once in a while something goes amazingly wrong and ends up with Sunako and Kyohei holding hands and staring into each others’ eyes. And then her nose spurts blood and she runs away and he stares at her in horror. Occasionally Kyohei’s actions betray him and it is momentarily apparent that he has feelings for Sunako, but mostly not so much. He’s a tough-guy (a tough-guy prettyboy), and mostly he’s blunt and disinterested and kind of selfish. Sort of like Sunako. They get along in unexpected ways.

Here’s an example, from volume 16. Sunako’s aunt sequesters Sunako and the four boys in a secluded cabin to protect them (the boys) from crazed girls on Valentine’s Day. The plan backfires that night, though, when they find themselves all alone in a deserted cabin, and there’s something in the woods. It’s one of the horror movie set-ups Hayakawa loves to play with. Well, the something in the woods is a terrifying horde of girls intent on giving chocolate to the boys – and tearing their clothes off. Sunako uses the frenzy to gather up all the chocolate for herself, and at the beginning of the next episode, she’s gained twenty pounds.

Something must be done because Sunako’s aunt has invited her to a party to meet a prince, so the boys enlist help to remove Sunako from the dark room with the candy boxes and get her to run off the extra weight. She gets really, really into it, and the boys think they’ve finally gotten her interested in her appearance. The truth, of course, is that after a few workouts she begins to see muscle development, and that makes her yearn to further develop her muscles – so she can look like the anatomical chart of the human musculature system and finally fit in better with her anatomical dolls and skeleton.

She becomes completely obsessed with this project. At one point, she’s gazing longingly at a lobster and thinking, “This lobster’s legs are so thin and hard… Crustaceans are so lucky…” Then, thinking about how poorly defined she looks in comparison, she gets upset and cracks two lobsters open with her bare hands. Koyhei finds this very impressive and starts helping her train more intensely. She explains to him (after crawling over him and running her hands longingly over his wiry chest and shoulders) that she wants to look just like him. At the end of the episode, Sunako shows up at the party with a body so buff it’s terrifying to behold, and she arm-wrestles with the prince, throwing him to the ground. (To get her to go to the party, Koyhei told Sunako the prince was an arm-wrestling champion who wanted to challenge her. What else would he say?) It all ends well – Sunako loses interest in fitness and goes back to eating chips while watching horror movies with her plastic friends, and it turns out that the prince had liked being wrestled to the floor. A lot.

And that is a pretty typical Wallflower plot. There are those who are driven mad by the glacial pace at which Sunako and Koyhei are getting together, but a conventional courtship isn’t right for these unconventional characters. Hayakawa obviously loves them, and the rest of her cast, and she celebrates their eccentricities and their individuality. It’s a sweet story that heals some of my high school trauma every time I read it. And even though I’ve invested more than $200 in the series so far, that’s still a lot cheaper than therapy.

My Kid Could Do That

2009-12-06T11:33:00.000-08:00

Vom Marlowe did a post last week about the virtues of the stick figure art in xkcd. She noted:

See, I think there's a lot to be said for simplicity and humor and just plain getting the point across. The art needs to serve the point of the communication. Some of the, hmmm, shall we say overmuscled super hero comics seem to miss the idea that the art needs to communicate as much as the words do.

I have a lot of sympathy with that sentiment. Mostly that's probably because...well, here's one of my own drawings from my zine "The Adventures of Eustacia H. Cow."

That's a cow spanking a sentient toaster. Just in case it wasn't clear.

Putting aside my own individual bias, though, there's just a lot of great drawing that looks more or less like it could have been done by a 6 year old. One of the best examples I came across recently was the book "The Hearing Trumpet," by Leonora Carrington. Carrington is best known as a surrealist painter; born in England, she had a relationship with Max Ernst, and then moved to Mexico, where she became good friends with the amazing painter Remedios Varos. (According to Wikipedia, she's still alive, too! She's 92, I guess.)

Anyway, "The Hearing Trumpet" as a novel is something of a mixed bag. It starts off as being about an elderly woman named Marian Leatherby. The everyday, mildly absurd details of Marian's life, and of her friend Carmella, are thoroughly delightful, adn the writing has that distintively English low-key nuttiness that puts it firmly in the tradition of P.G. Wodehouse and Douglas Adams. Carmella's explanation of why Marian needs a hearing trumpet in order to overcome her deafness and spy on her family is priceless.

"You never know," said Carmella. "People under seventy and over seven are very unreliable if they are not cats. You can't be too careful. Besides, think of the exhilarating power of listening to others talk when they think you cannot hear."

"They can hardly avoid seeing the trumpet," I said doubtfully. "It must be a buffalo's horn. Buffalos are very large animals."

"Of course you must not let them see you using it, you have to hide somewhere and listen." I hadn't thought of that, it certainly presented infinite possibilities.

A whole book of that would make me happy. Unfortunately, "The Hearing Trumpet" is a bit like Promethea; entertaining through about the first half, then the author gets distracted by tediously crankish alchemical meanderings and the temptations of religio-mystico profundity. So it goes.

Anyway, I was originally talking about the art. Here's a bunch of elderly ladies doing exercises, including Marian, who has set her era trumpet down off to the side.

There's some of Edward Gorey's sketchiness there, but without his sophistication or elegance. Instead, the proportions seem to elongate or contract to suit the artist's fancy; the woman with the turban (who I believe is Marian) has arms that are as long as her entire body. I love the little hint of motion lines as well; it makes the movements seem as scratchy and idiosyncratic as the figures themselves. And all the scribbles, on the ground, or in the tree indicating the leaves — it's just very energetic and personable.

Or this is great too

That has to be about the most economically rendered transvestite revelation scene ever. The reactions of the two women watching are cleverly differentiated as well, just by slightly changing the positioning of their hands against their faces. I love the way the room itself is sketched too; just three wavery lines to make the corner, and then the more detailed window, so flat and blank it might as well be a picture of a window.

Here's another:

It's all still very stick-figure, obviously, but you can tell she can really draw. The way the bottom of the sled curves up is elegantly done, and that bird is made up of some deceptively fluid lines. Even the little dots of breath coming out of the animals' mouths are pleasingly arranged in half semicircles...and the small dots on the deer(?)'s face are very nice as well.

Of course, simple drawing doesn't always work:

Dilbert's a very simple strip — yet it's also off-puttingly slick. There's none of the sense of quick whimsy you get in Carrington's drawings. You'd think if you were drawing a demon a little flair or wildness might be in order, but nope; it doesn't even really have any expression, nor does it move from panel to panel. The characters look like they're designed on computer...which maybe they are (no, I"m not going to research Scott Adams' technique. I mean, for God's sake, who cares?)

Jeff Brown's work, on the other hand, doesn't look slick— but it's also just really ugly. I think, looking at it in comparison to the Carrington drawings, a lot of the problem is actually how cluttered this is. The shapes defining the window in the middle two panels for example. What do those add? It just makes it look like a mess. The linework also seems more labored than graceful. It's like he's trying to get everything in without thinking about how it looks. The narrative is driving the story, and his art is just struggling to keep up, rather than running with his sketchy style and trying to see where that can take him.

(To be fair, this is a somewhat older strip, and I think recently Brown has actually gotten better at both simplifying and at drawing; some of the more recent work on his site is...not great, but not terrible either. There's nothing especially wrong with this Simpsons pastiche, for example.)

So, yeah, I guess I have to admit that, much as I might like it to be true, just because you can't draw doesn't mean you'll make great art.

Leonara Carrington still kicks Alex Ross' ass, though.

Utilitarian Review 12/5/09

2009-12-05T11:29:00.000-08:00

Well, as you may or may not have noticed, we're still here. Hopefully we'll shift over to TCJ early next week. In the meantime, here is your weekly wrap as usual.

On HU

I started the week off with a long discussion of the question Can Wonder Woman Be a Superdick?

Richard sneered at Image United.

I sneered at Carol Lay's Big Skinny.

Vom Marlowe praised the stick figure art in xkcd.

Kinukitty pledged eternal devotion to Japanese cross-dressing reality shows.

And this week's download features a bunch of things I learned about through the Factual Opinion's year-end best of.

Utilitarians Everywhere

Bert Stabler and I have a long conversation about The Book of Job of all things. Here's probably my best bit:

The second epilogue, perhaps, is the crucifixion. You can see the wheels turning in God's head after Job 42, perhaps, maybe in a kind of Stan Lee or Star Trek vein — "How strange these humans are! So weak, and yet, parodoxically, so strong! I must study them more closely...and to do that I must become — One Of Them!"

Next: Comes a Man-God!

And keeping with the religious theme, I have an article about Anthony Heilbut's gospel compilations over on Madeloud.

Anthony Heilbut is probably the most influential white atheist in African-American gospel music. His 1971 book, The Gospel Sound: Good News and Bad Times, was the seminal study of the genre. In addition to being a scholar, he was also an influential producer and compiler, and the records he put together remain some of the best introductions to the music. Many of his compilations and projects were on vinyl and never made the leap to disc — but many more were done more recently and are still, blessedly, in print.

I have a review of Rihanna's new album over at Metropulse.

And finally, for the new TCJ sight I've reviewed Junko Mizuno's Little Fluffy Gigolo Pelu and Johnny Ryan's Prison Pit. Of course, since the site is in beta, these links may be broken by the time you click on them...which is one reason that going live from Beta is maybe not the best of all possible ideas. Just sayin'.

Other Links

Jog has a massive, encyclopedic discussion of all things manga. I haven't made it through yet, but it looks stunning.

Gary Morris has an interesting discussion of his new book of film interviews here.

And your Thai pop video of the week: Duangjun Suwannee with Mon Boo Doo.

Music For Middle-Brow Snobs: Theme From Jones

2009-12-04T15:00:00.000-08:00

Some blaxploitation themes, some thai pop, and a bunch of things I learned about from participating in the best song of the year extravaganza which will soon be unveiled over at The Factual Opinion.

