Prehistory of the Superhero (Part 3): Verne, Villains, Vril

Posted on September 4, 2013 by Alex Buchet

“Professor,” the commander replied swiftly, “I’m not what you term a civilized man! I’ve severed all ties with society, for reasons that I alone have the right to appreciate. Therefore I obey none of its regulations, and I insist that you never invoke them in front of me!” — Jules Verne, Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea

When it’s steam engine time, people steam engine. — Charles Fort

The Engineer as Superman

The nascent genre of science fiction found a hospitable place in the nineteenth century serial novel. Every day seemed to bring a new crop of technological wonders: the telegraph and telephone, photography, steam trains and steamships, electric generation and illumination, anaesthesia, vaccination, the internal combustion engine… The reading public was entranced by these tokens of progress, and was eager to see the new age fictionalised.

One author above all embodied this new scientific sense of wonder: the French novelist Jules Verne (1828–1905). His series Les Voyages Extraordinairescertainly lived up to its title, taking the reader Around the world in Eighty Days,Off on a Comet, From the Earth to the Moon, on a Journey to the Centre of the Earth, and Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea. Verne remains as of 2012 the second most-translated fiction author in the world, after Agatha Christie.Verne is of interest to us, in this prehistory of the superhero, for two reasons.

First as the populariser of technological marvels, much imitated; a direct descent can be argued from Verne’s adventure tales, through dime-novel Edisonades and science-fiction pulps, to the first superhero comics. And, indeed, we’ll trace that descent in more detail in subsequent installments.

Second, as one more writer who helped shape the popular figure of the superman. Captain Nemo is the villain/hero of Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea (1870). He is the master of the Nautilus, a mighty submarine that defies the earthbound nations of the world and their navies, sinking warships at will:

“On the surface, they can still exercise their iniquitous laws, fight, devour each other, and indulge in all their earthly horrors. But thirty feet below the (sea’s) surface, their power ceases, their influence fades, and their dominion vanishes. Ah, monsieur, to live in the bosom of the sea! …. There I recognize no master! There I am free!”

This anarchist has, in effect, declared war on the entire world, reserving particular hatred for the British Empire. The reason for this is not given in Leagues, but in a subsequent sequel of sorts, The Mysterious Island (1874) we learn that Nemo is the Indian prince Dakkar of Bundelkund, whose family was wiped out by the British during the Great Mutiny. But the earlier book disdains such explicit explanation: Nemo strikes us as a superman sui generis, master of men and challenger of the elements.

Nemo and crew fighting a giant squid

(Is there an indirect link between Captain Nemo and the aquatic superhero/villain Namor, the Sub-Mariner, who first appears in a 1939 comic book? Both are princes who rule the seas from under the waves, both wage war against the hated ‘surface men’ and sink their ships at will. Creator -cartoonist Bill Everett (1917–1973) claimed his inspiration was Coleridge’s The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, and that he arrived at the name ‘Namor’ by spelling ‘Roman’ backwards. But surely there’s an echo of ‘Nemo’ in ‘Namor’, even if an unconscious one?)

A 1976 version of the squid fight; art by Gil Kane and Ralph Reese

Yet another of Verne’s scientific supermen was Robur, who ruled the air as Nemo ruled the sea, from his propellor-powered airship Albatross in the 1886 Robur the Conqueror.

Robur’s Albatross (left) defeating the balloon Go Ahead in a race; art by Leo Benett

Robur had turned decidedly villainous, with dreams of world domination, by the time of the sequel The Master of the World (1904); his successor to the Albatross is the even deadlier Terror, which can navigate the air, the land, or below the sea:

The Terror (L’epouvante)

This is the trope of the Ultimate Weapon, again familiar to superhero comics, generally in the hand of the villain. It is possible Verne was influenced by a derivative work to transform Robur from aeronautic pioneer to would-be world conqueror. This was Edward Douglas Fawcett‘s Hartmann the Anarchist, or the Doom of the Great City (1893), in which a Robur-like evildoer rains death and destruction down on a helpless London from his airship:

illustration for Hartmann the Anarchist.

With eyes riveted now to the massacre, I saw frantic women trodden down by men; huge clearings made by the shells and instantly filled up; house-fronts crushing horses and vehicles as they fell; fires bursting out on all sides, to devour what they listed, and terrified police struggling wildly and helplessly in the heart of the press.

A chilling premonition of the WWII blitz! It is well to remember that the end of the 19th century viewed anarchists with particular dread, and with good reason, much as we today fear terrorists.

