Utilitarian Review is a weekly round-up of post on HU, links to other things I or other bloggers have published this week, and some random links as well.
_________________________________

On HU

This week started off with my discussion of the great surrealist artist Leonora Carrington and her drawings for the novel “The Hearing Trumpet.”

Kinukitty posted a lengthy appreciation of Tomoko Hayakawa’s The Wallflower.

Richard Cook posted a review of Brian Azzarello and Victor Santos’ Filthy Rich.

Ng Suat Tong talked about the original art market for comics.

And finally Vom Marlowe reviewed the first volume of Adam Warren’s Empowered.

Utilitarians Everywhere

At Comixology I have a longish review of Yuichi Yokoyama’s Travel.

In Yokoyama’s work, too, the viewpoint swoops and swerves, now with a skier on a high mountain pass, now underneath the train. There is certainly a celebratory, joking tinge to Yokoyama’s impossibly mobile camera. But there is also something ominous. In one sequence from the book, our protagonists’ train passes another going in the opposite direction. A whole page is devoted to the faces on the other train. They are shown in four tiers of three blocks each; all are streaked with violent motion lines; all are the same shade of grey as the window frame, all stare intently outward at the viewer. The scene is oddly disturbing; the repetition of the faces, the repetition of the expressions; the lines going through them, the grid — it’s dehumanizing, as if the faces are not people at all, but manikins, or masks.

On the TCJ.com main page I reviewed Fumi Yoshinaga’s Ooku: The Inner Chamber.

At Splice Today I reviewed Arie Kaplan’s book about the Jews and comic books, from Krakow to Krypton.

Over at the Knoxville Metropulse I reviewed the new Animal Collective ep, Fall Be Kind.

At Madeloud I reviewed Miranda Lambert’s Revolution.

In the hidebound print-based media department, I have a couple of album reviews out in the latest issue of Bitch magazine.

And former Utilitarian Bill Randall has a review on the tcj.com main page of the hipster mess that is I Saw You.

Other Links

Matt Thorn has a withering essay about how much current manga translators suck.

Shaenon Garrity has a post on the Tcj.com main page about Power Girl’s explication of her boob window. I also enjoyed Shaenon’s post about Fumi Yoshinaga.

_______________________________