1. Dennis Coffey — Theme From Black Belt Jones (Can You Dig It?)
2. Joe Simon — Theme From Cleopatra Jones (Can You Dig It?)
3. Tanya Morgan — Alleye Need (Brooklynati)
4. Pamela Bowden — Ruk Tai Luey (Bow Daeng Saraeng Jai)
5. Pamela Bowden — Noo Mai Dai Len (I Can't Play) (Pa Ched Na La Jai)
6. Gui Boratto — No Turning Back (Take My Breath Away)
7.Ulrich Schnauss — Blumenwiese Neben Autobahn (Far Away Trains Passing)
8. Ryan Leslie — Gibberish (Ryan Leslie)
9. Rihanna — Te Amo (Rated R)
10. A Sunny Day in Glasgow — Failure (Ashes Grammar)
11. Yeah Yeah Yeahs — Hysteric (It's Blitz)
12. M. Ward and Zooey Deschanel — Never Had Nobody Like You (She & Him)
13. Yui Yardyer — Park Wa Mue Wai (Yui Yum Yum Vol. 7)
14. Ajareeya Bussaba — Kang Rom Khon Diew (Hua Jai...Mee Ngarn Kao)

Download Theme From Jones.

You can get last week's best of the year mix here.

Gluey Tart: Crossdress Paradise

2009-12-03T17:51:00.000-08:00

Occasionally you discover something so pleasing, so satisfying, so right that the world is suddenly a better place. The sun shines brighter, the birds sing louder – or if you, like Kinukitty, are sitting in a recliner that’s been temporarily parked in the middle of the dining room for so long you are forced to admit that’s actually where it lives now, and it’s past 1 a.m., and your eyes feel like someone’s scraped them down with extra-fine sandpaper, perhaps it would be more appropriate to say the piles of crap all over the place seem less squalid and the roving dust bunnies seem less aggressive. Playful, even.

I do have a point, and that point is that I’m in love. Again. And I owe it all to the Hooded Utilitarian’s very own Suat, who gave me the best tip ever: Crossdress Paradise. Suat! I don’t have words.

I sat in the recliner and watched three specials all in one go, and when I was done, my face hurt from beaming at the computer. I smiled so much it aggravated my TMJ. It was worth it, though, and I went to sleep with a sense of peace and goodwill and whatever that I have seldom known.

Crossdress Paradise is described as a Japanese game show, but I don’t see much game. All the show you could want, though. I’ll set it up for you they way they do, because frankly, nothing about this show could be improved on, not even if I understood what they were saying. Really. The language of Crossdress Paradise is universal. The show opens with two good-looking young guys chatting amiably. They are immediately likable despite the language barrier, and also unbelievably, hilariously funny, if the laugh track is any indication. When the hosts call out “open curtain” – in English, for reasons that are obscure to me – the glitzy silver curtain goes up, and the camera cuts first to the amazed faces of the hosts, and then to the studio audience full of gleeful, amazingly homogeneous high school girls, a sea of clapping, squealing, foot-stomping young ladies wearing almost exactly the same school cardigan, pleated uniform skirt, and big, baggy socks. These girls are not just happy with the transformation (which the home audience hasn’t seen yet) – they are so happy they are losing their collective mind. Finally, the camera cuts to the main event, a cute high school boy, sitting on throne (well, a flower-festooned, wing-backed wicker chair of the sort that featured in a lot of ‘80s prom photos) and dressed in drag. Not frat party drag, either. These guys are done up to pass.

Their hair is styled, their makeup is luminous, their smiles coy and sparkly. After letting us stare in amazement for a few moments, the boys then perform the ceremonial wink at the camera, which is accompanied by an adorable little sound effect. Then, we get another look at the crowd, still going wild. The first special I watched introduced six boys, unveiled one at a time, with lots of close ups to show off their dewy foundation and pearly lip gloss. There are also lots of close ups of them clutching nervously at their knees, trying not to flash all of Japan in their short skirts. One of the most endearing tells all the boys shared was the constant blinking against the unfamiliar onslaught of heavy mascara and liquid eyeliner. I recognized it instantly as a problem I too suffer from, on the rare occasions when I try to dress up and fit into society. I sympathize, pretty crossdressers!

There are several more specials in this series, and they basically make the same joke over and over and over – take the boys out, fool people into thinking they’re actually girls (sometimes by establishing a romantic attraction), and then, the punch line: Ha, ha! He’s a boy! What? Ha ha ha ha ha ha! They obviously think it never gets old, and I have to say I agree. Over the next two episodes, the boys learn to model, and they do a runway show. People are fooled and then everyone shrieks in amazement and hilarity.

A couple of things struck me about this. First off, it’s all very, very cheerful, and everybody is as good-natured and happy as can be. It’s like stumbling into an alternate universe where social injustice, original sin, and global warming never happened. People abuse Oxycontin to feel like this. Also, the boys really want to do a good job. The show isn’t about cross dressing in the sexual sense (although one of them really, really got into it, and I think a new world might have opened up for him). It’s all about humor, and of course Japanese teenagers are under pressure to do well. Even if what they’re doing well is cross dressing. When the TV star flirts with one of the boys, or the model pokes a couple of fake breasts because she can’t quite believe her eyes, the boys are obviously proud. That’s part of the reason it’s all so much fun. There’s no humiliation.

And that is perhaps the most important thing about the show. It’s about boys wearing dresses and makeup and passing as girls, and none of the humor comes from belittling them, or the girls watching them, or the myriad of bystanders who can’t tell what they’re looking at. (Well, as far as I can tell. They could be saying anything, I guess. But it all looks so damned amiable!) The American viewer thinks, over and over, that this couldn’t possibly happen here. There’s no way any version of a show like this could happen in the U.S. Only in Japan, the home of yaoi and fertility festivals where people carry around enormous carved penises. Also the home of cheese ice cream and caramelized potato KitKats. (They can’t all be gems.)

I urge you to carve out four or five hours and watch Crossdress Paradise until you absolutely have to get out of your recliner RIGHT NOW because you have to pee and get yourself a good old American KitKat (chocolate, as God intended), and then probably go to bed. You can thank me (and Suat) later.

Art and craft: xkcd

2009-12-02T08:17:00.000-08:00

xkcd, webcomic
Randall Munroe

As some of you know, I like to ~~rant~~ blog about the art aspect of the comics I read. I love JH Williams and I love Alphonse Mucha and Caravaggio, and from this, one might reasonably suppose that I abhor a lot of art.

Which I do. But I also love a lot of art. The great thing about successful art is that it communicates. Art doesn't have to be perfectly anatomically correct, pure of line, based on divine proportion, or created with pigments ground from semi-precious stones in order to make the reader sigh, laugh, or feel that moment of beauty. It just has to work.

Check this out:

I love this. The art is simple, but it's got a kind of silly grace to it that makes it perfect for its subject matter. There's no weird lumpy anatomy getting in the way of the joke or the compassion. There's just the guy on his deck and the woodpecker.

And this, titled "Duty Calls":

Come on, who hasn't been there?

The anatomy is perfect. Yes, I know it's a stick figure, but work with me here. The impact on the keys. The forward focus. The flat screen and the computer chair.

This doesn't depend on anatomy, but it does depend on perspective and layout. It's also funny and sweet and warming. I like it.

See, I think there's a lot to be said for simplicity and humor and just plain getting the point across. The art needs to serve the point of the communication. Some of the, hmmm, shall we say overmuscled super hero comics seem to miss the idea that the art needs to communicate as much as the words do. I often wonder what would happen if the dialog was removed from the mainstream comics I have been reading. Would anyone still look at it? I'm not so sure.

But back to xkcd. It's funny. And I love that. I am going to leave you with one of my absolute favorite comics of all time, which I have been tempted to buy in tee shirt form. (I have not, as yet, ever been tempted to buy another comic in shirt form.)

This is really better large, so here's the link.

The Big Skinny

2009-12-01T23:48:00.000-08:00

Carol Lay
The Big Skinny
Villard Books

At the beginning of "Big Skinny," Carol Lay draws herself being approached by a hostess at a party. "How did you lose all that weight?" the hostess asks. "I count calories and exercise every day," Lay responds.

And so the conversation coughs once, staggers slightly, and flops down dead.

Lay would have us believe that the problem here was that the hostess wanted a more juicy rationale for the weight-loss: liposuction, pills, bypass surgery, whatever. There's a simpler explanation, though. Dieting is just boring. The hostess didn't really want to talk about Lay's diet; she was just issuing a polite compliment. The correct response would have been, "Oh, thank you! And you look lovely too! Let's talk about something more interesting, like sports, or Barack Obama's new puppy, or how to make love to an importunate dolphin (practical tips available here.) Or...we could talk about paint drying? Please?"

But, alas, no. Lay thinks dieting is interesting. She's written a whole book on the subject, in fact. In it, she talks about her history as an overeater. She provides lists of disgusting foods she's consumed. She mentions having eaten a pan of Raid-killed ants under the misapprehension that they were chocolate sprinkles. (That bit was pretty funny, actually.) She gives how-to notes on counting calories. She throws in a joke about how she's got so much willpower she'd even turn down George Clooney if he showed up at her door with McDonald's take-out. And it's a comic, so she can actually draw George Clooney at her door — isn't that clever? Then she talks about her history as an overeater — wait, didn't she do that already?

Yes she did. And she may have talked about it again, and again, and again for all I know. I only got about 50 pages in, and that was plenty, thank you very much. The intrinsic tediousness of the material would be bad enough, but Lay adds to it the aggressively insufferable moral grandstanding of the recent convert. She used to be depressed and grumpy...but now that her body is burning her brain for fuel, she just feels so cheerful and powerful! Don't you want to feel cheerful and powerful too? Don't you want to get a scale that measures your weight to a tenth of a pound? Don't you want to feel completely morally justified in your ravenous self-obsession? If you do, pick this up. It has pictures too. I only received black-and-white proofs, so I guess they might even look somewhat less generically bland in color. After all, as any sunny self-appointed self-help guru will tell you, anything is possible.

___________________
This review first appeared in The Comics Journal.

Working on It

2009-12-01T07:15:00.000-08:00

The new comics journal site is in beta at the moment; I believe they're hoping to have it transferred over to the regular TCJ domain today. The new Hooded Utilitarian space is lagging a bit behind that, I think, but hopefully we'll be over there sometime today...or perhaps later this week at latest.

In the meantime, we'll roll along here as usual....

Update: Couple more days on this site I guess...so maybe we'll get over there Thursday or Friday? Something like that, anyway.

Event of the Century!

