Tag Archives: Blog

Utilitarian Review 2/28/10

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On HU

This week was devoted to a roundtable on Ariel Schrag’s graphic memoir Likewise. The roundtable finished off with a lengthy guest post by Ariel Schrag herself. Jason Thompson also kindly contributed a guest post.

Utilitarians Everywhere

It was a slow week for me in other published writing, but this essay about the spiritual purity of crappy art was reprinted over at Proximity Magazine.

Other Links

Bucking the general trend, Jeet Heer says that there’s nothing wrong with tcj.com (though he’s not so sure about HU.)

Derik Badman has a entertainingly snarky review of Crumb’s Genesis. Bonus appearance by Suat in comments.

I’ve been semi-obsessed with mashups recently. Here’s one I liked:

Utilitarian Review 2/19/10

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TCJ.com/fail

Much of the blogging this week was devoted to sneering and snarking at our host, TCJ.com. I started things off by noting that, after two months, the site still sucks. Suat concurred, only moreso. In comments, former TCJ editor Robert Boyd also agreed. Bill Randall, somewhat despite himself, did a guest post offering tcj.com his professional advice as a web marketer.

A number of folks also weighed in from around the blogosphere, including Johanna Draper Carlson, Heidi at the Beat (Update: and Heidi again, even nastier this time) and Sean Colllins.

In coincidental eat-your-hear-out-news, Comics Comics got a lovely redesign and Fantagraphics publisher had a major article analyzing the direct market and book market which he wrote for…the Comics Reporter. (Both links and schadenfreude courtesy of that Sean Collins link above.)

And also coincidentally — while we were all sneering, tcj.com had what was probably it’s best week thus far, at least in terms of content. They posted a brand spanking new knock down drag out Kevin O’Neil interview conducted by Douglas Wolk; a monumental three part history of the Direct Market from the archives courtesy of Michael, Dirk, and Gary; a short but very good essay by Dirk about the shake-up at DC; and a timely essay on the Captain America vs. tea partiers brou-ha-ha, which even energized the comments for a moment there.

On the one hand, this hits a lot of the things I said I’d like to see more of on tcj.com: interviews, a greater presence from editorial; and more creative use of the archives (I don’t know if I said that last one, but I should have.)

On the other hand…it’s when the content is going great guns that you really feel the crappiness of the site design. The direct market essays have already disappeared down the pooper shoot. Sticking the O’Neill interview to the top of the page seems like a good move given the options — but it still looks amateurish, and results in everything else essentially being invisible for the entire week. And there are still those what-the-fuck moments, this week provided by Ken Smith, who, love him or hate him, needs to be moved to his own blog.

Still, improvement is improvement. I feel more hopeful about tcj.com’s future than I did when I wrote my post at the beginning of the week, and I am duly grateful.

Update: Gary Groth responds with a bunch of good news, including a new staffer, plans for a news feed, and plans to do some more redesign. All of which makes me cautiously optimistic that this may be the last edition of tcj.com/fail.

Also on HU

Our new blogger Caroline Small (better known as Caro if you read our comments sections) started out with a bang, reviewing The Bun Field and discussing copyright and free culture.

Richard Cook reviewed the Planet Hulk DVD.

And I did a short review of the comic about copyright, “Bound By Law?”

Also, inspired by all the web design talk, I added a couple of features to the sidebar there, including a search function and a Recent Comments section. Let me know if the changes work for you all, or if there’s something else I should try to put over there. My wordpress skills are pretty lame…but I can always give it a try.

And no download this week…because I’m busy working on my essay for our Ariel Schrag roundtable, which will start tomorrow. We are focusing on her last book, Likewise, and Ariel herself is going to guest post (probably at the end of the week.) Critic Jason Thompson is also going to do a guest post, so there’ll be a lot of activity here. We’re starting tomorrow, so click back.

Utilitarians Everywhere

At Splice Today I explained why indie rockers Untied States can’t get out of the avant garde alive:

Not that Untied States has just one influence. “Not Fences, Mere Masks,” has a few bars lifted from the Beatles to break up the Sonic Youth. “These Dead Birds” sounds like Sonic Youth pretending to be the Beatles until it shifts into just sounding like Sonic Youth. And “Grey Tangerines” sounds like Robyn Hitchcock fronting Sonic Youth.

