Category Archives: Series

Utilitarian Review 1/11/14

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News

So we’re getting a good bit more spam since I turned off the captcha requirement. Is this annoying people? Or is it worth not having to struggle with the captcha? Let me know if people are happy as is or if I should try to bring the captcha back.

On HU

Featured Archive Post: a report on a panel on gender and cartooning in Chicago.

I review the mediocre mockumentary Troll Hunting.

A list of the best essays I wrote in 2013.

Ilana Gershon on firing teachers for what they say on social media.

Chris Gavaler on the superhero pilgrimage to Tibet.

Richard Cook got engaged! To celebrate, he provides a history of marriage in comic book covers.

Adrielle Mitchell for PencilPanelPage kicks Moon and Ba’s Daytripper.

Isaac Butler on the labor practices of the theater The Flea and whether people should be paid for acting. (This is I think our biggest single day post since the Victorian Wire in terms of traffic.)
 
Utilitarians Everywhere

At the Atlantic

—I argue that Britney belongs in Vegas.

—I celebrate Sherlock Holmes’ freedom from copyright.

At Salon I have a list of winter songs.

At the Dissolve I am unimpressed with The Rocket, a feel-good Laotian drama with spunky kids.

At Splice Today I write about

the upsides of hypocritical homophobia.

Chris Christie losing my vote.
 
Other Links

NPR’s Code Switch did a big segment on Orion Martin’s HU piece asking What if the X-Men Were Black?

Calum Marsh on why every war movie is a pro-war movie.

Jonathan Bernstein has started his new politics blog at Bloomberg.

Andreas Stoehr has a brutal short review of Saving Mr. Banks.

Jill Filopovic on online harassment of women.
 

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Utilitarian Review 1/4/14

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On HU

Featured Archive Post: Matt Seneca interviews CF.

Me on romance definitions, Pamela Regis, and the defensive crouch.

Chris Gavaler on real life superheroes and vigilantes.

A list of some highlights from 2013 at HU.

Brian Cremins for PPP on Otto Binder and Joe Orland’s “I, Robot” as protest.

Kaily Kent on the underrated achievement of Jillian and Mariko Tamaki’s Skim.
 
Utilitarians Everywhere

At the Atlantic I talked about Sankofa and the need for more slavery films.

At Splice I reviewed the two albums from my that I hadn’t managed to write about yet. Those are:

— Guy Clark’s My Favorite Picture of You.

—Jeri Jeri’s 800% Ndagga.
 
Other Links

Can’s remember if I linked this before, but worth doing again; Tom Spurgeon has a long interview with Brian Cremins.

In praise of snark as an alternative to smarm.

Someone else noticed that the Pajama Boy discussion was linked to anti-semitism.

From a bit back; science blogging has some of the same problems with sexual harassment that comics do it looks like.

Ami Angelwings talks about dealing with transphobia on OK cupid.

Man is this Wax Audio Metallica vs. Herbie Hancock mashup amazing.
 
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Utilitarian Review 12/28/13

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On HU

Featured Archive Post: Tom Crippen with a gallery of Robert Binks’ Christmas cards.

Me on sadism and Jess Franco’s Sinister Eyes of Dr. Orloff.

Kailyn Kent and Osvaldo Oyola on the X-Men as assimilationist melodrama.

Bert Stabler on teaching cartoons and failing to teach cartoons.

Chris Gavaler on Jesus Christ vs. Superman.

Best albums of 2013.

Superheroes are about fascism but don’t necessarily promote fascism.

Who gains from a lack of diversity in sci-fi?
 
Utilitarians Everywhere

At Salon I write about:

— why Love Actually is no good and you should read a romance novel instead.

—22 great duets.

At Splice Today I write about:

—arcade games and cyborg nostalgia.

—pajama boy and anti-semitism

Also I participated in the 2013 Splice Today best music poll.
 
Other Links

Rachel Edidin on Scott Lobdell’s weak apology for sexually harassing Mari Naomi onstage during a comics panel. Brigid Alverson also has a good post about the issues involved.

Alyssa Rosenberg on the Duck Dynasty mess.

Osvaldo Oyola on Oglaf, the fantasy sex comic.

Amazon cracks down on monster porn.

Carolina D. on Her and disembodied femininity.

Utilitarian Review 12/21/13

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Conversations-magnum

from Lilli Carre’s show at the MCA in Chicago

 
News

The holidays are upon us, obviously. Not exactly sure what posting here will be like. We’ll definitely have new posts Monday and Tuesday, and PencilPanelPage is posting Thursday…so, yeah, we’ll be around in some form or other most of the week. So stop by if you have a minute to spare from the merriment.

On HU

Featured Archive Post: Richard Cook with a gallery of Super-Santa covers.

I talk about the Regency Romance as horror and the Cecelia Grant’s Blackshear series.

I write about the small as life pleasures of Tolkien’s The Hobbit.

Orion Martin asks “What if the X-Men were black?”

Robert Stanley Martin is mostly underwhelmed by Julie Maroh’s comic “Blue Is The Warmest Color.

Chris Gavaler on Paul Revere, Batman,and jihad.