Verne’s influence was enormous, inspiring a sub-genre of popular literature that the science-fiction critic John Clute has dubbed ‘Edisonade’, after Thomas Alva Edison (1847-1931), the famed inventor of the phonograph, light bulb, motion picture, microphone, and hundreds of other marvellous devices. (Edison himself occasionally turned up in science fiction; he builds a gynoid robot in L’Eve Future, he battles extra-terrestrials in Edison’s Conquest of Mars.) Edison is the real-life avatar of the mad scientist’s benevolent equivalent in fiction, whose epigones continue in modern superhero tales: Reed Richards of The Fantastic Four, for instance.

The Steam Man of the Prairies

Typical of the genre is Edward Ellis‘ The Huge Hunter, or the Steam Man of the Prairies (1868), in which the eponymous automaton (pictured above) drags around a crew of intrepid young adventurers to fight Indians and bandits in the old West. The series was hugely popular, and duly plagiarised. We can observe that the Steam Man’s descendants today number such superheroes as Robotman, Steel, Machine Man, Iron Man, or War Machine.

Let’s take note of other European contributions to 19th century popular culture that have echoed down to the present, contributing to the crowded attic of superhero tropes.

Edward Bulwer-Lytton (1803-1930), in his 1871 novel Vril, the Power of the Coming Race, presents an ancient civilisation living in vast underground caverns. This “coming race”, the Vril-Ya, has mastered a sort of universal force known as Vril that gives them an array of powers, allowing them to fly, heal any wound or disease, animate mechanisms, or destroy an entire city with a thought. In short, the first literary evocation of super-powers with a pseudo-scientific rationale. In modern superhero comics, Silver Surfer and Green Lantern are today’s most successful wielders of Vril-like energy.

The Vril-Ya live in an underground utopia. (Underground races and civilisations are staples of superhero comics: see the Mole Man’s and the Deviants’ realms.) However, the human narrator fears that some day they will burst up onto the Earth’s surface and subjugate humanity:

Only, the more I think of a people calmly developing, in regions excluded from our sight and deemed uninhabitable by our sages, powers surpassing our most disciplined modes of force, and virtues to which our life, social and political, becomes antagonistic in proportion as our civilisation advances,–the more devoutly I pray that ages may yet elapse before there emerge into sunlight our inevitable destroyers.

The Vril-Ya, a race of superior post-humans, are also kin to science fiction’s Slans and comic books’ X-men: super mutants, to be feared. This novel, though largely unread today, made a sensational impact at the time; and its influence was often sinister. Many thought the book was non-fiction. Occult Vril societies sprang up and continue to this day; the book had a decided influence on Nazi ideology. A race of supermen destined to rule the earth!

In 2007, writer Josh Dysart and artist Sal Velluto created the comic Captain Gravity and the Power of the Vril, whose eponymous superhero tapped Vril for his fantastic powers to fight the Nazis, themselves bent on acquiring the mystic energy.

art by Sal Velluto and Bob Almond

I prefer to dwell on a more wholesome influence: in 1886, John Lawson Johnston named his nourishing beef tea paste Bovril, combining the Latin bos (ox) with Bulwer-Lytton’s Vril. And the writer of these lines can indeed attest to this fine drink’s revivifying powers, particularly on winter days.

Early advertisement for Bovril

In 1886, the novella Strange Case of Dr Jeckyll and Mr Hyde, by Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894) was published to universal acclaim. This tale of a kindly doctor who changes into an evil, twisted double on imbibing a potion has strongly influenced the modern superhero, with his or her double identities.

Art by Ron Wilson, John Romita, and Ernie Chua

More directly influenced superheroes include the Hulk, the Demon, Ghost Rider, Man-Wolf, the Badger, and Rose and the Thorn; while supervillains of the type are numerous, such as Eclipso or the Lizard. Stevenson’s penetrating allegory of humans’ multiple nature thus lives on in the garish jungle of pop culture.

In 1905, Emmuska Orczy (1865 –1947 ) published The Scarlet Pimpernel;the novel tells the adventures of Sir Percy Blakeney– a ridiculous fop of a British aristocrat, who leads a double life as the Scarlet Pimpernel, a dashing hero dedicated to rescuing aristocrats from the guillotine in the terror years of revolutionary France.

The Pimpernel was a sensation in print and on stage, and proved equally successful in the movies; so too did Orczy’s numerous sequels.

We seek him here, we seek him there,
Those Frenchies seek him everywhere.
Is he in heaven?—Is he in hell?
That demmed, elusive Pimpernel.

The Scarlet Pimpernel has a good claim on being the first full-fledged superhero; we shall return to his influence on such characters as Zorro and Batman.