Other Links

I liked this discussion of the politics of yaoi.

I liked these awesome Japanese gag cartoons.

And though I maligned him earlier in the week, I nonetheless liked this essay on abstract comics by Kent Worcester.

Utilitarian Review 2/13/10

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On HU

We started out this week with me explaining why R. Fiore is wrong about the Watchmen. A lot of comments, some of them even about Watchmen.

I posted my report on a panel on Gender and Cartooning in Chicago.

Richard reviewed the first volume of Parasyte.

Suat discussed a classic comics adaptation of the Chinese novel Dream of the Red Chamber.

I reviewed Manhwa 100, a catalog of Korean comics.

And this week’s download featured Beethoven, prog, and other things.

Utilitarians Everywhere

In my monthly Comixology column I review Craig Yoe’s recent collection of Joe Shuster’s fetish comics.

So Shuster was into kink, then? Yoe does manage to uncover some evidence that the artist had an eye for chorus girls and the female form. But while that’s interesting, it’s not really the main issue. The point here isn’t that this or that creator had a personal thing for spanking or sadism or masochism. Rather, the point is that as a genre superhero comics simply aren’t that far removed from the kind of pulp fetish porn that Shuster retailed in Nights of Horror. Read through Yoe’s plot synopses of the sixteen plus issues that Shuster illustrated and you’ll get a definite feeling of déjà vu. Damsels in distress, evil hooligans, manly private dicks, and fiendish torture devices — didn’t Shuster illustrate all of this somewhere before? You’ve even got a fair number of men getting shown up just like that milquetoast Clark Kent…though, admittedly, Kent’s humiliation didn’t usually involve a French maid.

On tcj.com I sneered mean-spiritedly at kid’s manga Dinosaur King.

Also on tcj.com, also sneering, my review of the shojo title Book of Friends.

On Metropulse I review Sade’s new album.

And on Splice Today I talked about why John Le Carre’s famous novel, The Spy Who Came In From the Cold, is an idiotic, melodramatic piece of horse dung.

Other Links

I enjoyed this mean-spirited manga review by Erica Friedman.

Shaenon defeats Captain America.

And Matt Yglesias
makes with the Watchmen reference.

Utilitarian Review 2/6/10

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On HU
We started out the week with Adam Stephanides returning to xxxholic. He read the whole thing and eh. Could have been worse.

In memory of Howard Zinn’s passing, I sneered at the graphic adaptation of his book.

I mocked the prevaricating title of The Mammoth Book of Best New Manga.

And doing her part to convince Suat that people really do write mean things about manga, Kinukitty dumped on the yaoi Madness.

Vom Marlowe does her part as well by not much liking Book of Friends.

And finally this week’s download features women in extreme metal.

Utilitarians Elsewhere
On Splice Today I join the long line of those who have sneered at Pauline Kael.

In other words, Kael uses “we” because there is no “we”; the point for her is always self-referential; her thesis is always, “I am right.” And that solipsism is, in turn, a function, not of rampant egotism, but of the categories she uses. As “Trash, Art, and the Movies” suggests, Kael is obsessed with what is art and what isn’t art and with the evil “businessmen” who muck up everything and make it “almost impossibly difficult for the artists to try anything new.” To read Pauline Kael, therefore, is to be confronted with a capitalism whose worst sin is making mediocre movies; with a bourgeois society the worst sin of which is enjoying those same mediocre films. Smack dab at the end of the 60s, Kael has nothing to say about Vietnam, or Lyndon Johnson, or civil rights, or any of the cataclysmic upheavals of her day. She manages to write a review of Godard’s La Chinoise in which she explicates Godard’s feelings about revolutionary youth but doesn’t tell us anything about her own position except, “Yep, I think Godard is really clever!”

On Madeloud I look back at the Rolling Stone Record Guide from 1993.