2009-11-30T12:00:00.000-08:00

Image United #1
Writer: Robert Kirkman
Artists: Larsen, Liefeld, McFarlane, Portacio, Silvestri, Valentino

Working for Marvel Comics may be a dream come true for a lot of young artists, but it's a raw deal when you think about it. If you just do your job and get your pages in on time, nobody but hardcore fanboys will ever remember your name. But if you're actually creative and introduce some new characters and ideas, Marvel "rewards" you by taking ownership of all your creations and maybe paying royalties if by a miracle your characters appear in other media. In 1992, several superstar artists said enough was enough and they left Marvel to form Image Comics.

For a brief period, Image was king. Everyone* was excited about the next generation of superheroes, who all had cool names like Spawn and Savage Dragon. But according to Internet wisdom, those early Image comics weren't any good. Lacking in competent characterization and storytelling, the comics relied instead on flashy art and lots of gore and cheesecake. I can't personally confirm any of that, as my knowledge of Image was limited to a few issues of Spawn and WildCATS that I borrowed from my brother and neglected to return. I didn't hate them (I was a kid and easy to pander to) but they must not have made much of an impression because I don't remember anything about those books and never bothered to collect them.

But that was back in the 90's. It's almost 2010 now, and Image is an established publisher (if nowhere near the size of Marvel or DC). And being an established comics publisher in North America means publishing superhero crossovers. Even a cursory glance at the Direct Market sales for Secret Invasion or Blackest Night reveals that everyone** loves superhero crossovers. That's why the hot shot creators from 1992 (minus Jim Lee) came together to give the fanboys one more thing to buy, Image United. And I bought it too, because what the hell, it's only money.

So what does a creator-owned crossover look like?

Right off the bat, I recognized Spawn, Savage Dragon, and Witchblade, but I had no clue who the rest of them were. To his credit, Robert Kirkman seems to understand that Image United could be a reader's first exposure to Image, so he spends a good portion of the book laboriously introducing everyone. And since these are Image characters they all have hardcore names like Badrock (big guy in back), Ripclaw (below Spawn), Shadowhawk (upper left), Fortress (middle), and the unironically named Shaft. Things get complicated fairly quickly though, as a dozen more characters are introduced in rapid succession. With such a large cast, it's not surprising that most of the characters lack distinguishable personalities.

With all the introductions, the story just barely gets started. Supervillains are simultaneously causing trouble in various cities, and the heroes don't know who's coordinating the attacks. But the readers do, because the main villain shows up at the end. Apparently, the Image Universe is being threatened by none other than Al Simmons! Don't feel bad if you have no idea who the hell Al Simmons is, I didn't either. If you look up "Al Simmons" on Wikipedia you'll find entries for a baseball player and a Canadian musician who specializes in children's music. But Al Simmons was also the civilian identity of the original Spawn, who I guess lost the job at some point. You learn new things every day.

But screw the story, let's talk about the art. Six different artists worked on this book, but don't ask me who did what because ... I'm going to level with you guys. I don't have an encyclopedic knowledge of comic book artists. I don't know what Whilce Portacio's style looks like. I'm pretty sure I can recognize what Rob Liefeld drew but only because of the extra teeth in each mouth. Does that mean I'm not qualified to review this comic? If you're a hardcore fanboy, my opinion probably doesn't mean shit to you, but I'm okay with that. I'm still going to argue that the art in this comic leaves something to be desired.

(The following image may be offensive to people who hate cheesecake and/or bad anatomy). Let's begin with this panel featuring Cyberforce.

There's a lot of linework and detail, but it's all in service to a rather drab scene. A bunch of generic, techno-themed heroes are standing in front of boxes and gray walls. That's not eye-catching. And the woman on the far right is trying her hardest to pull off the brokeback pose.

Moving on to big fight scene. There are about five gallons worth of steroids in this panel.

This is supposed to be the dramatic smackdown of the issue, but it feels rather flat. Like so many listless fight scenes in so many mediocre comics, the characters come across less like they're pounding each other and more like they're posing for a picture. The static nature of the fight is only reinforced by the tendency of the characters to have lengthy chats in between punches. Of course, many superhero fans would argue this is just a convention of the genre. But it's a shitty convention perpetuated by lousy comics, so why defend it?

Now for the big reveal.

I have to admit, if I were a 12 year old I'd probably think this was the coolest image ever (except for the left hand, which seems detached from the rest of the body). But how many 12 year olds are actually reading superhero comics these days? I suspect that Image United is geared towards the same adult readership that DC and Marvel compete for. And judging this panel as an adult, Omega Spawn comes across as a design that tries too hard but doesn't get very far. He looks just like regular Spawn, but with more pointy crap layered on the standard outfit.

To sum up, the creators tried to make a book that was appealing to new readers, but they couldn't think outside the tiny box that is mainstream superhero comics. While the story is easily comprehensible, only the true believers will give a shit. In my case, I didn't know who half the characters were but I was able to follow along. But the comic didn't have any emotional impact on me, as there's nothing in the story that leads me to care what happens to these people. I'm not terribly concerned that Omega Spawn is going to blow up the Image Universe and deny me the awesomeness of (white) Shaft. The art is also intended for the true believers, relying heavily on genre conventions like talky fight scenes, steroidal men, and ridiculously busty women.

But maybe the Image creators were only ever interested in pandering to the same old base. And if they wanted to produce a crossover as insular and self-reverential as Secret Invasion or Blackest Night, then they've succeeded.

*By everyone, I mean 12 year old boys.

**By everyone, I mean 30 year 0ld men.

Can Wonder Woman Be a Superdick? (part 1)

2009-11-29T08:36:00.000-08:00

I've been doing a series of posts about superheroes and gender. In the most recent I talked about superdickery. Superdickery here refers to the way super-heroes tend to stand in for the uber-patriarch, both as benign law-giver and as evil ogre-father. In the post, I talked especially about how Marvel's innovation was to shift more explicitly towards the idea of superhero as nightmare ogre-father (the Hulk! the Thing!) Ultimately, though, the ogre-father is still the father; Marvel comics are still about dreams of empowerment, rather than about denigrating or undermining those visions of absolute mastery.

Okay. So...if superheroing is all about superdickery, what happens when you have a female superhero? As the title up there says, can Wonder Woman be a superdick? And, if so, how, if at all, is that dickishness different when it's attached to a woman?

There have been a couple of gestures at making Wonder Woman dickish. As I mentioned last post, Kate Beaton's butch WW can be seen as dickish to some extent. And Greg Rucka's WW in the Hiketeia might be considered superdickish in some sense too.

Overall, though, male writers have seemed distinctly uncomfortable with having Wonder Woman act as a superdick. I'm going to talk about some specific examples in a minute. First though, I want to discuss briefly why the superdickery meme is so hard (as it were) to apply to female characters.

In general, the whole point of the superdick is that you have some non-powered weakling (Bruce Banner, Clark Kent, whoever), and then the superhero acts as empowerment fantasy. Bruce Banner can't lay down the law — but Hulk can smash. Peter Parker can't replace Unlce Ben — but Spider-Man can! Bruce Wayne cant' fight evil in his undies — but Batman will. Etc.

On the one hand, this is a pretty simple formulation. On the other hand, though, it is, I think, plugged into some fairly profound dynamics around male identity. As I discussed in this post, this post, and this post, male identity is built around a central incoherence. This incoherence can be seen as biologically Oedipal (with Freud), or as cultural (with Eve Sedgwick.) Either way, the point is that a male is both identified with patriarchal power (the father) and distanced from that power (the child.) To be identified with patriarchal power is to turn one's back on femininity, and in some sense on humanity — so that the uberpatriarch is both a monster and, in some sense, unmasculine, since he rejects women (what gender is the Thing under those briefs, exactly?) But, on the other hand, to be a sniveling child outside of patriarchal power is to be feminized.

In short, the engine behind the super-hero split identity is the anxiety of maleness. Peter/Spider-Man is constantly vacillating between two people because neither one is stable. Peter is under pressure to take up the rod of superdickery and become a real man; Spider-Man is under pressure to cast aside the rod of superdickery and pay attention to the girls already so he can become a real man.

Women aren't implicated in this psychodrama. Female identity isn't incoherent — or at least, it's not incoherent in the same way. A commenter on a recent article of mine at Reason put the point succinctly:

girls can think ninjas are cool without any blowback. Any man who likes sparkly emo vampires is probably sorting through some issues.

That's exactly the point; a girl who likes ninjas doesn't have her femininity called into question (on the contrary, butch women are often considered especially hot, as I argue here. Men who like romance, on the other hand, open themselves up (as it were) to the charge of not being sufficiently masculine.

So that means women have it easy compared to poor, conflicted men, right? Well, not exactly. It's true that female identity is in some sense more stable...but there's a certain amount of coercion which goes into enforcing that stability. Men are always defined by their lack of the phallus, always anxiously scurrying after the unattainable superdick...or dropping it like a hot potato and scurrying away when they get it. Women, on the other hand, aren't supposed to have the superdick in the first place, so they're just kind of supposed to sit there and be. Basically, for women, the ideal is more coherent, which means that individual slip ups (watching ninja movies) aren't necessarily always as important. However, overall, a more coherent ideal can actually be more limiting. Always striving and failing is tiresome, but probably preferable overall to being stuck in prison.

Which brings us back to Wonder Woman.

That's from Denny O'Neil and Mike Sekowsy's first issue on WW from 1968. And, as you can see, the creators seem to be of the opinion that WW is a freak. And why is she a freak? Not because she's actually a monster like the Thing, but simply because she's got "muscles" and is a woman. And, not coincidentally, in the following issues of their run on the series, O'Neill and Sekowsky actually depowered WW, turning her into a civilian spy — still a crime fighter, but one who wouldn't necessarily scare the (male) kiddies.

O'Neill and Sekowsky are more blatant than most, but they're hardly alone in their discomfort with the super-powered WW. Throughout "The Greatest Wonder Woman Stories Ever Told," there's a constant, insistent effort to evade the image of Wonder Woman as superdick — to domesticate her, if you will. In Robert Kanigher's "Top Secret," Steve Trevor engages in an elaborate plot to get Wonder Woman to marry him. His scheme fails...but it forces WW to create her Diana Prince identity in which (of course) she serves under Steve in the military. In this story, then, Wonder Woman isn't Diana's empowerment fantasy; rather, Diana is *Steve's* empowerment fantasy. WW does get the better of Steve, but only by doing what he wants. She bows to his superdickery and relinquishes her own.