Next: Enter the Detective, and the anti-supermen of H.G.Wells

Film to Comics: Lessons from Daniel Clowes’ Justin M. Damiano

Posted on September 3, 2013 by Ng Suat Tong

Justin M. Damiano was first published to limited notice in The Book of Other People (ed. Zadie Smith; full comic at link) in 2007. Its existence was jogged back into my memory by James Romberger’s recent review of The Daniel Clowes Reader where he calls it:

“…a classic that needs to be read by anyone who writes criticism on the internet.”

This wasn’t the way I remembered the story and I read it again to see if I had been blinded to its treasures on my first read through.

A number of critics have taken Justin Damiano to their bosoms, elevating the specific into a judgement of the whole or at least a comment on a significant number of online critics. At The Guardian, Peter Bradshaw suggests that:

“…mature, contemporary Damiano isn’t a cynic or a loser: he has transferred his idealism from the world of relationships to that of the cinema, and being an online critic, answerable only to himself, he is perhaps freer to express this pure, unapologetic idealism…Is Justin a sad sack for believing that this transcendence is to be found in the cinema rather than human relationships? Maybe – but not necessarily, and it isn’t clear that Clowes is inviting us to assume this.”

Another critic, Brian Warmoth, opines that:

“Clowes’ ability to distill the bitter side of humanity in menial activities and everyday labor or interests is extremely keen…It’s also about the rifts between critics and artists that can sometimes encompass shared ground.”

Part of this boils down to a presumption of antagonism—that artists are supposed to have a very low opinion of critics and criticism in general. It is easy to slip into this diagnosis unless one looks closely at the details of Clowes’ exposition, most of which holds very little water and specificity for critics. To suggest that Clowes was presenting a critique of critics in general here would be to do him a disservice and may even imply that he is a person of shallow intellect. Naturally the title of the anthology begs the question, “What other people?” It might be that the ultimate “other” for an artist is not his audience but his critics, but this wouldn’t be that much of a leap of the imagination for Clowes who has engaged in scathing criticism for years in the pages of his comics. Clowes isn’t so much an artist chastising critics but a practicing critic contemplating his own art.

Taking James’ premise as true, however, what exactly are the lessons we (as online critics, silent or otherwise) are supposed to glean from Justin M. Damiano?

(1) Critics have a overweening sense of self-worth.

Translation for comics-kind: A comics critic is a (part time) warrior, and each of us on the battlefield have the means to glorify or destroy (whether a comic, a career, or an entire philosophy) by influencing perception in ways that, if heartfelt and truthful, can have far reaching repercussions.

This sounds insightful (and damning) until you start replacing the word “critic” with other words like, “artist”, “cartoonist”, “director”, “journalist”, “politician”, and “pop star”. Basically anybody with access to the wider media through talent, money, or both. In this day and age, this would mean a television program, a newspaper, a studio, and, yes, a popular blog. There is very little doubt though that the comics critic is the dung beetle of this august list of movers and shakers.

(2) Critics enjoy toilet humor (or perhaps playful metaphors).

Well, they sort of do, and they’ve also shown some fondness for bidets apparently. A clear reference to Duchamp and his porcelain urinal but also a self-referential finger pointed at Clowes himself—a very arch critic in many stories in Eightball and a florid user of metaphor.

(3) Critics are self-absorbed and insular.

“He so perfectly gets how we’re really all like these aliens who can never have any meaningful contact with each other because we’re all so caught up in our own little self-made realities, you know?”

There’s an interplay between panels 2 and 3 on this page. The blonde girl, Marion, is the target of Justin’s irritable internal musings:

“Most critics will give any movie three and a half stars if it flatters their self-image…Have you noticed that most critics usually disagree completely with the public? That should tell you a lot about critics.” [emphasis mine]

That latter point is quite contrary to experience as a simple survey of the top 5 movies of the last two years will attest:

Top 5 movies by domestic gross 2013 with Rotten Tomatoes (RT) score
Iron Man 3 (RT 78%)
Despicable Me 2 (RT 76%)
Man of Steel (RT 56%)
Monsters University (RT 78%)
Fast and Furious 6 (RT 69%)

Top 5 movies by domestic gross 2012

Marvel’s The Avengers (RT 92%)
The Dark Knight Rises (RT 87%)
The Hunger Games (RT 84%)
Skyfall (RT 92%)
The Hobbit (RT 65%)

Of course Clowes doesn’t mean any old critic. He means critics like Justin M. Damiano who is shown throughout this page in an act of self-condemnation, hurling stones at others while he sits in his own ivory tower of arrogance and recalcitrant elitism—the stuck-up loner with delusions of grandeur; the keyboard warrior of “modern alternative film criticism.” For all intents and purposes, this would include well over 50% of all comics critics.

