On HU

Erica Friedman talked about her love of manga audio drama CDs.

Robert Boyd tried to figure out why Jaime Hernandez’s original art sells for the prices it sells at.

The mysterious internet troll Cough Syrup talked about Jason Overby and the Cocaine Modem.

Caroline Small and I discussed Gilbert Hernandez’s Human Diastrophism.

I looked at one panel from Ariel Schrag’s Likewise.

Vom Marlowe wished there weren’t so many zombies.

I talked about philosophy and film.

Next week: James Romberger looks at the personal reasons he is so drawn to the work of Alex Toth and Jack Kirby; Ng Suat Tong looks at Mezzo and Pirius’ King of the Flies; I look at the films in Solaris; Kinukitty on yaoi and more.

Utilitarians Everywhere

At Splice Today I the Lovers and the tyranny of best of lists.

Not that I’ve anything against Kanye; I still haven’t heard that album, but “Monster” is a great song. More power to him and Nicki. It’s churlish to sneer at late capitalism when you’re mired up to your neck in late capitalism. The Internet that lets me instantly download albums by Sarah Vaughn or Esoteric is the Internet that makes it possible for everyone on earth to simultaneously speak Robyn’s name at the end of the year. For that matter, I love Robyn, just like I’m supposed to. If the world’s at your fingertips, then you shouldn’t be upset if you can’t detach your fingertips from the world.

At the Chicago Reader I have a brief blurb about an MCA exhibit focused on Chicago comics artists.

At Madeloud I review a new album by French black metal group Murmuure.

Other Links

The big news around these parts is the big new blog at tcj.com. The Panelists include Jared Gardner, Isaac Cates, Derik Badman, Charles Hatfield, Craig Fischer and Alex Boney. They’ve had a great first week, so go over there and check them out if you haven’t already.

Tom Spurgeon has a fascinating interview with Dirk Deppey over at the Comics Reporter.

Michelle Smith and Melinda Beasi have a fun column about visual duds.

On HU

First I wanted to highlight this lovely comment by composer and artist Diamanda Galas, responding to James Romberger’s essay about David Wojnarowicz. The thread actually has a ton of thoughtful and heartfelt responses from Wojanrowicz’s associates and others. It, and the original article, are well worth reading if you missed them.

We started the week with a post by Domingos Isabelinho on Mat Brinkman.

Stephanie Folse continued her Elfquest reread with issue #2.

Sean Michael Robinson argued that the concept of talent is not helpful in teaching art.

I didn’t much like Hitchcock’s 39 Steps.

Ng Suat Tong discussed Tobias Tycho Schalken’s “Folkore.”

Alex Buchet provided a comics New Year gallery.

And Alex Buchet continued his series on language and comics, focusing on Batman, Smurfs, Mad magazine, and more.

Next week we should have posts on manga drama CDs; the pricing of original Jaime Hernandez art; Jason Overby, cocaine, and the internets; Gilbert Hernandez’s Human Diastrophism, and more.

Utilitarians Everywhere

At Splice Today I discuss a book by John Mullarkey about philosophy and film.

Mullarkey is insistent on the “aesthetical properties” of film. He notes that philosophers who discuss film often focus on narrative and theme and ignore mise-en-scene, editing, sound, music, etc., to say nothing of extra-aesthetic issues such as distribution, consumption and audience. Yet he’s so intent on listening to what this wonderful heterogeneity of film has to say to philosophy that he misses the most obvious point, which is that philosophy is aesthetic and heterogeneous as well. Just as film is not just it’s narrative and theme, so philosophy is not just its thought and theme.

Also at Splice I discuss a new comp of Bollywood psychedelia.

But such is the Columbus-like experience of world music crate diving, in which you compulsively pat yourself on the back for discovering that obscure fruit off which some significant proportion of the world’s population was already living.

At Madeloud I highlight some great Muppet music.

Other Links

Robert Stanley Martin on Lilli Carre’s The Carnival.

Been looking at a bunch of essays about The Wire. Interesting pieces by Marc Singer here and here/

Jonah Goldberg says the Wire is conservative here.

And a long profile of David Simon here.