Similarly, in Robert Kanigher's revealingly titled "Be Wonder Woman...and Die!" the emotional focus of the story is on a terminally ill young actress who impersonates Wonder Woman and then expires beautifully. It's pretty clearly a Mary Sue story in some sense — a WW fan appears, is lauded by her idol, and then shuffles off the mortal coil to great acclaim. But you do have to wonder — if this is a Mary Sue, whose Mary Sue is it? Who exactly is getting off on a depowered and dead WW clone? Could it be the male writer,by chance?

One final example; Wonder Woman #230, from 1977. (Todd Munson very kindly gave me this issue when I visited his class at Randolph-Macon a few weeks back. ) This issue is by Marty Pasko, and it's set in the 1940s to tie in with the then-current TV series. It's also obsessed with doubling. The villain is the Cheetah, who suffers from multiple-personality disorder; normally she's an everyday socialite (Priscilla Rich), but when she sees Wonder Woman she has a psychotic episode and turns into a supervillain. In this sotry, Priscilla accidentally encounters WW and has her transformation triggered. As the Cheetah she then manages to discover WW's secret identity, and makes plans to use the information to kill her. However, Cheetah turns back to Priscilla before she can take action. Priscilla then contacts Diana Prince...and hypnotizes her into forgetting she's Wonder Woman, figuring that if Wonder Woman disappears, Priscilla herself will never change into the Cheetah again.

So along the way here there are several suggestive incidents.

— Early in the issue, Steve Trevor is gushing on and on about Wonder Woman. Diana Prince is clearly quite pissed about this; she's jealous of her alter ego. Thus, there's a definite implication that Diana *wants* to get rid of WW, just as Priscilla wants to get rid of the Cheetah.

— There's an erotic tension between the female antagonists. Priscilla's repressed emotions are released whenever she sees Wonder Woman; it's not hard to read a lesbian subtext into that. Moreover, the hypnotic encounter between Priscilla and Diana is framed as seduction; Priscilla even comments (lasciviously?) on how "naive" Diana is.

In breaking the mirror here, Priscilla is banishing both Wonder Woman and the Cheetah. Where agonized male-male tensions tend to lead to heroes hitting villains and hyperbolic violence, the female-female encounter/seduction does the reverse. It doesn't redouble anxieties around female identity; it eliminates them. Priscilla is ushering Diana back into femininity. (I don't think it's a coincidence that in the last panel Diana's face seems definitely softer and less butch than it does towards the top of the page.)

Priscilla can be seen, in other words, as patrolling the boundaries of femininity. This is actually a fairly common dynamic, I think; women are often harsher on (small) infractions against femininity than men are. My wife pointed out that Patti Smith in the 70s once commented that there's nothing more disgusting than seeing some woman's breast hanging over a guitar. The quote is interesting too, because, like this encounter, there's definitely some not quite dealt with eroticism there; Smith is perceiving female guitarists as sexual beings; there's a same-sex frisson. I haven't quite worked this through, but it seems like there's a parallel here with Eve Sedgwick's ideas about male homosociality. That is, men form homosocial bonds (and repress explicit homosexual ones) as a way of cementing patriarchal power. Women might be seen as forming homosocial bonds (and repressing explicit homosexual ones) as a way of policing or reaffirming femininity — which again essentially has the effect of cementing patriarchal power. That seems like a good description of what Priscilla is doing here, certainly — she seduces/explains the error of her ways to Diana in order to prevent Diana from becoming a superdick, and so leading Priscilla herself into superdickery.

On the one hand this ends up being a false consciousness argument (women reinforcing the patriarchal order out of a mistaken fear of their own power/acceptance of their natural role.) On the other hand, it might also be seen as a not unrational risk assessment. Priscilla is worried that Wonder Woman's escape from femininity will bring reprisals against Priscilla herself (she'll become the cheetah, get herself in trouble, and end up being punished.) Similarly, Patti Smith, as a female rockstar, could be seen as covering her own ass — too many female rockstars might cause trouble.

I don't know; not sure that that's all thought through as well as I might like. But I think there is definitely a sense in which bonds between women are used to patrol femininity just as bonds between men are used to patrol masculinity. And the obsessively doubled relationship between Priscilla/Cheetah and Diana/Wonder Woman seems to get at that.

Though at the same time, of course, there's a tradition of feminist sisterhood which is about confronting or challenging patriarchy. It's interesting in that regard how, even though this is set in the 40s when the Marston /Peter stories took place, there are just a lot less women here than in Marston's writing. The only woman who's around is Priscilla, which is obviously an antagonistic relationship....

— Because WW has disappeared, Steve has to take her spot in a video. (The director comments "I'd rather shoot a war hero than some broad in a silly get-up anyway!") The Cheetah has booby-trapped the camera, though. Priscilla doesn't want to kill anyone...so she figures she has to remind Diana of who she was. She leads Diana off to the side (which looks again very much like femme/butch seduction)

and this time the female/female encounter brings WW and the Cheetah both back.

Because we see this entirely from Priscilla's perspective, though, this comes across more as sad necessity than triumphant victory. The return of female superpowers may be necessary, but it's not ideal or normal. And, moreover, it really does result in bad news for Priscilla; she gets beaten up, captured, and sent off to Paradise Island for reeducation (where presumably she'll be reintegrated back into femininity.)

—Soon after WW reappears we get this panel:

The reappearance of WW seems to humorously undermine Steve's maleness. When a woman wields the superdick, men are less male. Not only can't Steve take WW's place, but even in wanting to he becomes ridiculous; less of a man.

— The comic ends with WW back in Diana Prince identity, talking to Steve. Steve is worrying about the possibility of WW disappearing again — and Diana suggests that if WW does disappear Steve should spend more time looking for her. There's certainly a hint here that Diana would like WW to go away— she wants Steve to recognize, or respond, to Diana instead. Like Priscilla, Diana seems to in part want to lose her super-powers and her super-identity.

This isn't that unusual a trope — as I mentioned in the last post, Spider-Man often wants to lost his powers, as does Bruce Banner, and so forth. The difference here is, perhaps, that when Diana is just Diana, there's no indication that she wants to be anything else. She doesn't wish she had her powers back, or think about WW. Instead, Priscilla has to remind her who she was. When Peter Parker, or whoever, is depowered, his identity remains incoherent; he still wants the superdick. But for Diana, the only tension is when she's Wonder Woman. A feminized Diana, sans superdick, is perfectly happy — just as, presumably, a Priscilla without the Cheetah would be perfectly happy. There isn't the attraction/repulsion for patriarchal authority that you tend to feel in male super-hero narratives. Instead, the energy of the story seems to push pretty firmly towards just turning superfemales into ordinary women and being done with it. Of course, it can't end up there because, you know, Wonder Woman's name is on the cover of the comic, and you need more stories with her. But that isn't Marty Pasko's fault. He didn't create the character.

And next time we'll talk about the guy who did create the character and how he felt about superdickery. Hopefully we'll get to that next week.

In the meantime...this is actually part of a long series of posts on latter-day Wonder Woman iterations. You can read the whole series here.

Partially Congealed Pundit: A to Z

2009-11-28T10:00:00.000-08:00

I wrote these all between 2000 and 2004 or so.

Anthropology A to Z

Analyzing bigamy, chiropractors dissecting Ethiopians find gratuitous horniness. "Inferior jism kills," lament medical non-Negroes. "Our prostitutes qualmlessly relish sable, towering usufructuaries." Vampire-vivisectionist-vasectomites want xenopotency — yea, zoöplasty.

Grants A to Z

Argh. Bastard coins demand enthusiastic flim-flam, genuflecting horse-pucky — iterated. Jejune kleptomaniacs like myself nuzzle other's piss (quantified.) Respect seeps through undergarments viscously. Wampum-warranted xenogenesis yields zilch.

Marx A to Z

Attacked by capitalists, Dimitri Endclass fretfully grunted, "Help!" Injustice jouster King Lumpen materialized. "No obstreperous prole quashing, reactionary swine!" the über-underdog vociferated. "Working-class xanthochroi yean Zion!"

Physics A to Z

"Atomic bomb," cogito. Deductively, ergo, funding. Gravity's hierophant, I, Jehovah-Kewpie, license meritocrats; noblesse oblige. Prosper, quantum Rotarians! Seek, thou, universal vacuity! Wantonly X-ray your Zeitgeist!

Spielberg A to Z

Amiable Bildungsroman chug-a-lugs deep emotions, feels great! Heroine (innocent, jiggly) kisses lachrymose morality’s nether orifice. Peddlers quiver righteously! Suddenly, teleologically, upstart visionaries win! Xeroxed youngsters zombify!

Xmas A to Z

Avaricious bambinos covet Disney-detritus. Elders' Fallopian genitals, heaving immaculately, jaculate kenosis-knickknacks. Levittowners merrily nurse organized pedophilia. Quasi-riant revenue-ravenous Santa Taws uncoil. Vultures watch Xt.'s yummy zygote.

Utilitarian Review 11/27/09

2009-11-27T12:30:00.000-08:00

It's been a slowish week here with the holidays, but I did want to mention that i had a brief but (IMO) entertaining review of the very aptly named Horsemeat Disco comp over at Metropulse.

And I love this Por Parichart video.

Music For Middle-Brow Snobs: Best Of

2009-11-26T07:42:00.000-08:00

I'm participating in the music best of madness which Tucker and Marty are organizing over at Factual Opinion. As part of that I put together a list of my favorite songs of the year that I remembered at the moment, and, what the hey, I organized them in descending order of goodness. Some of these have shown up in downloads before...but now they're in an exciting new list!