But what exactly does “flatters their self-image” mean? One presumes that it means that critics tend to prefer movies which align with their own vision and experience of existence. Damiano suggests that critics should instead acquire a taste for other aspects of humanity as presented on film—those which run counter to their own beliefs. It should be stressed that we are specifically talking about “taste” and not action here, for Damiano is never shown acting on his preferences in art. Thus a critic with Randian principles should be able to develop empathy for the works of Vittorio De Sica. Similarly, a critic who abhors violence and misogyny should be able to appreciate and enjoy glorifications of the same. Since Marion is portrayed as a typical online critic, some might see this a proposition put forward by Clowes but this may not be the case. If Damiano is seen as a negative indicator (in some instances), it could also be taken as an admonishment of the critical community as a whole.

Marion’s comment that the film depicts human as “aliens who can never have any meaningful contact with each other” proves to be Damiano’s own “defect”—the very reason why he prefers “escapism” in film. The cinema becomes a brothel of whispered dreams and vicarious experience, a panacea for his lack of human contact. This explains his boredom when faced with Godard’s Le Mepris (a film about estrangement), a movie which probably mirrors all too accurately his own life. This isn’t so much Clowes needling critics so much as Clowes poking fun at himself, for his comics have consistently portrayed “sordid humanity” and immorality.

(4) Critics are mercurial and careless – “Good I hope it fails.”

But are they significantly more so compared to the general public?

(5) They don’t suffer fools gladly – “Well watch it again!”

(6) They are frequently jealous of access.

See point 4.

(7) “Every critic, even the most most mainstream hack, thinks of himself as a “rebel.” But in a culture of self-indulgent experimentalist navel-gazing, a real rebel believes in truly subversive ideas like “escapism” and “universality.”

This isn’t as straightforward as it sounds. Damiano suggests that every critic considers himself a “rebel,” which would make him a rebel himself. Rather than promoting “bidet” art, Justin has taken his beliefs one step further and is rebelling against rebellion—championing “escapism” and “universality.” In other words, the act of criticism is seen here not so much as an act of connoisseurship but a process of self-promotion and self-aggrandizement which has little relation to “taste” or the object beheld.

At this point, alternative comics criticism and film criticism diverge, at least in the American sphere. The gradual migration of superhero fans into alternative comics has led to a renewed interest in objects of times past and the assimilation of tropes and techniques associated with superhero comics and other forms of commercial art. Further, this might be an area where comics have a leg-up according to Justin Damiano’s injunction. The 5 nominees for Best Continuing Series at the 2013 Will Eisner Awards were Fatale, Hawkeye, The Manhattan Projects, Prophet, and Saga—all firmly lodged in the realm of of “escapism.”

(8) Criticism is autobiographical and self-revelatory.

“I remembered how much Ellen and I love The Devil’s Rowboat…and how desperately I wanted to impress her with that article.”

In the first panel of this page, Damiano’s thoughts completely obscure the words of the director who bears a vague resemblance to a balding Clowes (well, it could also be Gary Groth). One might say that his own thoughts take precedence over the ideas of the director being interviewed; a point further emphasized by the revelation that a favorite scene of his from an earlier film of that director was quite unintentional (the result of a distributor cut).

This seems like a knock on critics but it actually suggests that criticism is as much an act of creativity as the production of a film or comic—a metatextual comment on the object being read. The real mark of bad criticism in my view is “objective” synopsis. I wouldn’t read criticism if it all read as if it was produced by a machine (or a marketing agent).

(9) Critics are frequently loners with poor social skills.

“I believe in the transformative power cinema. It is only through this shared dream-experience that we can transcend the oppressive minutiae of daily existence and find some spiritual connection in the deeper reality of our mutual desire.”

Justin is looking at a pictorial representation of a cinema screen which is actually the fourth panel of the comics page. This is probably a reference to Clowes’ own migration to and from comics and film.

Clowes’ cynicism is so thoroughly ingrained into his comics that the somewhat ambiguous but treacly conviction stated here would quickly arouse the suspicions of his long time readers. One imagines that some people feel the same way about the films they see, but this seems like a specific interjection clarifying the state of mind of our protagonist, a point reasserted on the page following where he thinks:

“When Ellen finally left, she said she felt as though she didn’t even know me. She said I lived entirely inside my own head.”

The escapism which Justin seeks in the cinema (and art) has become a substitute for any real real connection. Any warmth in expression (the bottom panel bears his least contemptuous face) or speech is reserved for the figures he sees on the cinema screen. He has nothing but distaste for the people he interacts with in the pages of this comic.