Still, if the Album Guide isn’t exactly useful as reference anymore, it retains sentimental and historical interest. Consider, in 1993:

– Nirvana was a decent band peddling a more pop-laden version of the “metal-edged punk” that typified Soundgarden and Soul Asylum. “At their best,” J.D. Considine says, Nirvana’s songs “typify the low-key passion of post-MTV youth.” Bleach (three-and-a-half stars) is faulted for relying on “metal riffage” as much as on “melodic invention,” while the poppier Nevermind gets four stars. Since Nirvana has not yet been named rock royalty, no one needs to trace its bloodline, and bands such as the Melvins and the Vaselines don’t exist.

On Splice Today I have a review of the latest in dubstep meets doom metal by Necro Deathmort.

On Madeloud I review the quite-good-but-unfortunately-named Scandinavian thrash band Rimfrost.

Also on Madeloud I review the latest slab of endless doom from Holland’s Bunkur.

Other Links

Tom Crippen has been writing some great super-hero pieces on TCJ.com this week, including this sad song for MODOK. Also, a great discussion of Ebony White.

Jessica Hopper’s takedown of Vampire Weekend is nicely done.

Utilitarian Review 1/23/10

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On HU

This week was devoted to a roundtable on Clamp’s xxxHolic. Guest posts, lots of comments, and pretty scans abound if you missed it.

Also, this week’s music download is here.

Last week’s doom metal playlist is here.

Utilitarians Everywhere

On Madeloud I review Hamsoken’s Foul Harvest.

On tcj.com I review a collection of James Bond comic strips.

On Metropulse I review a collection of 60s Cambodian pop.

Other Links

Marc Singer has a balanced essay about using Scott McCloud’s Understanding Comics in a classroom setting.

Utilitarian Review 1/16/10

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Best Comics Criticism 2009

The big news about the blog this week was Suat’s announcement of the Best Online Comics Criticism of the year.

All the judges beside Suat weighed in with discussions of the list and of their own choices. And those judges were me, Tucker Stone, Frank Santoro and Matthias Wivel.

In other reactions around the web, Johanna Draper Carlson pointed out there could have been more women and manga critics on the list. Melinda Beasi responded by putting up a list of her favorite female manga critics. And David Welsh picked some of his favorite criticism of the year.

Finally, Brigid Alverson notes that she was supposed to be involved in the judging but had to drop out at the last minute due to work and family pressure. She also provides a look at her picks for best criticism of the year.

On HU

Also this week on HU:

Kinukitty reviewed Age Called Blue.

Richard Cook reviewed Sayuki.

Vom Marlowe reviewed Godchild.

I sneered in passing at The Dirty Projectors and Michael Chabon.

And last but not least, this week’s free music download features early doom metal.

Utilitarians Everywhere

At Splice Today I review a newish graphic biography of Johnny Cash.

The exercise does affirm Cash’s power as a storyteller, mainly through contrast. Kleist is a pretty good artist—his drawing of a young Johnny standing at the microphone, head cocked, preparing to deliver “Big River” is lean and striking. But the effort to show the narrative itself is determinedly bland: Images of the mooning swain and his traveling lover lack the lonesome sparseness of the sung original, not to mention its barely contained, self-parodying humor. The pictures seem generic, taken out of any Twainesque riverboat setting, where the original reveled in its specificity as Cash’s deep baritone caressed each place name and ventrioloquized voice. It’s like Kleist decided to draw the sequence without ever stopping to wonder what made the song worthwhile in the first place, with the predictable result that he gets the general framework and leaves out the soul.

And I have another discussion of Zizek with Bert Stabler over at his blog.

Bert: It’s been occurring to me that Jesus defined modern social relations– defining a private sphere apart from state interference, rejecting traditional value systems and extended and even nuclear family relations in favor of abstract inner pursuits, extolling radically egalitarian values, dying for his principles. He despised work and ownership. And, strangely, he was completely the ideal for which our civilization continues to strive. He was a humanist, without the solipsism, nihilism, and hubris.

On tcj.com I have a review of Lilli Carre’s illustrated version of Hans Christian Anderson’s The Fir Tree.

