Category Archives: Series

Criticizing the Critics: Moto Hagio’s A Drunken Dream

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Over the last couple of months, I’ve written five lengthy posts about A Drunken Dream Fantagraphics’ collection of stories by the great shojo manga-ka Moto Hagio. I’ve spent so much time on this book for a number of reasons. Hagio is a central figure in the history of shojo, a genre in which I’m interested. Matt Thorn, the volume’s editor and translator, is one of the most important manga critics around,so anything he does is worth thinking about carefully. And, finally, this is meant to be the first in a series of reissues of classic shojo tales by Fantagraphics. That’s an exceedingly worthwhile project, and I wanted to draw attention to it.

To finish up my series, I thought I’d look briefly at what other critics have said about A Drunken Dream.

I certainly haven’t been alone in seeing this book as important. Deb Aoki at About.com gave it 4.5 stars and said it was “a long overdue glimpse into Hagio’s 40-year career. Melinda Beasi picked it as her book of the week, calling it gorgeous. David Welsh in a discussion of the best manga of the year similarly, if more somberly, commented that on best of the year lists, “Moto Hagio’s A Drunken Dream and Other Stories (Fantagraphics) didn’t seem to make much of an impression outside of dedicated manga readers, which is disappointing to me as a dedicated manga reader.”

So…many stars, pick of the week, should be on best of lists. Check, check…check! Sounds good! Long awaited collection by a manga master, critics love it — there must be a lot of juicy articles out there discussing why the book is so wonderful, right? Right?

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Utilitarian Review 11/26/10

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On HU

Slightly short holiday week this time out.

Kinukitty reviewed the semi-historical yaoi Maiden Rose.

For our Sequential Erudition series reprinting academic articles on comics, Ariel Kahn discussed the role of the gaze in young adult graphic novel.s

Sean Michael Robinson looked at some old books about the art of drawing.

And for the holiday, Alex Buchet posted a gallery of Thanksgiving comics.

Utilitarians Everywhere

At Splice Today I have a short review of The Disappearance of Alice Creed.

Also at Splice, a short review of Ke$ha’s new album Cannibal, vagina dentata and all.

At Madeloud I review some semi-recent mash-ups.

Other Links

Sean Collins’ review of High Soft Lisp touches on some issues that came up in this blog’s discussion of Gilbert Hernandez.

And Charles Hatfield enters the lists on behalf of Joe Sacco against an army of trolls. I don’t really like Joe Sacco’s work much, but Charles is definitely fighting the good fight on this one.

Reading Between the Lines: The Subversion of Authority in Two Graphic Novels for Young Adults by Ariel Kahn

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Editor’s Introduction: This month’s “Sequential Erudition” features Ariel Kahn’s paper originally presented at the IBBY UK/NCRCL Conference last November. We choose it for this month’s column because its use of Laura Mulvey’s concept of the “gaze” fits with Noah’s recent post on Moto Hagio here at HU and a number of comment conversations. Personally, I appreciate the way Kahn combines thematic and formal analysis in combination with theoretical texts to make his point and provide an engaging essay. We’ll still looking for more papers for future columns, so if any academics out there would like to participate, leave a message. -Derik.

Reading Between the Lines: The Subversion of Authority in Two Graphic Novels for Young Adults by Ariel Kahn

Originally presented at IBBY UK/NCRCL Conference, 14 November 2009 at Roehampton University, London.

A recent resurgence in the publication of comics and graphic narratives specifically aimed at young adults raises a range of issues about the nature of authority, and the role of the reader in negotiating the narrative and constructing meaning in and through the interplay of image and text. This paper explores the diverse relationships between image and text, and the implications of the enhanced role they create for the reader.