1. Ina unt Ina — Teacher (All Sides of Ina)
2. Justin Townes Earle — Mama's Eyes (Midnight at the Movies)
3. Amerie — Dangerous (In Love and War!)
4. Funeral Mist — White Stone (Maranatha)
5. Antony and the Johnsons — One Dove (The Crying Light)
6. Legion of Two — Legion of Two (Riffs)
7. Lovers — Let's Stay Lost (I Am the West)
8. Brooke Valentine — Dr. Do Right (Physical Education Mix Tape)
9. Drukdh — Distant Cry of Cranes (Microcosmos)
10. Mariah Carey — More Than Just Friends (Memoir of an Imperfect Angel)
11. The Horse's Ha — Asleep in a Waterfall (Of The Cathmawr Yards)
12. The Juan Maclean — One Day (The Future Will Come)
13. Ithdabquth Qliphoth — Funeral Spirit of Holy, Holy and Holy Trance-formation (Funeral Spirit of Holy, Holy and Holy Trance-formation)
14. Raekwon — Surgical Gloves (Only Built For Cuban Linx II)
15 Electrik Red — Friend Lover (How to Be a Lady: Volume 1)

This download has been removed for copyright reasons; so if you missed it, you're out of luck, alas.

TwiHard the Hunter

2009-11-25T10:00:00.000-08:00

I've gotten into a bit of a back and forth about the Twilight series with pop-culture blogger Alyssa Rosenberg. It started with Alyssa's article on the Atlantic website in which she argued that the Twilight is a poor excuse for a fantasy series because Bella is overly passive:

I don’t imagine that I was alone when I was young in wishing there was something magical about me – or in reading Talking to Dragons until it became dog-eared or keeping The Mists of Avalon perpetually on renewal at the library. What girl doesn’t wish she could discover some special attribute about herself that would smooth her way through the demons of junior high school and beyond—particularly if that something would get her noticed for the first time by a boy or girl with special attributes of their own? But earlier this week, when I stumbled over the Twilight finish line, reaching the final page of Breaking Dawn, the series’ last book, it seemed clear to me that even in my younger days, Bella Swann would never have captured my imagination in the same way Cimorene, or Juniper, or Wise Child, or Morgaine had, and still do. Those heroines understand the joy of being loved by someone else. But their stories make the case that being a witch, or a warrior, or a queen—even without a king—might be better than an eternity as a metaphorical princess in a metaphorical tower, no matter how much the vampire company sparkles.

I responded in an article on Splice Today:

The real issue is, as Rosenberg says, that Bella's actions are all inspired by her love for family and friends, rather than by a desire to save entire kingdoms and uphold "justice and freedom." Of course, by this standard, Elizabeth Bennett isn't much of a role model either—why, she never saves anyone! And what about Jane Eyre, refusing to sacrifice herself by going off to do mission work among the poor and heathen and benighted. What kind of model for young girls is that?

Rosenberg might as well just come out and say, "You know what? I don't really like romance—and, on top of that, I'm kind of a liberal do-gooder who thinks that abstract notions like justice and power are more important than love and family." Rosenberg accuses Meyer of turning Bella into a "metaphorical princess in a metaphorical tower." But she's not a princess in a tower; she's a wife in a family, and one who at the end is not only equal to her husband in strength and magical powers, but actually superior to him. That hardly seems rabidly anti-feminist to me-but I like Pride and Prejudice too, so what do I know.

Rosenberg came back on her own blog to tell me that I'm still wrong, most pointedly because she does in fact like romance novels. Assuming makes an ass out of me as they say...though, as I'll argue here, for somebody who likes romance novels, Alyssa is awfully uncomfortable with some of the central points of the genre.

So first, on a couple of interpretive points. Alyssa takes me to task for overestimating Bella's achievements and power. In my Splice Today essay, I argue that Bella has to practice to master her magical vampiric abilities in the last volume, and that she ends up being stronger than Edward. Alyssa responds:

I think Noah's actually mistaken: when Bella finally uses her powers, she exerts them much farther than she's ever been able to in her practice sessions, which kind of defeats the point if you're trying to make an argument about "determination and commitment." (Also, to the point Noah makes in a paragraph I pull out below about Bella being more powerful than Edward, Meyer seems to establish pretty clearly that that's just because she's a new vampire, not that it'll be permanent.)

Bella does become much more powerful at the end of the book all of a sudden; the rationale is that her loved ones are threatened, and that gives her the inspiration to exert an extra oomph. But it's not clear to me that therefore all the training and work was worthless. Surely the point could just as easily be, you put all the effort in, you exert yourself to the limit, and maybe that will be enough to get that miracle you need. It's a little overly pat, sure; but I think it's a stretch to argue that it's not about Bella working to achieve success.

As for the strength thing — Bella's natural vampiric strength will fade after she's a newborn, sure. But her power seems to only be getting stronger — and it's her power (the ability to negate other vampires' powers) which really makes her more special, and more powerful, than Edward. (It's also worth noting that Bella is unusuall self-controlled for a new vampire, which is a big part of the reason she's even able to use her physical strength in a way that's at all useful to her or anyone else.)

To move onto more substantial disagreements: Alyssa responded to my comparison of Bella with Elizabeth Bennett and Jane Eyre by saying this:

I think Noah forgets that I'm writting a critique of Twilight within the realm of fairy tale, and about why it's a step backwards within the innovations of that genre. But I absolutely agree that I would be completely and utterly freaked out if teenage girls wanted to emulate Jane Eyre. Less so if they wanted to be little Lizzy Bennets, since she's an intellectual and stands up to class prejudice (to the extent capable within her constraints of course). But I do think those books are regularly read with the acknowledgment that a) they're about an era when women's choices were substantially limited, b) frequently read in a context like a classroom where those roles can be discussed, and c) presented social criticisms in the times they were written. Twilight is neither set in another era (although it's curiously removed from the technology of today) nor is it mostly read in a critical context like a classroom. And while I recognize that many, many Twilight readers can distinguish fact from fiction, I do think that some of the book's themes demand a critical context, particularly the obsessiveness of the love affairs. Perhaps it's just me, but I think it's important, especially with young girls, to have a conversation about the fact that sometimes, no matter how much you love someone, if he leaves you, he is never coming back. I don't think this is a trifling point: Bella never experiences permanent romantic loss, something a lot of contemporary fairy tales have managed to incorporate into the genre, and that's a genuinely valuable lesson in a society where most people date before they marry.

So there's a bunch there...but let's start at the top.

First, I wasn't saying that Jane Eyre was a bad model. On the contrary, I was saying that, at least in the incident I referenced, she's a fine model. At the end of the book, the aptly named St. John tells Jane that she should marry him and come with him to be a missionary in some far away, benighted land. Despite great pressure, from St. John and her own conscience, Jane eventually refuses to go, putting her love and family above the call to change the world for the better. That's a choice Bella would agree with. Would Alyssa?

Alyssa is more willing to accept Elizabeth Bennet from Pride and Prejudice as a role model...but even here, she's leery. Elizabeth, after all, isn't really sufficiently independent; she doesn't save the world, she marries to devote herself to the estate and her husband — not quite independent enough, for all her spunkiness. So, to make Pride and Prejudice safe, we need to read it in a classroom context, where girls can be taught what to think and what not to think about their chosen romance.

As someone who spent 14 years developing curriculum for high school students, I can say with some certainty that this is utter nonsense. The only thing students get from studying a book in school is bored. If Pride and Prejudice ever had any relevance, the fastest way to denude it of same is to relegate it to the classroom. And Alyssa's comments on Twilight in this connection are almost Kantian; the problem with the books is that they're not read in a classroom context, and as a result, girls actually enjoy them! The fall of society and/or feminism is certainly at hand.

I also find this point kind of bizarre:

"Bella never experiences permanent romantic loss"

It's true; Bella gets everything she wants. At the end. Along the way, though, she experiences intense, brutal despair, not once, but multiple times. Edward rejects here and she really thinks he doesn't love her, causing her to be almost nonfunctional for months.Then Jacob rejects her, making her miserable for an extended period. And it's those experiences, as much as (or more than) the eventual triumph, that are really the heart of the series. To suggest that Bella needs to be *more* depressed really seems kind of ridiculous. I do get the point that most girls are going to not get the first guy they love, and that it's useful to point that out . But at the same time, Twilight is not shy about acknowledging, and even reveling in, romantic disappointment.

The real heart of our disagreement is here, though:

As for the assertion that "I'm kind of a liberal do-gooder who thinks that abstract notions like justice and power are more important than love and family." First, it's a mistake again to conflate the abstract concepts of justice and equality as they exist in fairy tales with contemporary politics. And one of the things I find fascinating about contemporary fairy tales of all stripes is the ways they've managed to make the condition of societies and of individual marriages co-equal. In a lot of contemporary fairy tales, the main characters have to establish peace or societal equilibrium in order to craft a space where a marriage can thrive....I actually think it exalts love to tie it to larger societal concerns, rather than to isolate it entirely from society, and it makes for wider-ranging and more interesting stories, too.

Abstract justice in fairy tales doesn't map exactly onto contemporary politics, of course...but it isn't divorced from them either. And, indeed, in the rest of her argument here Alyssa goes on to make parallels between how life and politics work in a fairy tale and how they work in the real world. She likes certain fairy tales, she says, because they present an image in which men and women fall in love and work together to save the world (or work together to save the world and fall in love.) The dream Alyssa wants is one in which social and political engagement maps onto romance, and the two enrich each other. That's why she doesn't like the message in Jane Eyre, where political and social engagement is shown as existing in contrast to love; it's why she's uncomfortable with the message in Pride and Prejudice, where Elizabeth Bennet never really thinks all that much about social or political engagement (Alyssa says at the end of her essay that Elizabeth engages in rebellion...but really, calling a little satirical wit rebellion seems fairly desperate wishful thinking.) And her enthusiasm for great social change and rebellion is also why Alyssa absolutely hates Forks, the little town where Bella spends her life.

There is no larger world beyond family and Forks in the Twilight books, and if I were immortal, I think I might get kind of bored with that after a while. But then, I was never the kind of girl who could stare at a guy's face for that long.

Okay, sure, I get that the treacly romance eternal love thing is irritating. But what is wrong with Forks? And why, as Alyssa repeatedly insists, is it lame, or passive, to save your loved ones and your entire family? Why exactly is Bella a failure? Because she doesn't want to rule a kingdom? Because she doesn't want to save the world? Because she's chosen to care for those she loves and not impose her passing messianic dreams on the rest of the populace? Because her story — which is much more romance than fairy tale — ends in private happiness rather than public triumph?