It seems to me that whatever observations Clowes makes about critics are simply a side effect of using a film critic as the main character of his story. Any bitterness or acute observation is restricted to the first half of the story and forms the bedrock for his elaboration on the protagonist later in the tale. The further one delves into Justin M. Damiano, the less it reads like a standard exposè on the failing of critics, and the more it feels like a story about a man who just happens to be a film critic. In this way, it has many similarities to one of Clowes’ earlier works, “Caricature”, which constantly straddles the line between reality and illusion in its portrayal of a caricaturist—a competent loner working the crowd and his sexual proclivities.

But even more than in that work, Justin M. Damiano turns in on itself, becoming a moment of self-criticism and reflection; a careful dissection of his own comics. The “other” of the collection’s title (The Book of Other People) is not so much his critics or his audience—they remain anonymous and unknowable. The “other” is the person that he can never hope to become.

Why Shelby Lynne Is Not Death Metal

Posted on September 2, 2013 by Noah Berlatsky

This ran a while back on Splice Today.
____________
I’ve been obsessed with death metal recently — Decapitated, Disincarnate, Dismember, Deicide, Demilich, and of course Death — best fucking band names in the world of music, and that’s 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 rotor because — that’s what death metal is damn it! Just ask Carcass or Cancer or Cannibal Corpse or Kreator.

The other thing I’ve been listening to is the new Shelby Lynne album, Tears, Lies, and Alibis, which obviously has nothing to do with death metal at all. It has so little to do with death metal that it’s kind of fun to sit back and count the ways that it is not like everything else I’m listening to. You can hear the lyrics. They are sensitive songs about love and heartache rather than vile despicable ruminations on nuclear winter, incest, and stripping the flesh from the rotting Christ with your teeth. And, to get a little more meta, it’s always clear as clear can be why a death metal album is death metal, but it’s not at all clear what Shelby Lynne is supposed to be. Folk? Pop? Country?

Country’s where she’s usually filed I think, and that’s actually the best explanation of her genre incoherence. Because, if death metal revels in fiendish formal consistency, country has long been defined more by who’s doing the dancing than by what they’re dancing to. Music by rural whites for rural whites, country has borrowed variously from jazz, rockabilly, rock, pop, soul, blues, and whatever else happened to be around, just so long as it wasn’t too up to the minute. Death metal (or for that matter, bluegrass) is what it is; country is who is playing it and listening to it.

What this means is that fans of country — even more than fans of pop, perhaps — aren’t especially fans of a particular musical style. Listening to country means listening to an amalgamation. As a result, there’s a great deal of emphasis on personality. Death metal performers (and, for that matter, bluegrass performers) are relatively hidden, obscured behind their technical mastery and their unholy obeisance to the tropes of their genre. Country, though (or for that matter punk) is all about charisma — your stories, your voice, your sexiness, your humor. If death metal is anonymous assault, country is personal seduction.

Which maybe helps explain why I’m not so into this Shelby Lynne album. Not that I don’t like country — overall I probably like classic country more than death metal, truth be told. But…well, Lynne just isn’t that charismatic. She’s got all the technical bits down, no doubt — her voice is rich and full, with a touch of plainspokennness that comes across as sensuality. The songwriting is unimpeachable, from the Beatlesesque “Rains Came” with its woodwind accents ,to the swinging soul come-on of “Why Didn’t You Call Me,” to the earnest folkisms of “Family Tree.” It’s all done with professional polish and even moments of inventiveness. If it were death metal, I’d thrash my head to it happily.

But it’s not death metal — and as a result it’s roteness is kind of a problem. Country has no solid formal grounding to fall back on, so mere competence, or even hyper-competence, just isn’t good enough. George Strait or Leanne Womack or Lyle Lovett or K.D. Lang, to cite some artists comparable to Lynne, all manage, at various points, to be funny, or weird, or eccentric or heartfelt. I don’t necessarily adore everything any of those singers have done, but they do put their own stamp on their material. You’d have to go a long way to find someone who could put as much rueful pathos as George Strait does into the couplet “Oh she tells her friends I’m perfect and that I love that cat/But you know me better than that.” It’s hard to think of anyone who could sound as simultaneously ridiculous and heartbroken as Leann Womack does when she declares “I’m the fool in love with the fool who’s still in love with you.”

There’s no comparable moment like that on Shelby Lynne’s album. Yes, she has a great voice, but various people have great voices, and it’s hard to see how this album would be changed if one of them sang it instead of her. When you listen to a country album, you’re kind of always asking, “Who are you? And why should I love you? “ If Shelby Lynn were Morbid Angel or Malevolent Creation or Massacra the answers would be, in order, “no one” and “I will feed your corpse to the pit”. But she isn’t, and so the answers instead seem to be “I’m not sure,” and “because I’m a little bland.” Which is why I’m turning off Shelby now and going back to listen to Sodom or Slayer or Sepultura— or, hell, maybe even to Strait.