I wrote about the first X-Men comics in which the X-Men behave as establishment lackeys.

Michael A. Johnson on Christmas and the seasons of Krazy Kat. This finishes up the PPP Krazy Kat roundtable.
 
Utilitarians Everywhere

At the Chicago Reader I reviewed Lilli Carre’s lovely show at the MCA in Chicago.

At Salon:

—I listed 14 country songs for people who hate country.

— I talked about Her and Philip K. Dick and empathy for white guys.
 
Other Links

At the Atlantic I talked about Vivian Maier and the uncomfortable politics of outsider art.

At Splice Today I talk about

—America’s educational apartheid, and how you can’t fix schools by fixing schools.

— conservatives, progressives, and polygamy.
 
Other Links

Mari Naomi writes about being harassed onstage at a comics panel. Scott Lobdel, who was the harasser in question, apologizes.

And how to discourage women from cartooning.

Ta-Nehisi Coates on the toughest gang in Chicago.

Wazhma Frogh on the problem with trying to save victims of human trafficking when you don’t know what you’re doing.

Meghan Murphy on twitter feminism.

As Brienne point out, this music best of from Mother Jones is pretty funny.

Some idiot plagiarized Dan Clowes, if you haven’t already heard.

Utilitarian Review 12/14/13

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On HU

Featured Archive Post: Sharon Marcus on liking Wonder Woman the comic but not Wonder Woman the character.

Fleetwood Mac for the old and boring.

A short story about a kangaroo who changed the world, with illustrations by my son.

Chris Gavaler provides free script advice to DC on a Wonder Woman movie.

Osvaldo Oyola on double-consciousness and what Black Lightning could have been.

Me on Black Lightning in Chains in the not very good Batman and the Outsiders run in the 1980s.

Qiana Whitted with a PPP post on the connection between anthropomorphism and race in Krazy Kat.

Michael Arthur on the good, the sweaty,and the cute at Midwest Furfest.
 
Utilitarians Everywhere

At Salon I have a list of metal tracks for non-metal heads. I think I’m going to be doing music lists over there weekly for a while, so check in every Saturday, as they say.

At Wired I talk about the Tripods series, and YA hero as failure.

At the Dissolve I review Nuclear Nation, a film about nuclear refugees in Japan.

At Splice Today I write about:

— how superhero narratives are about fascism, which doesn’t necessarily mean that superheroes are fascist.

—how America’s incarceration boom is over, and no one will be punished for it.
 
Other Links

James Romberger interviews Paul Kirchner.

Noah Gittell on that crappy Walt Disney movie.

Why it’s worth caring about women on a bank note.

Kevin Drum on our educational apartheid.

Utilitarian Review 12/7/13

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On HU

Featured Archvie Post: Eric Berlatsky on Maus and reality.

Voices from the Archive: Jason Thompson on Orientalism.

Me on abortion and violence.

Mahendra Singh on the limitatons of drafting in Maus.

Me on Maus and Marketing.

Chris Gavaler on an evil Christian comic parenting guide.

Frank Bramlett with the week’s PencilPanelPage post on linguistics and sound effects in Krazy Kat.

Pam Rosenthal on Jo Baker’s Longbourn, Pride and Prejudice through the eyes of servants, and the genre of romance.

Utilitarians Everywhere

At Salon I did a list of 19 cross genre covers.

At the Atlantic I wrote:

—about how Ted Rall got tripped up by comics’ history of racist iconography

—that Wonder Woman shouldn’t be a sidekick in Zack Snyder’s stupid new movie.

At Splice Today I wrote about:

—how Andrew Sullivan can’t stop making the Iraq war about himself.

—Joey Baron, Bill Frisell and avant jazz as dead end.

At Slate I told everyone to read Nora Olsen’s wonderful Swans and Klons.

Other Links

Paul Rosenberg on how the GOP knows nothing about food stamps (my cousin, David Simon, is cited!)

Kathryn Funkhouser on how people will pay to see female superheroes.
 

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Utilitarian Review 11/30/13

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On HU

Featured Archive Post: Mahendra Singh illustrates Wallace Stevens.

For Thanksgiving I posted on America’s participation in Indonesian genocide.

I posted my complete 50 Shades/Cthulhu mash up. Enjoy the thrashing bosoms and heaving tentacles.

I sneer at the design of one page in Maus.

John Grisham still sucks.

Emily Thomas on what the Nao of Brown gets wrong about mental illness.

Chris Gavaler on chess for androids and evil geniuses.

I explain what I think I’m doing with HU.
 
Utilitarians Everywhere

At the Atlantic:

—I talk about the documentary At Night I Fly and whether art is a salve for prison.

—I review Homefront and talk about the link between home and violence.

At Splice I argue that a documentary about working dogs in Iraq leaves out some things.
 
Other Links

Tucker Stone and Abhay Khosla on harassment in the comics industry.

Laura Hudson on harassment in the comics industry.

Ashley Fetters on short guy, tall woman in the Hunger Games.

Mikki Kendall on black women, feminism, and concern-trolling Michelle Obama.
 
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