Alyssa reminds me that she works as a political reporter, and is therefore not a liberal do-gooder at all, but instead is non-partisan. All right. Then she should be fine with the following argument, hopefully. Most people — girls, boys, what have you — they're not going to save the world. Most of them don't even want to save the world, you know? Is that because they're victims of false consciousness and read too many Twilight books? Or is it because wanting to save the world is a kind of megalomaniacal sickness that most people just aren't especially afflicted with? Or is it because there are different strokes for different folks? In any case, the fact remains; Bella, like most people, cares about the people she cares about. On their behalf, she's able to do great things — risk her life, battle against evil, even perform miracles. But she doesn't get off — and most of her readers don't get off — on writing the wrongs of the world. Does that make her, and them, less virtuous or wrong? Are all those people in the Forkses of the world just not ambitious enough? I'm a liberal do-gooder myself, but still, that seems like a pretty presumptuous conclusion to me.

Update: It sounds like Alyssa is probably not going to respond further, so I should probably add that she's been incredibly gracious and pleasant throughout the whole back and forth. So thanks, Alyssa. It's been fun.

Desert Island Comics

2009-11-24T07:30:00.000-08:00

As you may have heard, the HU bloggers are taking a break this Thanksgiving week.

I will be heading off to Indonesia myself so it seemed "appropriate" to bring up the subject of desert island comics (see here for Shaenon K. Garrity's survey of various industry professionals on the same subject). I was first exposed to the whole concept through the BBC's Desert Island Discs about 20 years back. Now I won't be following all the rules laid down by Roy Plomley but the radio program did have the useful proviso that the guest would be "automatically given the Complete Works of Shakespeare and either the Bible or another appropriate religious or philosophical work" (from Wikipedia).

One way in which I'll deviate away from that program's premise is that I'm going to be choosing a comic and only a single one at that. I've never viewed a desert island comic as one which a person might objectively consider the best ever made. Nor would it necessarily be that person's favorite comic (though this would be the most obvious choice) or even a comic which has affected the person the most deeply. These factors might be seen to overlap but some books have a habit of affecting readers at particular periods of their lives only. Rather, it whould be a combination of all these factors to varying degrees: aesthetic beauty, emotional involvement or attachment, length and most importantly timelessness - a complex simplicity which affords endless re-readings. After all, you'll be stuck on that island for quite a bit of time - maybe for the rest of your life.

Lest we forget, you'll be taking along your desert island disc and desert island book as well. In my case, I will be searching for a desert island comic to go along with my copy of Luo Guanzhong’s Romance of the Three Kingdoms and a piece of music by J. S. Bach. It certainly wouldn’t be a copy of Watchmen, a run of Kirby's Fantastic Four, Chris Ware's The Acme Novelty Library or a collection of comics by Robert Crumb. As far as modern day pamphlet comics are concerned, Love and Rockets probably stands as good as chance as any of being included in my short list but even that would be a stretch. I would consider bringing along a collection of Krazy Kat or Peanuts strips. The former in particular seems to demonstrate quite engagingly the growth of the artist from his early years of enthusiasm to a middle period of great flowering before the final months of unmistakable and very palpable struggle and depression.

[Second to last Krazy Kat Sunday from Rob Stolzer's collection.]

But what I would really need is something to balance out a palate made raw by too much erudition and history and whenever I think about this, it is Carl Bark's Disney Duck Comics which come to mind first (the Uncle Scrooge stories in particular have a place close to my heart). When I read Art Spiegelman and Francoise Mouly's Toon Treasury of Classic Children's Comics a few months back, one thing I noticed was how exceptional Bark's stories were even in the presence of his illustrious peers. It must be said though that I can't discount the effect of nostalgia here. "The Paul Bunyan Machine" story from Uncle Scrooge #28 was one of the first comics I ever read as a child.

Is it perhaps a bit disturbing that I'm putting a Barks Duck story in the same category as Shakespeare or one of the most important books in Chinese literature? Perhaps. It may simply be a reflection of the youthfulness of comics as an art form. Still, as far as reading material is concerned, there are few things as relaxing or viscerally delightful as a good comic. Certainly no piece of traditional literature has offered me so much for so little effort. In the same way that the qualities of the best children's comics exceed those of most (if not all) children's literature, what comics have always offered is a very accessible and intensely rich and fulfilling experience, one which has every chance of breaking down the crumbling barriers between high and low art. Only time will tell if it fulfills this promise.

...And Kids Like Them!

2009-11-23T09:09:00.000-08:00

There's been a bit of a back and forth on the old internets about all ages comics. Christopher Butcher weighs in and summarizes the kerfuffle here. His take is basically that it's much ado about nothing, and that the complaining about a lack of all ages titles is really mostly about super-hero nostalgia:

So let’s really, really narrow this discussion about “all ages” comics to what it really is: Superhero Fans Want To Buy Superhero Comics For Their Kids That Are Simultaneously Exactly What They Read As Kids AND All New At The Same Time. They want all the comics on the stands to be ’safe’ for children, while still engaging them on an adult level like all of the other media targeted at adults. They want the stuff they read as kids and teenagers in the 70s and 80s (or hell, the 60s) to be the same as what’s published today for their kids. They will accept no substitutions, and most importantly they need it to be CANON. That’s right, even if the Superhero comics meet every other criteria, they can’t take place in their own “universe” or be the “for kids” version (even if it’s for ‘all ages’), it has to be part of the 616 or DCU continuity or else it isn’t ‘real’. Superhero fans want validation for their tastes and interests, just like the OCD football dad who couldn’t make it to the NFL and is going to live out his dreams in his son. Exactly the same sentiment, but without a million dollar paycheck at the end of ‘reading superhero comics’, so waaaay less pressure.

And that’s what Retailers, older retailers in particular, want to sell them. Because it’s what they read, and it’s what they know, and they have the same nostalgic feelings for and biases towards that material.

I'm always willing to sneer at superhero fans, as most folks know. But I think this maybe misses or downplays a fairly major point — kids really, really, really like superheroes. A lot. It's not me who was foisting my old Spidey Super Stories and Super-friends comics on my kid because I desperately wanted him to read them for the sake of my overwhelming nostalgia. On the contrary, I pulled those out of the long boxes because my son was obsessed, and I figured it would be cheaper than buying new reading material. And let me tell you, by the time I'd read them fifty or sixty times out loud, any lingering nostalgia I felt for the material was killed well nigh dead.

Butcher goes on to talk about the Marvel Adventures all ages books, which he notes haven't been doing so hot, especially in pamphlet form — especially, especially in the direct market. The Marvel Adventures books have come up more than a time or two on this blog (Most recently in a Vom Marlowe review here.) They're in general quite good; certainly, my son has enjoyed a number of them, from Spider-Man to the Fantastic Four to the Avengers. And I can confirm as a parent that they tend to be more fun to read than old Superfriends comics.

The point, it seems to me, is that super-hero comics really should, in some sense, be for kids; that's where the biggest potential audience would be, in any logical world. There are a small percentage of 35 year old men who are consumed with the desire to read super-hero comics, but there's a much larger percentage of 5-10 year old boys who would (at least potentially) like to read those comics. The industry hasn't totally abandoned the younger audience,it's true — but it definitely sees them as a side-issue which it addresses fitfully, nervously, and not always very effectively.

So Butcher may be right that most of the hand-wringing about all-ages titles is from retailers working through misplaced nostalgia. But even if that's so, I think it's indisputable that Marvel and DC and the industry as a whole don't really know how to sell super-hero comics to kids, which is embarrassing given the fact that selling super-hero comics to young boys should be about as difficult as distributing crack to addicts. I mean, it's clear enough what the problem is in terms of distribution barriers, institutional focus, marketing, and so forth. But still, it's pitiful.

Update: Heidi also weighs in on Chris's post (link thanks to Brigid.

Lovers — I Am The West

2009-11-22T15:29:00.000-08:00

Lovers
I Am the West
[Pop Heart Records]

Sometime in the oughts, folk and shoegazy pop crossbred, creating a sparse, drony, soundtrack for coffee-shops gently orbiting the moon. Is this Chan Marshall’s fault? And has somebody named it already?

In any case, whoever’s responsible, and whatever it’s called, I’m all for it. As are the Lovers; lead singer and writer Carolyn Berk’s tunes range from mid-tempo to slow. Everything’s a dreamy trudge; a nice fuzzy blanket of sound, sprinkled with sweet little songwriting shivers: a touch of harmony here, a dollop of strings there. I go back and forth on which is my favorite tune…but Let’s Stay Lost is certainly a contender. It has a syncopated keyboard and drum intro, ending in a half beat of silence before Berk comes in with a hooky, strolling vocal line “You and me babe/we got lost in the same maze,”; a couple more couplets and then there’s another voice, singing long held “ahhhhs” — and then you get to a fantastic, weird, bridge, with the bandmembers doing sunny, almost Beach Boys harmonies while somebody plays what sounds like a banjo. “Stay Another Night” is great too; it’s got the slow grace of Dylan’s ballads, plus a goofy keyboard burble halfway through and some fuzz feedback at the end — plus that banjo again. I love banjo.

The only downside is that Berk’s lyrics are sometimes a little too clever for their own good. “Your eyes are two deep pools of mud” is funny,; following it with “Maybe I got stuck/Baby I got stuck” is kind of beating a dead metaphor around the bush. Even if you’re occasionally tuning out the words, though, this is a thoroughly enjoyable album.

I Dub Thee: Shoefolk?
Or Maybe: Birkenstockgaze?

Break to Gobble

2009-11-22T06:24:00.000-08:00

Most of your utilitarian bloggers are going to be taking off this week, so things will be a bit quiet around here — though there will still be content of some sort, never fear.

Shortly after the holiday I'm told we may be moving over to our new location at TCJ.com. I'll pass along more details when they're available....

Utilitarian Review 11/21/09

2009-11-21T13:00:00.000-08:00

On HU

I started this week off with a post on how superdickery has changed through the ages.

Richard wrote about mediocre French mainstream title Spin Angels.

Suat wrote about living with Walt Kelly original art.

Kinukitty wrote about the somewhat squicky yaoi title Two of Hearts.

Vom Marlowe discussed the mediocrity which is X-Men.

And this week's music download features lots of gospel and thai music.

Last week's droney mix can still be found at the link.

Utilitarians Elsewhere

Bill and Tom have moved off HU, of course, but I thought I'd mention that they both have great articles in the most recent, and last, Comics Journal, #300, available in a store near you hopefully.