Xmas A to Z

Avaricious bambinos covet Disney-detritus. Elders’ Fallopian genitals, heaving immaculately, jaculate kenosis-knickknacks. Levittowners merrily nurse organized pedophilia. Quasi-riant revenue-ravenous Santa Taws uncoil. Vultures watch Xt.’s yummy zygote.

On HU

Kinukitty started the week out with a review of the yaoi maga Stray Cat.

I explained why Moto Hagio is not just genre fiction for girls.

James Romberger discussed his long association with David Wojnarowicz and explained how the Smithsonian altered Wojnarowicz’s work even before they censored it.

I wrote a short farewell to TCJ.com blogger and editor Dirk Deppey, who has been laid off by Fantagraphics.

Ng Suat Tong discussed the work of manga-ka Hinako Sugiura.

I reviewed Terry Eagleton’s book On Evil.

Alex Buchet discussed how Superman and Shazam have affected the English Language.

Utilitarians Everywhere

At Madleloud I review The Best Music Writing 2010.

“Music itself is a call that demands response,” editor Ann Powers writes in her introduction to Best Music Writing 2010. That may be true, but it’s not exactly the message of the book she’s put together. She might have been more accurate if she had said, “Musicians are a call that demands response.” Or even, “the music industry is a call that demands response.”

Also at Madeloud, I review the new album by Ukrainian black metal group Drudkh.

At Splice Today I talk about R&B star Ciara’s career and her new album.

Other Links

This article sneering at any and all pop and rock is pretty entertaining.

I’m obsessed with the Wire at the moment. This essay about it is okay. Anybody find any better reviews online?

On HU

We started the week off with Eric Berlatsky’s guest post on space, time, comics, and modernity.

Caroline Small reviewed an exhibit of Vorticist art.

I reviewed Reinhard Kleist’s graphic autobiography of Johnny Cash.

I discussed Christianity, humor, and cartoonist Art Young.

Artist and editor Ryan Standfest replied to my essay about Art Young.

Vom Marlowe discussed art resources for drawing the human figure.

Richard Cook provided a gallery of Santa’s appearances on comics covers.

I provided an electronica mix for download.

And Alex Buchet continued his series on language and comics with word and phrases from Al Capp, Walt Kelly, and more.

Utilitarians Everywhere

At Splice Today I explain why lefties against the compromise tax bill are idiots.

I’m a liberal pinko commie. I get up on the left side of the bed, and while I brush my teeth I blame America first. The only person I think should be waterboarded is Marc Thiessen. When I hear stories of rabid Brits trashing the royal limo to protest tuition hikes, I wonder why our cajone-less electorate can’t summon the courage and basic decency to kneecap some hedge fund managers. I’m in favor of abortion rights, single-payer healthcare, and unremitting class warfare. The rich got where they are mostly by luck and subterfuge, and at least 50 percent of what they’ve got should be taken from them and put into saving Social Security or fixing Medicaid or, hell, just taken from them on general principles because income inequality corrupts the political process and also because fuck them.

Also at Splice Today, I talk about Chuck Berry’s 1987 autobiography.

It’s maybe fitting, then, that Berry’s last great artistic effort wasn’t a hit but a personal testament. His 1987 autobiography was, according to the man himself, “raw in form, rare in feat, but real in fact. No ghost but no guilt or gimmicks, just me,” and you can hear the truth in the rock of the phrase and the roll of the alliteration. Berry says he’s only read six hardbacks in his life, and that the dozens of paperbacks he’s paged through were “only for the stimulation.”

Other Links

This isn’t something I find myself thinking very often, but I agree with Megan McCardle.

Tim Hodler does the AV Club a huge favor and is mostly pilloried for it. (You need to scroll through comics to see the full extent of the fracas.)

On HU

Busy week this time out.

Erica Friedman started the week out with a post on fashion, fighting, literature and Hana No Asuka-gumi.

Alex Buchet began a massive series on comics contribution to language, looking at Tad, Rube Goldberg, and other early strip artists.

Richard Cook evaluated some hobbit questing tunes.

I explained why I don’t like Pauline Kael.