At Metropulse I review the really strikingly bad new Vampire Weekend album.

And finally, Tom Spurgeon has the final wrap up of his massive end-of-decade interview series in which I participated.

Utilitarian Review 1/9/10

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On HU

Lots of bytes through the sluice on HU this week.

To start off, I sneered at the Yeah Yeah Yeahs and wondered about Fantagraphics’ marketing policy (Fantagraphic marketers showed up to explain in the comments.)

I denounced Lady Snowblood, movie and comic, on the grounds that they are evil. Suat came back with a lengthy defense

I defended blogging and even got all emo about it. In another meta moment, I defended my right to think Ganges is boring and sneer at other comics critics and spit bile more or less indiscriminately, damn it.

Kinukitty reviewed the yaoi Dining Bar Akira.

Richard kicked off a new series, Anything But Capes, in which he looks at genres other than super-heroes. He started off by looking at the state of Barbarian comics.

Suat reviewed Ooku, which he doesn’t like as much as me.

I explained what my son has and has not learned from Peanuts.

Vom Marlowe drew a comic expressing her disinterest in X-Men Forever.

And this week’s music download features lots of doomy drones and other metal. (Last week’s, if you missed it, features Thai country music (Luk Thung.)

Utilitarians Everywhere

My enthusiastic review of Dokebi Bride is up on Comixology this week.

That departure, I think, points to the core knot at the heart of Dokebi Bride. The book, like many ghost stories, is about grief and dislocation and how the two circle around each other like black, exhausted smudges. The first volume opens with Sunbi’s father carrying her mother’s ashes back from the grave; that volume ends with the death of Sunbi’s grandmother, who raised her and cared for her. The central loss of a parent, and therefore of self, returns again and again through the series, a literal haunting. Sunbi can’t function without putting the past behind her, but the past is everything she is — she can’t let it go. When a fortune teller offers to read her future, Sunbi rejects the offer angrily. “No, I don’t want to know about my stupid future!” she bites out through her tears. “Just tell me what all this means to me! Tell me why they’ve all died and left me, why they’re even trying to take away my memories!”

On Tcj.com I reviewed Strange Suspense: Steve Ditko Archives Volume 1.

Did you read that whole thing? If you did and you enjoyed it, you’re a hardier soul than I. “I got my letter and then I thought about my letter and then I thought about my letter some more and then I used a metaphor: ‘leaden feet’!” That’s just dreadful. And, yes, that’s the one romance story in the book, but the horror and adventure comics are not appreciably better; there’s still the numbing repetition, the tin ear, and the infuriating refusal to finesse said tin ear by leaving the damn pictures alone to tell their own story.

Bert Stabler and I talk about Zizek and art over at his blog Dark Shapes Refer.

I like the idea that you need a transcendent background in order to appreciate, or even allow for, multiplicity. I’m thinking about this a little bit in terms of culture and art, and the impulse that I think most everyone has to want people to consume/listen/read/whatever the right thing. It seems like that’s coming from a place where the transcendent is material; that is, your worshipping the art itself, therefore moral choices become essentially consumer choices. Alternately, you just cut culture and morality apart altogether, and argue that neither has anything to do with the other. Whereas if you have a transcendent ground of some sort, you can say, well, culture connects up to morality and or important things in various ways, and you can talk about it in those terms, but choices about art are not in themselves good or evil.

On Madeloud, I review the soundtrack to the BBC miniseries Life on Earth, which profoundly affected my life when I was, like, 8.

Over at Metropulse, I have a review of avant Japanese guitarist Shinobu Nemotu’s Improvisations #1.

At the same site there’s also a review of the slab of black doom that is
Nihil’s Grond.

At the Chicago Reader I review the fairly amusing gimmick book Twitterature.

Other Links

I enjoyed Tucker Stone’s Best of at Comixology, especially since he picked the right thing for book of the year.

Ta-Nehisi Coates explains why he wants to be able to check “Negro” on his census form.

And finally, Johanna Draper Carlson has a nice summation and round up of links relating to the devil’s bargain between MOCCA and Archie Comics.