Tom argues that Alan Moore has fallen prey to his own rampant geekery.

Alan Moore is a product of that time, maybe its best. If you want some recycled pop fantasy, I think you're better off with "Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?" than you are with Star Wars. In fact I'd say his big titles of the 1980s, Watchmen most of all, are the only examples I've come across of really fine, substantial works devoted to recycling other-reality entertainment staples. But something went wrong. His Watchmen became Watchmen the movie, which is bad enough. What's worse is that Moore wrote Lost Girls and League of Extraordinary Gentlemen and — well, just about every comic he's turned out since 1989 or so. If I had to think of reasons to say why Alan Moore was great, I'd have a hard time finding anything from his comics work of the past 20 years. There's issue 12 of Promethea, but then there's the rest of Promethea. There's From Hell, but no, not really. He hasn't stopped being a genius; only a genius could fail in the way he does, with such energy and ambition, such amazing fireworks. But when I put one of his comics down, I have to remind myself to pick it back up. I think his post-'89 comics are stunted. No matter how big he tries to be, he winds up being small.

Bill, meanwhile, argues for the uniqueness — and probable transience — of the anime/manga invasion of the U.S.

In 2000, you could name the people and companies working to bring manga to the West on one hand, maybe two. Now keeping up with just the English-language commentators has become a full-time job. A few of the writers, like Jason Thompson, Xavier Guilbert and the chaps at Same Hat! Same Hat!, deserve careful reading. Most of the rest barely need a skim. Which is not necessarily a criticism if you have 3,000 people writing about the same book, what are the odds most of them will say the same things?

What happens instead is that they say the same thing in different places. There is no one essential place to read about manga in English. Instead, the trickle of information from 30-plus years ago became a healthy flow. Then, as with everything in the current age, the forces behind it pool into isolated spots. Each one hosts a dialogue or a tribal area or even an intellectual prison; each speaks to a particular subjectivity. One could tip the pen to Postmodernism, were that movement not first passé and second ironic. Manga and its fans have favored bald emotions, putting them closer to New Sincerity, or the Reconstructivists, or whatever the movement after pomo ends up being called. It seems less like forward progress through the history of ideas than an atomization.

Meanwhile, on the Internets, I have an essay about the new Twilight movies over at Reason.

If Edward represents agelessness as a perfect fantasy, Jacob Black represents aging as a horror-film disaster. As you almost certainly know from advance publicity (and if you don’t, here comes the spoiler,) Jacob discovers partway through the film that he’s a werewolf. Lycanthropy, as it turns out, is adolescence on steroids. Jacob loses control of his emotions, grows hair where he shouldn’t, starts hanging out with the wrong crowd, and begins thinking so loudly that all his friends can hear him.

In choosing between Jacob and Edward, Bella is choosing between growing up, with all its dangers and messy unpredictability, and staying a faery child, forever young and lifeless. In the end (here’s another spoiler), without much of a fight, she opts for immortality. Thus, the Twilight series isn’t so much a coming-of-age story as a refusing-to-come-of-age story.

And finally I have a brief review of the new Leona Lewis album over at Metropulse.

Other Links

Matthew Brady pointed me to this unpublished black and white Wonder Woman story with art by Harry Peter and script possibly by William Marston. It's a treat.

And your Thai luk thung/morlum video of the week, sung by Siriporn Umpaipong.

And what the hey, here's another one by Ajareeya Bussaba. Adorable caterpillars.

Music For Middle-Brow Snobs: How Far Am I From Thailand?

2009-11-20T15:14:00.000-08:00

Gospel, thai, and some other stuff....

1. Five Blind Boys of Mississippi — How Far Am I From Canaan? (Five Blind Boys of Mississippi 1947-1951)
2. Soul Stirrers — I'm a Soldier (Kings of the Gospel Highway)
3. Spirit of Memphis Quartet — Jesus Jesus (Kings of the Gospel Highway)
4. Swan Silvertones — Working on a Building (Kings of the Gospel Highway)
5. Sensational Nightingales — Sinner Man (When Gospel Was Gospel)
6. Marion Williams — Traveling Shoes (When Gospel Was Gospel)
7. Marion Williams — Sit Down Servant (Gospel Soul of Marion Williams)
8. Thomas A. Dorsey with Sallie Martin — I'll Tell It Wherever I Go (Precious Lord)
9. J. Robert Bradley — The Day Is Past and Gone (All God's Sons and Daughters)
10. June Christy — Shadow Woman (Ballads for Night People)
11. Pamela Bowden — Ao Kwam Kom Kuen Pai Ting Mae Kong (The Bitterness of Leaving Mae Kong) (Kaew Ta Duang Jai)
12. Pamela Bowden — Nong Chum Wan Nee Pee Chum Wann Na (Kaew Ta Duang Jai)
13.Mangpor Chonticha — Mai Dai Am Chan Rork (I Can't Get) (Mae Krua Hua Kai)
14. Mangpor Chonticha — Pee Lhuang Yah Luang Nong (Mae Krua Hua Kai)
15. Mazzy Star — Blue Flower (She Hangs Brightly)
16. Gene Loves Jezebel — Dream a Big Dream (VII)
17.Teenage Filmstars — You Mystify Me (Buy Our Record, Support Our Sickness)
18. Teenage Filmstars — Jeepers Creepers (Buy Our Record, Support Our Sickness)

Download How Far Am I From Thailand?

And if you missed it, you can download last week's droney mix here.

Face Down in the Mainstream: Astonishing X-Men, Grumpy Vom is Grumpy

2009-11-19T11:26:00.000-08:00

Astonishing X-Men #30 by Ellis, Bianchi, et al.

I picked this up because the art looked cool. And, you know, the art is cool. The inks are interesting, with washes as well as lines and a very grimy palette of off green and brown and blue. The anatomy is well-done overall. The facial expressions, while not perfect, are realistic. There are some clear artistic patterns like large pouty lips. There are attempts to make the layout interesting by using weapons as layout lines. See?

Pretty, isn't it?

But it was not enough.

For one thing, the art is very realistic. It's not picture perfect (blue lion mutants with glasses don't actually exist), but it's styled to be real. The artist likes to include things like red lines in the eyes, to show the craziness of the villain or spittle flying to show that people are shouting.

Unfortunately, the craziness comes off more like caaaaaaaarrrraaaaaziness and the spittle just seems sort of gross. The story is just--irritating, and the art could be so awesome, and yet it doesn't all mesh the way a visually told story should.

Instead of making me look forward to more or compensating, the art just reinforced those parts of the story that pissed me off. The basic plot is that the X-Men have found the source of some fake mutants. Their ex-fellow, Forge, has gone bastshit (as one does) and started to make fake mutants to combat evil warriors from an alternate dimension. They've denned Forge in his lair in order to stop him.

And Forge proceeds to act like a cartoon villain, right down to the rolling red eyes and the spit and the dramatic gestures and weird poses. It's sad. I actually felt bad for the guy.

Especially when they cut off his leg and then laugh about it. I mean, jeez, people. Aren't you the heroes? Wasn't this guy your old pal?

(And maybe Forge really is a terrible person worthy of laughter, but really, people. Cutting off someone's leg and then laughing is just bad form. Tacky! Yes, he had some mutant-dampener in it, but I don't care. Show a little respect!)

The X-Men battle the fake-o mutants with no trouble. Forge wanted to lure the X-men into dealing with the cause of the interdimensional warriors by mounting an attack via a large cube (as one does). The X-Men tell Forge off, then whack off his leg in response. Which is gratitude for you, I guess.

You'd think, after the random amputation and cracks about how dumb/crazy Forge is to believe that the interdimensional warriors are a Threat To Humanity As We Know It, that they'd all just leave. But no. The blue lion guy has his girlfriend nuke the place from orbit, just to be sure. Which blows up the special cube and therefore through it to the interdimensional warrior scout dudes' homeworld, which, blue lion now explains, is probably toast.

Well, that's nice, isn't it? I mean, clearly Forge was blood-thirsty and crazy for trying to send a couple of mutant warriors through to make sure no one messed with our Earth. So much better to just toss in a great big old world destroying bomb without bothering to make contact.

Gluey Tart: Two of Hearts

2009-11-18T17:45:00.000-08:00

Two of Hearts, Kano Miyamoto, 2008, Deux Press

Cat reaction shots. I love gratuitous cat reaction shots.

And you know what else I like? Romantic tales with damaged people who help each other heal. Which is what this story is about. There's an older guy who suffers from writers block – which is, of course, a manifestation of his inability to have a real relationship. (Of course, everybody suffers from writers block, and of course people who aren't able to really connect with their deepest emotions write books all the time, but we'll let that slide because there's no need to be obstructionist.)

So, what we mostly have here is a sweet little story about two people finding each other. There's the blocked writer, Haruya, and there's a magnificently fucked up high school boy, Maki. Maki has OCD and a stutter and crippling shyness and some very difficult personal circumstances, and he's really quite appealing. Haruya is kind of letting his life drift by but is obviously a pretty good person, as he's moved to go far out of his way to help Maki when he happens to run across him. Their interactions are pleasantly ambiguous, initially, and their growing relationship is satisfying.

Except. This is another one of those yaoi titles with a bizarre rape scene (or near rape – they get interrupted just before they get to the full monty) that just leaves you scratching your head. It seems to come from a "guys are different" kind of place, but it doesn't play right. The motivation is extremely sketchy, and no one reacts anything like appropriately. "Oh, sorry I was getting ready to rape your emotionally damaged boyfriend who's still in high school – Oh, don't worry about it." "Sorry my friend tried to rape you; he's just upset because he's been in love with me for years and I've been ignoring it – Oh, that's fine, then."

This weird lack of concern over what should be a seriously traumatizing event is part of what ruins the ending for me. Miyamoto is so determined to make everything heartwarming and sweet and happy that she goes overboard. Everybody is going to be fine, all the problems be damned. I like a dazzlingly romantic ending as much as the next yaoi fan, but this time, the happy-ever-after is cloying. There were some interesting complications, and suddenly everything is – all right. Maki is able to get it on with Haruya and straighten out his life. The rapist is able to help Haruya write that prize-winning novel everyone knew he had in him, and to move on with his life and find someone who loves him. Haruya is able to realize that he loves Maki and to work past his emotional distance, write brilliantly, and love selflessly. Just all of a sudden, like Miyamoto got fed up with the whole thing and decided she needed to wrap this up and move on to the next manga. Which might well have been the case – and I've been there, Kano, I really have.