The Future Will Be Repeated

Posted on September 1, 2013 by Noah Berlatsky

This first ran on Splice Today.
_________

Chicago juke is supposed to be dance music. Listen to Bangs & Works Vol. 1 (A Chicago Footwork Compilation), though, and you’ll be hard pressed to believe it. The album sounds like Philip Glass being hit in the head with a turntable. Repeatedly. Repeatedly. Repeatedly. Repeatedly. And he says shits fuck, shits fuck, shits fuck, shits fuck, shits fuck , shits fucked up. That shit is fucked up. That shit is fucked up. That shit is fucked up.

The repetition is addictively flattening. This is music as endless bland trance, everything reiterating into a meaningless blur. Hip hop is about the clever dexterity of the samples and the wordplay; jazzy individualistic improvisation. This…this is droned out and faceless; incongruous samples like “The Lion Sleeps Tonight” run round and round for two minutes till you want to strangle yourself or go into a coma; random profane phrases spit out and spit out again and spit out again till they don’t even register as offensive. The whole comp is sexless, the beats coming in rapid bursts like balls bounced on the ground and then stopping again, utterly impervious to funk. Compared to this, nerdy electronica swaggers and Xenakis swings. “Ima dog Ima dog Ima dog Ima dog Ima dog,” one track insists, but really it should be saying, “Ima cas Ima cas Ima cas Ima castrated robot.”

Check out actual videos of footwork competitions online and “castrated robot” starts to seem even more apropos. The dancers look like Michael Jackson in a sped up film, their legs pounding and racing in time to nothing. The music’s there, but it’s fractured loops seem divorced from the motion of the performers; they might as well be dancing to a leaf blower or a boiler. The technical facility is amazing, but it seems to occur in a vacuum. Passion is bled away and all that’s left is motion and sound, spinning on automatic, like a projector running after the film has run out, the loose end of the last reel stuttering on and on until the projectionist wakes up to turn it off.

It’s hard to imagine this style ever going pop. Maybe one or two tracks on the comp suggest a path; DJ Trouble’s “Mosh Pit” has a repeating classic rock guitar riff, for example, and something that comes within spitting distance of an actual beat. But it’s telling that Kid Sister, a thoroughly awesome Chicago pop artist who occasionally name-checks juke,, sounds way more like the early eighties than she does like the stuff on Bangs & Works.

Still, who knows? Afrika Baambata must have seemed like he was coming from another planet to boring middle-aged white people like me when he first appeared on the scene. Maybe bloodless spastic trances are the future. For that matter, it’s a little miraculous, and not a little inspiring, that they’re part of the present.

The River of No Return

Posted on August 31, 2013 by Piyali Bhattacharya

Bee Ridgway’s novel starts with a jolt and doesn’t stop shocking you until it reaches its electrifying end (which is only a semicolon of an end, really – I am waiting on the edge of my seat for the sequel to come out).

Perhaps the most shocking part of Ridgway’s novel is the identity of the author. For to the world she may be Bee Ridgway, but to me, she is Professor Bethany Schneider, leader of many of my college seminars. Even as students, we were mesmerized by Bethany’s storytelling power. She is a legend on campus at Bryn Mawr College, and we would wake up at the crack of dawn on registration day in order to assure ourselves spots in her class. We looked to her not only for literary direction, but also for guidance in our feminist politics, and for help with wrestling our anger at the world’s injustices into well-crafted prose.

But we never guessed that she’d come out with a novel that places itself squarely in three different genres of fiction: romance, science and historical. And yet, maybe I shouldn’t have been surprised. Because though the novel is something of a thriller, it is also deeply grounded in radical and feminist politics.

The River of No Return opens with the death of Julia Percy’s grandfather, the Earl of Darchester, in the year 1815. We then jump forward in time to an idyllic New England farm, where we meet Nick Davenant, who turns out to have leapt ahead in time himself. The fun really begins when Nick returns to 1815 to resume being Lord Nicholas Falcott, Marquess of Blackdown (and Julia’s neighbor). Intrigue takes the form not only of romantic banter between our hero and heroine (racy in the most heart-stopping and breath-quickening ways!), but also of Nicholas being given the responsibility to save The Guild, the society of time travelers, from doom. Nestled into these overarching dramas are the subplots concerning Nicholas’s two sisters, Arabella and Clare. Here, I think, is where the novel truly shines. The desire to follow what happens to Nick and Julia is unstoppable, but the small crevasses into which Ridgway packs these supplemental stories are equally rich.

