On HU
Featured Archive Post: Me on Chris War, Oedipus, and Superman.
James Romberger on a new TwoMorrows book on underrated artist Marie Severin.
Bill Randall from the archive on the distorted image of Tatsumi.
Ryan Holmberg on abstract comics and modernism.
Derik Badman on poetry comics and/or comics poetry.
Me on Stanislaw Lem’s idiotic “Return From the Stars.”
Jones, One of the Jones Boys pisses on the Golden Age of Comics.
Caleb Das on Portia de Rossi and funny women on television.
Utilitarians Everywhere
At the Atlantic I argue that Cronenberg’s Cosmopolis doesn’t make the rich powerful enough.
At Splice I celebrate Julia Roberts finally getting a good role.
At Splice I plead with the GOP to deal with its coming demographic apocalypse.
Other Links
Craig Fischer on Kirby’s strengths and weaknesses.
Adrielle Mitchell on comics creators vs. comics academics.
Elizabeth Greenwood on Mirror, Mirror.
Darryl Ayo on Luke Pearson.
Jared Gardner on Joe Sacco.
Subashini Navaratnam on nice (and not nice) book reviews.
This really depresses me.
This Week’s Reading
I finished Chris Hedges’ “When Atheism Becomes Religion”; read Joseph Conrad’s short novel “The Shadow Line”, reread the first chapter of Giorgio Agamben’s “The Kingdom and the Glory: For a Theological Genealogy of Economy and Government” and confirmed that I really don’t particularly want to read the rest; read Stanislaw Lem’s “Return From the Stars” (which I reviewed this week); and am now reading Henry James’ “Portrait of a Lady,” which is awesome.
I’m still reading the Brautigan bio (but dammit I’m finishing it this week). I also started Susan Sontag’s short fiction collection, I Etcetera, but I’m only one story in, so I’m not sure how I feel about it.
Comics-wise, I’ve been reading 4 volumes of the the French publisher L’Association’s anthology Lapin from 2009. L’Asso is primarily known for its fierce independent publishing stance and really bringing autobiographical comics to the fore in the Franco-Belgian comics world in the 90s. These volumes are still autobio heavy to their detriment, and, damn, if the art isn’t 90% ugly. I couldn’t even bother to try reading most of the stories just because the art was ugly. But there are a few gems, like Nine Antico’s works (later collected as “Coney Island Baby” which I thought I saw was getting an English version but now I can’t find it), and, the reason I chose these particular volumes, a strange series of 3 panel strips from Daniel Blancou that form a very oblique, gappy narrative.
Derik,
“Her graphic novel Coney Island Baby will be launched in the U.S. by Slate Bank Books in October 2012.” http://www.frenchculture.org/spip.php?article50&tout=ok
Reading: still working through Li’l Abner vol 3, and now also Setting the Standard (that Toth collection), Larry Gonick’s Cartoon History of the Universe, and The Jack Cole Reader. It’s astounding how much Cole’s art improved in the space of a few years at the start of the 40s. Non-picture-book reading is Divided Kingdom by Rupert Thompson which is, unsurprisingly, excellent (but what is it with Brits and dystopias?).
Read Al Williamson’s Hidden Lands — I don’t want to flout my philistinism, so I’ll assume this book didn’t make the best case that could be made for Williamson’s genius — and King City, which was as good as everybody said. It would make an interesting compare-and-contrast with Finder.
Thanks, Oliver. I thought it was one of those British publishers.
Not that this will mean anything to those here (I’d be pleasantly surprised to be contradicted, though!), most of my reading this week has focused on heels: afterthought (never again, baby) (various articles), gusset (Johnson, mostly), top down pick up (still hole problems) (Budd), and the new Sweet Tomato (Bordhi, of course).
I’ve also been reading up on papyrology and manuscripts, researching current interpretations of some Yeats, listening to more Elizabeth Peters via audiobook, and slogging my way through ‘change management’ literature (work thing). I wanted to finish the Wolves of Willoughby Chase, but ran out of time. No comics, per se, but then I try not when I’m creating my own.