So, is it wrong for me to be disgruntled in the midst of all this comprehensive bliss, just because I find it kind of under-motivated and sudden? I don't know. There's a lot to enjoy in this story, and it will not leave you weeping, even if you're in a state where you're feeling sorry for yourself and you're getting overly emotional and sniffly over the whole Jon and Kate Gosselin saga (so brilliantly, ably, and thoroughly covered in Us Magazine). I wouldn't have bothered to tell you about Two of Hearts if I didn't think there was something special about it. But – you know. There are problems. Forewarned is forearmed.

Oh, right. The cat. It's a stray that Haruya takes in and grows to love. Get it? Yes, of course you do. It's still pretty cute, though.

Original Art: Living with Comics Art

2009-11-17T07:30:00.000-08:00

As with any hobby, collecting comics original art has its own complexities which take in both the aesthetics and economics of the form.

The latter aspect is one of the most hotly debated topics in the hobby because of the escalation of prices of original art over the last few years - prices which which have been barely affected by the ongoing global recession (more on this at a late date).

With regards the aesthetics of original art (i.e. an original page of comics art viewed in isolation on a wall), the academic Andrei Molotiu has written an approach to this in The International Journal of Comic Art (IJOCA) the main points of which I might bring up sometime in the future.

That article uses Molotiu’s own collection as a frame of reference. I should say here that much of the writing concerning original art tends to focus on the individual writer’s personal collection if only because of the lack of public access to most of the art in question. Not only are public collections of comic art small in number, even fewer have sufficient depth to allow for the study of a broad range of cartoonists. In fact, the vast majority of important pieces lie in private hands. There are exceptions of course. The large collection of original art from Little Orphan Annie under safekeeping at Boston University and the complete art to Amazing Fantasy #15 for example.

Viewing a piece of original art can sometimes reveal circumstances not immediately apparent on a simple reading of the final product (i.e. the comic itself). For example, some might find the number of corrections and white out marks on this page by Frank Miller from The Dark Knight Triumphant worthy of interest.

The fact that people own small panels from the same comic which are likely to be Miller's reworking of some scenes as well as possible corrections to Klaus Janson's inking might also be of note historically speaking.

At the risk of stating the obvious, pages from The Dark Knight Returns are some of the most expensive pieces of art in modern comics. Pages from Walt Kelly’s Pogo on the other hand are cheap. Certainly much cheaper than a page from The Dark Knight Returns but also considerably less expensive than art from some other classic strips like Flash Gordon, Krazy Kat or Prince Valiant etc.

[A Pogo Sunday from an upcoming Heritage Auction which is another site to find high quality scans of comics original art.]

Most of Kelly’s strips have not seen publication for a few decades which obviously contributes to their lack of visibility and desirability. Only a person with access to a sizable collection of vintage newspaper cartoon sections would be apprised of the bulk of Kelly's run.

Pogo is, to me, one of the greatest strips ever published. A full Sunday is available at a fraction of the price of other more illustration-based strips or even the estimated price of a Calvin and Hobbes daily - a strip which it influenced significantly and to which it compares very favorably. This relates to supply and demand. Not only is art from Calvin and Hobbes much more desired than art from Pogo, the supply is virtually non-existent (though there's this example by one of the biggest collectors in the hobby) because of Bill Watterson's understandable reluctance to sell his art work.

One of the pleasures of "living" with a piece of art is that you begin to notice details which you would not in a 2-3 minute gallery appraisal (online or otherwise). Most readers would probably have read through an average Pogo Sunday like the one below in a matter of minutes (if not less). Take a moment to read it now.

As most readers will know, while Pogo is of particular note for its political content, it began life as a children's comic in Dell's Animal Comics. The example above reflects the strips more light-hearted origins. Even so, it reveals a great deal of Kelly's craft.

For one, there's the extensive wordplay which may not register, in all its fullness, on a simple Sunday morning read through. The constant exposure to the Pogo Sunday above (which hangs in my apartment) has made me even more acutely aware of the density of Kelly's technique.

In the fourth panel of the strip, we have Miz Beaver commenting on "the finest mess of pies..ever seed" in anticipation of what is to happen later in the strip – something which would require more than a single reading to pick up (And who has actually asked the question of her? Are we the readers asking with anything but our eyes?).

In the sixth panel, Albert breaks into a soliloquy on the seasons declaiming, "Off I spring, as prettily as a summer zephyr..." , as he launches into one of his cricket hops. In the eighth panel, Miz Beaver exclaims, "Oh dear, always they go Splobsh", almost as if she had some experience in the bespatterment of pies, while the last 2 panels of the Sunday suggest a reference to the economics of the same. The pies are noted to be "a mite tart but tasty", not only referring to their slightly acidic taste (def: 1 : agreeably sharp or acid to the taste 2 : marked by a biting, acrimonious, or cutting quality) but also a synonym for that type of confection. And let's not forget that Albert is using the word in relation to a female baker who has recently laid out her wares.

Perhaps most complex of all is Albert’s complaint in the third panel where he states, "My Ma was cricket champeen of Ol' Gummidge-on-the Wicket". Gummidge-on-the-Wicket is an obvious reference to a cricket ground and nothing to do with insects. Nor is it named after any notable first class cricket ground but is ostensibly some Anglicized village in the middle of the Okefenokee Swamp in the Southern United States. If anything, the name of the cricket ground has more to with the nature of Albert's mother. One online encyclopedia defines "gummidge" as:

"Gummidge a peevish, self-pitying, and pessimistic person, given to complaining, from the name of Mrs Gummidge, a character in Dickens's David Copperfield (1850)."

And here we have the Wikipedia entry which I have not confirmed myself since I read David Copperfield far too many years ago to remember the character's exact nature:

"Mrs. Gummidge – The widow of Daniel Peggotty's partner in a boat. She is a self-described "lone, lorn creetur" who spends much of her time pining for "the old 'un" (her late husband). After Emily runs away from home with Steerforth, she changes her attitude to better comfort everyone around her and tries to be very caring and motherly. She too emigrates to Australia with Dan and the rest of the surviving family."

The crickets which appear in over half the panels remain silent bemused observers throughout, pacing along with Pogo while not demonstrating any of their own hopping skills.

Beyond the dense wordplay, there are certain elements which can be seen only upon viewing the original art. There's the carefully hand-drawn title "Pogo" which contrasts with the occasional title paste-ups which occur in some of Kelly’s Sundays.

There are the ubiquitous blue pencils which were used to sketch in the script in many of Kelly's strips and his careful arrangement (or rearrangement) of word balloons.

A pencil sketch which does not correspond to the final inked version is used to delineate Albert's flight (a change of heart or merely a guide?) ...

... and later, Kelly corrects the disposition of one of Miz Beaver's pies to allow for a more accurate trajectory with respect to a previous panel.

Something else which might not be apparent from a simple reading of the final printed strip is Kelly’s effortless technique which is devoid of hesitation, a single inking correction or white out.

A simple and somewhat insignificant Pogo Sunday like this one may not have the endless fascination of a truly great painting or etching but it still affords a reasonable amount of pleasure whenever I glance at it each day.

La Nouvelle Action

2009-11-16T09:00:00.000-08:00

Spin Angels (a.k.a. Cross Fire)
auteur: Jean-Luc Sala
artiste: Pierre-Mony Chan
éditeurs: Soleil/Marvel

Bonjour! Comment allez-vous?

I may have missed out on the Sequential Surrender Monkeys roundtable, but I'm still going to review a comic from the Frenchiest country on Earth -- France! However, I'm playing it safe and sticking with the mainstream; none of that artsy-fartsy stuff for me. Surely even their lamest comics must be better than ours, given the lack of decrepit superhero franchises peddled by corporate IP-holders. And one such IP-holder apparently agrees with me, because Marvel has partnered with Soleil to bring mainstream French comics like Spin Angels to the U.S. market.

And what does the French mainstream look like? Think Dan Brown with more cheesecake.

The story in Spin Angels follows the agents of the Vatican's Secret Office, a clandestine paramilitary team operating out of Rome. These guys don't hunt demons like your typical Catholic kill squad. Instead, they acquire or steal documents that could cast doubt on the legitimacy of Catholic dogma. Now, some of you may be thinking that this group is about 500 years too late to do any good. But from the Catholic perspective, Protestantism is just a fad, like emo (Judaism is a much older fad, like disco). Sooner or later all those emo crybabies will come to their senses, and the Catholic Church will be ready to take them back.

As for the plot, the lead investigator for the Secret Office, Sofia D'Agostino, stumbles upon a conspiracy involving the Inquisition, a missing book of the Gospel, and the Templars (it always comes back to the fucking Templars). When things start getting dicey, her boss decides that she needs some extra protection, so he calls in a favor with a buddy in the Sicilian Mafia (!) who sends his best hitman to protect her. What follows is a predictable action-adventure with an opposites attract subplot.

Considering all the lazy, unimaginative superhero crap that I've read in my life, perhaps it's unfair to label this book as derivative. At the very least, it isn't nostalgia porn. On the other hand, everything about it feels unoriginal. It's as if the creators decided that the best way to tell their story was through a Catholic conspiracy theory checklist: apocryphal scripture, lost Templar treasure, Mafia connections, Vatican hitmen, etc. Then they topped it off with every action movie cliché of the last 30 years.

I found the art to be a bit more agreeable, but it doesn't quite work with the story. Chan's style is consistent with traditional Western comic art, but it's also heavily influenced by manga and anime. For example, the following panel has the "grossed-out" reaction that's nearly ubiquitous in mainstream anime.

This style might work well enough for a comedy or even a superhero comic, but it doesn't "sell" the realistic violence within this story. There's also plenty of cheesecake shots, but Chan's style is too cartoony to deliver anything that's genuinely sexy.

To sum up, Spin Angels reads like a Da Vinci Code knockoff regurgitated by a committee. But while I didn't enjoy the comic, there's something encouraging in the idea that even the French are capable of uninspired genre hackwork. We're one world! There's no such thing as the French mainstream or the American mainstream. There's just the mainstream, which happens to be completely devoid of new ideas.