For instance, I don’t know of too many time travel novels that focus on discussions of women’s rights and the relationships between various socioeconomic classes across the centuries. I sincerely appreciated that these subjects were not ignored in The River of No Return. Clare, for example, assumes she is going to inherit her family’s property when her brother disappears. Without giving too much away, Clare’s plans for the estate might be deemed downright socialist in a modern context, not to mention the fact that she might be one of the only women of 1815 with a thorough understanding of Mary Wollstonecraft.

One of the more entertaining anecdotes in this vein is when Nick encounters in the nineteenth century a woman he had slept with previously, while he had been living in the twenty-first century. The shock of this brings up for Nick several questions about how he should be treating women, and Ridgway’s reflections on courtship across the centuries is nuanced and hilarious.

The River of No Return moves along at breakneck speed, so much so that it can sometimes be overwhelming. I found myself needing to re-read the complicated passages about the rules of time travel in order to understand them. But one thing is for certain: if you open it, it will suck you in until the very last page, so make sure to have some time on your hands before reading the first.

Utilitarian Review 8/30/13

Posted on August 31, 2013 by Noah Berlatsky

On HU

Featured Archive Post: Caroline Small interviews Nina Paley about copyright and culture.

The real realism of Killer Elite.

Five haiku by me.

Chris Gavaler on time and timelessness in comics and politics.

James Romberger reviews a whole slew of recent comics.

Subdee compares Pacific Rim to the manga Attack on Titan.

Ng Suat Tong with a review of Suehiro Maruo’s adaptation of Edogawa Ranpo’s The Strange Tale of Panorama Island.

I provide a tour of some great muppet musical performances.

Utilitarians Everywhere

At the Atlantic I wrote about:

— how doofus Batman is the best Batman.

Miley Cyrus, Janis Joplin, and minstrelsy.

And more on Cyrus and Joplin and exemplary white people.

At Splice Today I write about

—wishing school would start and I could be bored.

—how I wish Jonathan Chait would stop encouraging us to go to war in the Middle East.

Other Links

Alex Pareene on how Roger Ailes is a paranoid nutcase.

Jessica Hopper on black metal. She sort of conflates all black metal with the fascist kind a bit, but it’s an interesting article nonetheless.

Jacob Canfield is pretty amazing in this tcj comment thread on indie titles and racism. Darryl Ayo has some great things to say too.

In fact…that whole thread is just really heartening for anyone who cares about comics. Yes, there are some folks who are defending obvious, stupid racism, in the same old we-love-Crumb-and-all-his-progeny vein. But there’s also just a ton of folks explaining why it’s time to move on from that particular dead end. Frank Santoro’s response to what is basically some pretty harsh criticism of his post is extremely balanced and respectful. It’s a serious discussion with a lot of smart people saying a lot of smart things about a topic that matters, in the best tradition of the Comics Journal. It made me really happy.

Muppet Music

Posted on August 30, 2013 by Noah Berlatsky

This originally ran on Madeloud a long time back.
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There’s nothing quite like a plush floppy critter singing — which of course explains the breakout success of John Denver. It also, to perhaps a lesser extent, accounts for the marvel of musical treasures which was the Muppet Show. Below are some of the highlights.

“Mahna Mahna”

“Mahna Mahna” debuted on Sesame Street in a prototype and then went big time on the Ed Sullivan show in 1969 with the familiar shaggy muppet and the cowlike pink Snowths. “Mah-na Mah-na” (with hyphens) was originally composed by Italian Pierro Umiliani for his Swedesploitation film, Sweden, Heaven or Hell. In the Muppet version, scandalous Scandinavian sex is replaced by scandalous scatting as the irrepressible be-sunglassed beat muppet provokes the Snowths snouts into escalating moues of disapproval. The skit was reprised as the first number on the first episode of the Muppet Show, a version which includes poor Kermit being mahna mahnaed by telephone.

The Mahna Mahna singer does a similar act in “Sax and Violence,” a skit also featuring saxophonist Zoot.

“You’ve Got a Friend”

Vincent Price, in perhaps his scariest role of all time, wears a hideous green jacket, terrifying neckware, and a hairstyle-that-should-not-be to lugubriously desecrate Carole King’s “You’ve Got a Friend.” Henson and company break out a whole murder of endearingly ugly muppets, but, as is his wont, Price emphatically steals the show. His expression of sweetly demented joy at :41 is almost as irresistible as his plodding off-key singing. Indisputably the best version of this song ever recorded.