The Problematics of Children’s Literature

The notions of authority and of the relationship between writer and reader are central to critical discussions of literature for children and young adults. This is evident in the contrasting positions taken by Jacqueline Rose (1984) and Peter Hollindale (1997). Rose argues that ‘children’s fiction is impossible … it hangs on an impossibility, … this is the impossible relationship between adult and child’ (1984: 1). The use of the author’s adult authority to shape and instruct the reader leads Rose to view children’s literature pessimistically as an act of repression. In contrast, in Signs of Childness in Children’s Books, Hollindale defines the divide in critical focus in children’s literature as existing between those who ‘prioritise either the children or the literature’ in the study of children’s literature (1997: 8). He advocates instead a study of children’s literature as a ‘reading event’ (p.30) in a strategy that allows both the child and the text to have a place.

Image/Text Relationships in Picture Books and Comics

The possibility of such a ‘strategy’, and the exploration of the narrative possibilities of such a ‘reading event’ are, I will argue, particularly striking in comic books written for young adults, picture books in which the active engagement with image and text opens up a multiplicity of possible readings, rather than enacting the closure and repression of which Rose warns. In How Picturebooks Work (2001) Maria Nikolajeva and Carole Scott identify ‘a taxonomy of picture book interactions’, which places the interactions of image and text on a sliding scale from Symmetry, to Enhancement, Counterpoint, and Contradiction. The authors are most interested in those picture books that use ‘counterpoint’, i.e., when ‘words and images provide alternative information or contradict each other in some way’ (Nikolajeva and Scott, 2001: 17, quoted in Donovan, 2002: 110).

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Utilitarian Review 11/19/10

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On HU

We started the week off with Richard Cook’s discussion of the story of St. Catherine from the Big Book of Martyrs.

Ng Suat Tong skewered Usamaru Furuya’s Genkaku Picasso.

Sean Michael Robinson discussed the child porn conviction of Steve Kutzner.

Vom Marlowe reviewed Allie Brosh’s webcomic Hyperbole and a Half.

And finally I discussed Manny Farber, termite art, white elephant art, and Galileo.

Utilitarians Everywhere

At Comixology I talk about Escher, time, space, and Dr. Manhattan.

Of course, you don’t really need to make a choice for one or the other. The title of the piece may indicate that there are a bunch of reptiles here, but much of the enjoyment of the image — and of Escher’s work in general — is the sense of moving pieces caught in a pleasurably regimented dance. Even if it’s not technically one reptile moving, the individuals are nonetheless interchangeable. You know that the reptile climbing the triangle is going to get to the top of the D & D die and that it’s going to blow smoke out of its nose when it gets there just as its predecessor did. The reptile blowing smoke will climb onto the little cup; the reptile on the cup will crawl back into the abstract pattern. Whether the image is showing a sequence as a comic would or merely implying it, the point is still that time and identity are flattened out across space.

At Splice Today I review Cool It!, a movie about the dangers of overreacting to climate change.

Cool It has more ambitions than merely setting the record straight on global warming, though. One of the talking heads that Cool It drops on the unsuspecting viewer notes with the slightly condescending chuckle of the large-brained that Gore’s film, An Inconvenient Truth, was a “great piece of propaganda.” No doubt it was. So is this. Cool It uses, in fact, many of the same hagiographic tactics as its more famous predecessor. We see Bjorn biking healthily through Denmark, chatting earnestly with impoverished children in third world nations, and puncturing bloviating politicians with his rapier wit. We get porn-movie close-ups of his book as voiceovers speak sternly of its controversial and brave counter-intuitiveness. The movie even trots out Lomborg’s Alzheimer-afflicted mother for a few scenes—because nothing adds depth to a wonk’s character like a little family tragedy.

Other Links

Suat pointed out to me this really interesting article in praise of abstraction at Comets Comets by Blaise Larmee.

VM wanted to let folks know that the anatomy book she reviewed a while back is now downloadable.

R. Fiore has a beautifully snide article up about Drew Friedman.

And this is from Wax Audio, who is a fucking genius.

Utilitarian Review 11/14/10

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On HU

Erica Friedman began the week with a discussion of the Bechdel Test and the manga Silent Mobius.

James Romberger wrote about the late horror comics of Alex Toth.

I used Laura Mulvey’s gaze theory to talk about Moto Hagio’s story “The Willow Tree.”

