Archive for June, 2010

Strange Windows: The Adventures of Tintin in Otherland, Part 1

The children’s comics album Tintin au Congo, by the  Belgian cartoonist Hergé, has been much in the news of late– and not in a good way. In Britain, the Commission for Racial Equality has condemned the book’s “abominable” racism (and proving once more that there’s no such thing as bad publicity, its sales have jumped [...]

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Komikusu, Selling Awesome Manga: Belated Conclusion

I was originally not going to write a conclusion for last week’s Komikusu discussion. But then I was chatting to Tucker Stone, and he mentioned that he’d enjoyed reading the roundtable. This took me a little aback, because Tucker’s come out fairly strongly in the past against the “we must read more lit comics!” meme [...]

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Frazetta in Perspective

Noah asked me to weigh in on the work of Frank Frazetta, who died on May 10. Frazetta has probably received more celebratory tributes upon his death than any comics-related figure since Charles Schulz, and for good reason: like Schulz, he is one of the few who succeeded in becoming a pop-culture icon in his [...]

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Visual Languages of Manga and Comics

Hello!  I’m known as Telophase in various places online, and when I dropped a couple of comments about the visual language of manga on a post a couple of weeks month or so back, Noah asked me to make a guest post (originally during the time that HU was down, and rescheduled for today).  So [...]

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Monthly Stumblings # 2: Frans Masereel

Frans Masereel in the Expanded Field…

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Utilitarian Review 6/26/10

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 [...]

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Thinking Outside the Comic-Shop: Exposing Great Manga to Grown-Ups

(or “Can Manga Muster Up Its Maus / Watchmen Mega-Crossover Hit?”) As a reader of Hooded Utilitarian, you’re probably a little like me: you spend so much time in the world of comics and manga, you’re a little weirded out when you remember that the vast majority of readers in America still think that “comics [...]

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