“I’ve Got You Under My Skin”

This is another performance from the excellent Vincent Prince episode. A giant orange monster and a small frightened muppet duet on Cole Porter’s “I’ve Got You Under My Skin” while the former attempts to eat the later. Perhaps the best thing about the skit is that the violence in the song comes so naturally; you listen and realize, yeah, this…this is a creepy stalker song. “Don’t you know little fool/ you never can win!” the monster declares, and the poor tiny muppet trembles. As well he should, because that’s a really unpleasant way to declare your undying affection to the weird beak-nosed darling of your dreams.

“Orange Blossom Special” and “Jackson”

Johnny Cash does a medley of two of his biggest hits, assisted by Miss Piggy standing in for June Carter Cash. The buck-toothed hayseed muppet puffing like a train is pretty great, but of course the duet is the main thing. Johnny swivels his hips in a unhealthily lascivious manner when the pig makes her appearance resplendent in purple hat and green scarf. She reciprocates by heartlessly drawing attention to his coiffure (“go comb your hair!”) which looks like one of her fellow muppets has crawled up on his scalp and expired.

Cash’s performance of “Ghost Riders in the Sky” with Gonzo as cattle-herder is pretty great too.

“In the Navy”

After a brief selection of soothing flute music from the Peer Gynt Suite, we launch into the Village People classic performed by marauding Viking pigs. The usual Muppet Show protocol is to have the puppet-performed numbers voiced entirely by people who can’t sing. This skit, however is distinguished by being voiced almost entirely by people who can’t sing — there’s one guy there who can actually belt it out. You can hear him at 1:37 — “Can’t you see we need a hand!’ he declaims with some almost professional vibrato while everyone around him stomps forward like they’re in a skit involving marauding Viking pigs and nobody cares whether or not they’re on-key.

“Rockin’ Robin”

Of course, the “nobody can sing” dictum doesn’t apply to house-band the Electric Mayhem in general, or to Janice in particular (here voiced by Richard Hunt.) Though you might miss it behind the goofy interpolations and the cadaverous looking shuffling robin, this tune is actually a strikingly effective arrangement of this Jackson Five classic. The slick Motown R&B delivery system gets changed into a swinging jump blues, with some tasty bass and a soulful drum/gutbucket saxophone interchange. Plus you get to hear Animal yell “Tweet! Tweet! Tweet!”

Janice also sang “With a Little Help From My Friends,”. It’s even sillier…but still manages some musical integrity, I think.

Loretta Lynn

Loretta Lynn’s version of her it-sucks-to-be-a-woman lament is adorned with some of the most disturbing muppets ever created. Giant leering toothy monster muppets are cute…but these human muppet babies with their twisted little apple faces and gaping contorted mouths…eesh. If this were more widely marketed it could single-handedly solve the population crisis.

The baby muppets were featured in a number of other skits as part of Bobby Benson’s Baby Band, always to nightmarish effect.

“The Gambler”

It’s a little hard to believe how thin Kenny Rogers’ voice sounds on this — it was a sad twist of fate which caused him to attain stardom before the Auto-tune. The Gambler needs no vocal enhancement, though; he appears to be simultaneously channeling John Wayne and William Shatner. The old adult-sized human muppets aren’t as viscerally horrifying as Loretta Lynn’s babies, but there is something profoundly wrong about the scene where the Gambler’s spirit steps out of his hand-sewn body and begins spectrally shuffling while his withered seat mates launch into a shaky chorus. The skit is also notable for the muppets’ human hands, and for the fact that what they do with those hands is smoke and drink. You can be Disney isn’t going to let that happen again anytime soon.

“Bohemian Rhapsody”

Over the last couple of years the Muppet Studios have put together a number of viral videos. A split screen “Ode to Joy” featuring multiple Beakers was a major success, as was this everyone-and-their-chickens production of Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody.” Admittedly, for fans of the old show, the relatively slick production values are a little hard to take — and of course with Henson gone many of the voices don’t sound like they should. In addition, the recycling of favorite skits, from “Mahna Mahna” to Beeker meeping seem a little forced. But everything is forgiven for the segment where Animal calls plaintively, “Mama? Mama? Mama mama mama mama mama mama mama!” He’s such a sad and lonely psychopathic beast-creature. Even Freddie Mercury would have shed a tear.

There’s endless more clips worth watching; Beaker fronting the Electric Mayhem on “Feelings”; the epic Animal vs. Buddy Rich drum battle; Joan Baez singing “Will the Circle Be Unbroken” to a family of rats; Marvin Suggs and the Muppaphone; while being manhandled by monsters Alice Cooper performing “School’s Out”. You can surf from skit to skit endlessly on Youtube…or if you want an unbeatable catalog of all things muppet, check out the amazingly thorough Muppet Wiki.

The Hooded Utilitarian

a pundit in every panopticon

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