Re “This really depresses me,” this 2009 cartoon from Tom Tomorrow ties in: http://blogs.artvoice.com/avdaily/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/TMW2009-09-02colorlowres.jpg . (I’m going to have to put a clothespin on my nose to vote for Obama…)
Along that vein, Ted Rall: http://picayune.uclick.com/comics/tr/2005/tr050815.gif
I likewise agree “that Cronenberg’s Cosmopolis doesn’t make the rich powerful enough.”
Elsewhere, though…
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Noah Berlatsky says:
…the Republicans face an uncertain future. They need to either stop being so darn white, and ditch the racist nativism, or resign themselves to irrelevance.
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http://www.splicetoday.com/politics-and-media/for-the-good-of-the-country-the-gop-has-to-shape-up
Or, they can hold on to and even expand their power by just keeping on stealing elections (which the “liberal media” makes no fuss about), blocking non-white voters, “redistricting,” having appointed right-wingers to lifetime positions in the Supreme Court (where they can do things like stop Florida’s Presidential Election vote recount).
And, do you think the GOP (I’m talking the party here, rather than all its supporters, who may be nice-enough folks dazzled and bamboozled by B.S. rhetoric and flag-waving) even remotely cares about “the good of the country”? Yeah, that’s why they want to tear government to shreds, let the infrastructure fall apart, cut money to schools and police, turn us into a South American banana republic divided between a mega-wealthy few and impoverished rest, abolish the Minimum Wage, environmental protection laws, workplace safety rules, women’s control over reproduction, outsource any job they can?
The Good they truly care about is solely that which will further fatten the wealth of the true masters of the party. And yeah, they’ll toss some red meat to the “useful idiots” who’ll support them: pushing for Bible quotes in classrooms, anti-gay-marriage laws, anti-immigrant laws. (The rich would actually love to have even more cheap labor flooding across the borders; still they must cater to “nativists” and those with more substantial reasons to be opposed to that.)
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The Republican’s racial homogeneity is bad precisely because it leads to nativism and to racial dog-whistling.
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Um, but that’s like saying “a certain 1930s German political party’s position is bad precisely because it leads to nativism and to racial dog-whistling.”
Maybe the GOP is racially homogenous not as an accidental confluence of events, but because it’s a reflection of their policies. For instance, “cater to the rich and the hell with the poor” thereby tramples on a certain racial group which is by far economically worse-off than whites.
As for suggesting the GOP should be more inclusionary rather than “purifying its ranks,” it would indeed be better for the country, but worse for the party. Look what the Democrats’ tolerance gets them: half its members in Congress often voting along with the GOP’s right-wing proposals, some of its members openly stabbing their own party in the back, and getting not an iota of punishment in return:
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Senator Lieberman’s Remarks at the Republican Convention
September 2, 2008:
…What, after all, is a Democrat like me doing at a Republican convention like this?
(APPLAUSE)
Well, I’ll tell you what: I’m here to support John McCain because country matters more than party.
(APPLAUSE)
I am here tonight for a simple reason. John McCain is the best choice to bring our country together and lead America forward.
And, dear friends, I am here tonight because John McCain’s whole life testifies to a great truth: Being a Democrat or a Republican is important, but it is nowhere near as important as being an American.
(APPLAUSE)
AUDIENCE: USA! USA! USA!
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http://elections.nytimes.com/2008/president/conventions/videos/transcripts/20080902_LIEBERMAN_SPEEC.html
Still working on my dissertation! I’ve been reading summaries of economics papers linked from marginalrevolution.com to see if I can find a recommended way weigh salary by job security (which is basically just another kind of salary – a promised salary in the future). Ran out of time, though, so didn’t include anything. I hand in my thesis tomorrow!
Congrats!
“Heels?” The Charlie Sheen autobiography?
Just getting started on “The Life and Times of I.F. Stone.”