Richard Cook discussed St. Olaf’s appearance in the Big Book of Martyrs.

Vom Marlowe reviewed James Love’s Bayou.

And we finished the week out with the conclusion of our roundtable on Charles Hatfield’s Alternative Comics: An Emerging Literature. Charles himself has two posts (about his writing and rethinkings of his book, and about Gilbert Hernandez) and I had a reply because I’m incorrigible — and there are some spirited debates in comments as well.

Utilitarians Everywhere

At Splice Today I review some Roger Corman produced Alien knock offs just released to DVD.

But what’s most notable about these movies is not who gets killed, but who doesn’t. Because the greatest thing about Alien, the thing that gave it its real bite (as it were) wasn’t the gruesome beauty of its special effects or the brutal claustrophobia of its mise en scene… Or, okay, it was those things, I’ll admit. But it was also its twisted ruthlessness. Alien looked like a sci-fi film, but it walked like a slasher. Everybody in that movie was ruthlessly humiliated—especially the brave het heroes, who ended up raped, impregnated, violated, and dead, dead. The only one who gets out alive was that uber-final girl, Ripley, who was hard-assed and butch as hell, and when she left she didn’t need no stinking man, because (as I mentioned) all the men were dead.

Also at Splice I reviewed a new album by Eurodisco weirdos Majeure.

Long before Westerners had discovered philosophy, or even consecutive thought, the ancient Mayans were predicting a day in 2012 when Hegel’s brain would be uploaded to rotating satellites, creating a dialectical Skynet which would order the crucifixion of all humans and then broadcast impenetrable prose to their rotting corpses. Scientists today still wonder at the perspicacity of these ancient cultures, which—using nothing but the basest computers woven out of specially prepared obelisks—managed to predict the bloody demise of the hidebound print-based media, the rise of the cyborg antichrist Ke$ha, and the reverse rapture of materializing silly-bands which are even now drowning the world in a multi-colored kaleidoscope of hollow Platonic forms.

At Madeloud I reviewed Antony and the Johnsons new album.

Also at Madeloud a review of some depressive mopey but chimey black metal by Happy Days and Eindig.

Other Links

It’s good to be reminded now and then that before Gary was beloved and respected he was really, really, really loathed. (Our own Alex Buchet comments extensively on the very rancorous thread.)

Shaenon Garrity has been on fire recently. I kind of have no interest in ever reading Scott Pilgrim, but this review is awesome.

Moto Hagio: Who Watches the Watchwoman?

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This is I think my penultimate post about the Moto Hagio’s collection of stories A Drunken Dream. You can read the whole series here.
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Drunken Dream concludes with two entirely forgettable sentimental ghost stories: “The Child Who Comes Home” and “The Willow Tree.” Both exploit familial grief — respectively, dead child and dead mother — and an emotional twist-ending in the service of tear-jerking emotional catharsis. Unfortunately, as has been a problem before in this volume, Hagio has neither the space nor the inclination in these stories to create fully realized characters, and so the grief and pathos come across as both generic and unearned. These are probably the dullest stories in the volume. Some of Hagio’s work is actively stupid and irritating , but these really feel like she’s just filling the form in. Ambiguous death, twist, catharsis. That’s a wrap.

So yeah; not a lot to say. Except…I’ve been thinking a little about feminist film gaze theory and how it would work in comics. So I’m going to try to read “The Willow” through Laura Mulvey’s classic 1975 essay “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema” and see what happens. Maybe it’ll even get me to like the story better; who knows?
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Mulvey’s essay is based in Lacanian and Freudian theory. I’ll quote from second paragraph.