I reviewed Arie Kaplan’s From Krakow to Krypton about Jews in the comic book industry.

Jason Overby guest posted about the relationship between comics history and comics.

Caroline Small had a follow up comment to Jason’s post.

Sean Michael Robinson discussed the difficulties of marketing Mitsuru Adachi’s sports comics in America.

Alex Buchet continued his series on the effects of comics on language with examples from Popeye, Milt Gross, and more.

Next week we’ve got posts on comics, modernism, and time; Art Young, faith, and humor; Vorticist art, and more.

Utilitarians Everywhere

At Comixology I talk about the weirdness of the superhero Katana.

Female super-heroes can be many things: Amazon warrior, out-of-control telepath, deadly ninja assassin. But whether in swimsuit, bodysuit, fishnets or boob window, they’re almost always cheesecake.

There’s no particular mystery as to why this is. Super-hero comics are male genre literature. Guys like to look at cheesecake. QED. There are some exceptions to the rule — but they’re usually built around genre exceptions as well. For example, the Claremont/Byrne X-Men made some effort to appeal to YA girl readers through the character of Kitty Pryde. Thus, Kitty got to mostly wear civies, rather than the skintight and/or improbably cut-out costumes that were the lot of her distaff teammates. (Not that the internets are above a certain amount of Kitty Pryde cheesecake of course.)

At Splice Today I review a new video anthology of Sid and Marty Kroft’s children’s television shows.

For the Kroffts, childhood is often a suffocating sweetness, a threatening plenitude. In both H.R. Pufnstuf and Lidsville, a boy is trapped in a magical realm from which he spends almost all his time trying (and failing) to escape. The child’s plight is especially unsettling in Lidsville, where the boy in question isn’t really a child. Butch Patrick, who played the protagonist Mark, was 18 when he picked up the role and close to 20 by the time he finished. When he wanders through the magic world of sentient hats, tyrannical patriarchal magicians, and evil doppelgangers, therefore, it doesn’t come across as a child’s adorable game of make-believe. Instead, it looks disturbingly like a young man’s schizophrenic fugue.Jazmine Sullivan neo-soul album.

At Madeloud I review a mediocre techno comp.

Other Links

Karen Green has an interesting discussion of Frank Miller’s 300.

Michelle Smith and Melinda Beasi have a good discussion of the formal qualities of some wordless manga.

R. Fiore on why the Green Hornet movie will suck.

And sometimes commenter Jason Michelitch has his first Splice Today article up about the glory and the limitations of experimental film online.

On HU

We started this week with Domingos Isabelinho’s discussion of Aristophane’s The Zabime Sisters.

Stephanie Folse reviewed the first issue of Elfquest in preparation for rereading the entire series.

I argued that the manga blogosphere has done a poor job in reviewing Moto Hagio’s A Drunken Dream.

James Romberger talked about conflicts between Alex Toth and Joe Kubert which led to the loss of what may have been one of Toth’s major stories.

Vom Marlowe discussed how manga criticism works, why it works that way, and where to find it.

And finally I revealed the best superhero movie ever.

Utilitarians Everywhere

At the Chicago Reader, I review Nicki Minaj’s new album.

The fact that Minaj channels Helen Reddy with a straight face on a hip-hop album seems like a good indication that she’s lost her way in spectacular fashion. It’s easy to see this as a desperate and misguided effort to reach a mainstream audience—and it clearly is that. But at the same time, the album’s rudderlessness seems like part and parcel of Minaj’s persona. With a flow that hops from Barbie cuteness to Rasta declamation to a faux British accent to sped-up Tourette’s, Minaj has always been about spastic incoherence, and one of her most acclaimed performances is deliberately and gloriously bipolar. In her verse on Kanye West’s “Monster,” she switches back and forth between a flirtatious little-girl coo and a fierce, ranting growl, using the alternation to create an escalating momentum so massive it makes the other rappers on the track—Jay-Z and Rick Ross—sound positively precious.

Other Links

I mentioned the both of these in comments, but:

Melinda Beasi and Michelle Smith have a lovely discussion of Paradise Kiss here.

And Matt Seneca’s appreciation of Rob Liefield is great.

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.