The paradox of phallocentrism in all its manifestations is that it depends on the image of the castrated woman to give order and meaning to its world. An idea of woman stands as lynch pin to the system: it is her lack that produces the phallus as a symbolic presence, it is her desire to make good the lack that the phallus signifies….. To summarise briefly: the function of woman in forming the patriarchal unconscious is two-fold, she first symbolises the castration threat by her real absence of a penis and second thereby raises her child into the symbolic. Once this has been achieved, her meaning in the process is at an end, it does not last into the world of law and language except as a memory which oscillates between memory of maternal plenitude and memory of lack. Both are posited on nature…. Woman’s desire is subjected to her image as bearer of the bleeding wound, she can exist only in relation to castration and cannot transcend it. She turns her child into the signifier of her own desire to possess a penis (the condition, she imagines, of entry into the symbolic.) Either she must gracefully give way to the word, the Name of the Father and the Law, or else struggle to keep her child down with her in the half-light of the imaginary. Woman then stands in patriarchal culture as signifier for the male other, bound by a symbolic order in which man can live out his phantasies and obsessions through linguistic command by imposing them on the silent image of woman still tied to her place as bearer of meaning, not maker of meaning.

So to summarize the summary (as much for my benefit as anyone else’s): woman=castration. This symbolic difference is the basis for symbolization itself; it’s the difference that enables or creates meaning. Woman exists only to embody this difference; she is the non-meaning (castration) which enables meaning (the phallic father’s realm of law and language.) Woman cannot take up the law and language herself; she can attain mastery only vicariously through a child who acts as a substitute phallus. (Ideally, the woman will give this phallus up to the world of law; alternately she may try to retain it, preventing it from entering adulthood and the world of law.) The phallic law rules, and what it rules or regulates is non-meaning/castration/woman. Woman is then by definition silent and controlled.

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Utilitarian Review 11/6/10

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On HU

The rest of the week was devoted to a roundtable on Charles Hatfield’s Alternative Comics: An Emerging Literature. Contributors include me, Caroline Small, Ng Suat Tong, HU columnists Matthias Wivel and Derik Badman and guest poster Robert Stanley Martin. Lots of discussion in comments too.

And we’re not done yet! We’re going to focus on other things for a couple of day while Charles Hatfield gathers his thoughts, and then at the end of the week he’s going to do two or three posts in response. So stay tuned, as they say….

Utilitarians Everywhere

At Splice Today I look at fetishizing the teacher in pop music, from Van Halen to Ke$ha to Ina unt Ina.

The truth is that the video isn’t really about lusting after the teacher at all. Instead, it’s about lusting after a childhood in which you lusted after the teacher. The short film is focused on adults imagining how cool they could have been in high school if they had known then what they know now—and, simultaneously, on kids imagining themselves as being adults. The Van Halen band members are portrayed both by the real Van Halen and by a group of kids dressed like the adults. The video unabashedly blends both identities, with the adults sitting right beside their younger selves in class and the kids lip-syncing the lines in the voices of their grown-up doppelgangers. The hot teacher is just an accessory; a convenient stand-in for the real passions, which are between male adults and their younger iterations. The adults want the rebelliousness and goofy energy of youth; the kids want the sexual opportunities and confidence of grown-ups. And both achieve their dream not by sleeping with the teacher, but by rocking out.

Also at Splice Today, I review the first chapter of John Grisham’s new novel.

You can probably see where this is going. No doubt you’ve already intuited not only the existence but also the main character traits of Keith the pastor, who “spent much of his time listening to the delicate problems of others, and offering advice to others” and had therefore “become a wise and astute observer.” Probably you’ve also guessed that Boyette is a bad, bad person (did you figure out he was a sex offender from the fact that he looks at the pastor’s wife’s chest? You did? Bonus points!) If you’re especially perspicacious you may even be able to reconstruct from TV movies past the hollow schlop-schlop of pop theology and pop psychology flopping about like two half-dead fish in a bucket. “It’s human nature. When faced with our own mortality, we think about the afterlife. What about you, Travis? Do you believe in God?”

I have a short review in the Chicago Reader of an enjoyable art show at Columbia College called Post Human/Future Tense.

Another short review of a quite bad book called Cute Eats Cute.

And an essay at Madeloud about musical guest stars on Sesame Street.

Other Links

Bert Stabler has a lovely essay up about The Monstrosity of Christ, by John Milbank and Slavoj Zizek.

Poking around the internet looking for discussions of comics and the gaze, this is what I came up with.