Utilitarian Review 5/10/14

 

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News

Rutgers put up a prepub page for my book! You can see the cover and everything (or just look up above there)!

Check it out!

On HU

Featured Archive Post: Robert Stanley Martin on Brassai’s photography.

I wrote about why I like Piss Christ.

A brief thread on overrated and underratd photography, strongly suggesting that nobody cares about photography much.

Kailyn Kent on wine labels for male insecurity.

Chris Gavaler argues the world is ready for superheroines kicking butt on the big screen.

Me on Ms. Marvel, female superheroes, and aggression (or the lack thereof.)

Adrielle Mitchell on Luke Pearson’s Everything We Miss, time, space, and loss.

Erotic artist Michael Manning on Beardsley and the gay utopia.
 
Utilitarians Everywhere

At the Atlantic I wrote about why I still like Star Wars. (It’s the dirty robots.)

At Salon:

you say rockist, I say poptimist, let’s call the whole thing off

— I wrote about The Bechdel Test and shaming women’s genre works.

At Splice Today I wrote about:

— how having the U.S. pay attention to Nigeria isn’t necessarily in the best interest of Nigeria.

Myra Greene’s book My White Friends and the invisibility of whiteness.

At the Center for Digital Ethics I wrote about the Ethics of Ride Sharing, of all things.
 
Other Links

Michael Carson on taking the war out of war literature.

Zeynep Tufecki on Nigeria and the politics of attention.

Ta-Nehisi Coates on how racism was deployed against Bill Clinton (and Lincoln, for that matter).

Kathleen Geier on conservative family trees and the cult of victimhood.

Nobody watches Game of Thrones.

Tracy Q. Loxley on underreporting sexual harassment.

Utilitarian Review 5/3/14

On HU

Featured Archive Post: Andrea Tang on Iron Man 3, Olympus Has Fallen, and the new yellow peril.

Paul Nudd with Love-Chutney drawings for the Gay Utopia.

Alexander Hamilton was an authoritarian thug.

Ng Suat Tong with a lengthy consideration of Nijigahara Holograph.

Chris Gavaler on Phillip Pullman and Spring-heeled Jack.

I talk about Octavia Butler’s Fledglin, Lacan, and amnesia.

Michael A. Johnson talks about the ethical implications of covering war via photograph and comic (from PPP.)

Sean Michael Robinson on Rhinestone Cowboys, Deacon Blues, and small dreams.
 
Utilitarians Everywhere

At Salon I

Lised the 10 most overrated albums of the 1990s.

—wrote about how there are basically no women in the original Star Wars.

At the Dissolve I reviewed the documentary Documented about Jose Antonio Vargas’ experience as an undocumented immigrant.

At Splice Today I wrote about

— Esme Patterson asking Elvis Costello what the hell is wrong with him.

— how Batman, Sarah Palin and everybody else loves torture.
 
Other Links

Amazon is deleting the wish lists of sex workers because Amazon is run by arbitrary puritanical assholes.

Relatedly, Spike on trying to publish porn comics.

Also relatedly, the DOJ is closing porn star’s bank accounts because our government is run by arbitrary puritanical assholes.

Dana Schwartz on gender in Star Wars.

Isaac Butler on why your Star Wars books still count.

Mary McCarthy on jeans drama.
 

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Utilitarian Review 4/26/14

On HU

Featured Archive Post: Kailyn Kent on the high art(?) of splash pages.

Chris Gavaler on cosplayers for Congress.

Chris Gavaler provides the minutes from the Last Supper.

Osvaldo Oyola on Brian Wood’s crappy all-women X-Men comic.

Patrick Carland on Zen Pencils and hating on the haters.

Orion Martin on Jodorowsky’s Incal, Prophet, and the problem of keeping science-fiction strange.

Qiana Whitted looks at how what’s in print affects comics studies (for PPP.)

On Katherine Gilles Seidel‘s novel Again and romancing the critics of romance.
 
Utilitarians Everywhere

At Salon I have

— a list of the 20 most underrated albums ever. Plus 10 more.

— a piece about how there is no canon of romance novels.

—a piece about the Other Woman as displaced rom com.

At the Atlantic I wrote about sci-fi and the imagined colonization of white people.

At Splice Today I wrote about the new Justice League United and DC’s pitiful efforts at diversity.

And at the Chicago Reader a short review of a Batman gallery art show.
 
Other Links

An interview with visual artist Curtis Gannon.

Wendy at Super Librarian argues (contra my article) that there is a romance canon, and she provides a list.

Janelle Asselin on how she has gotten rape threats for pointing out that a crappy DC comics cover was crappy.

And a message to guys about sexism in comics.

Uninsured people really want health insurance.
 

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Edward Gorey illustration for the War of the Worlds

 
 

Utilitarian Review 4/19/14

On HU

Featured Archive Post: Junji Ito’s Tomie stories as misogynist fever dream.

Kailyn Kent on how True Detective is like Twin Peaks with more misogyny.

Edie Fake‘s amazing illustration for the gay utopia.

Ng Suat Tong on Peter Bagge’s Margaret Sanger biography and dancing around eugenics.

Michael Arthur explains that Osamu Tezuka thinks furry is sexy. Deal with it.

Christa Blackmon on the Walking Dead and human rights.

Julian Chambliss for PPP on the slimming down of Amanda Waller.

Ng Suat Tong on the zombie apocalypse and the dangers of empathy.

 
Utilitarians Everywhere

At Salon I did a list of cross-genre collaborations.

At the Atlantic I wrote about

Showgirls and leveraging sex worker stigma.

— the Doom Patrol and superheroes on the margins

— how Charles Murray is a worse philosopher than Sojourner Truth.

At the Dissolve I reviewed Visions of Mary Frank, a documentary about the sculptor.

At Splice Today I made the case for Johnny Cash in the 80s.

 
Other Links

Bob Temuka on superheroes and death.

Elias Leight on the new minimalist R&B.

Elias Leight again, this time on Merle Haggard and pop stardom.

Sydette Harry on who you hate when you hate on the Internet.

Aamer Rahman on Game of Thrones and the barbaric other.
 

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Utilitarian Review 4/12/14

On HU

Featured Archive Post: Jog on Bollywood sci-fi.

Bert Stabler on Christianity, the gay utopia, and why V for Vendetta is no good.

Me on R. Fiore, Walt Kelly, and why our idols can’t be racist. (a response to R. Fiore’s piece at TCJ.)

Kailyn Kent on chianti in Robocop.

Chris Gavaler on allegorical drones in Captain America: Winter Soldier.

Brian Cremins on Walt Kelly and imagining the South in Connecticut. (a response to R. Fiore’s piece at TCJ.)

Frank Bramlett for PPP asks, how do questions get answered in comics?

Sean Michael Robinson on trying, and failing, to create a graphic novel.
 
Utilitarians Everywhere

At the Atlantic I wrote about why we need to stop comparing the NSA to 1984.

At Salon I had a list of Michael Jackson covers.Libertarians for free speech, except the free speech to tell the Mozilla CEO to get lost.

Squarepusher collaborating with Japanese robots.
 
Other Links

A survey on sexual harassment in comics.

Tracy Q. Loxley on contraception and the the ACA.

Jonathan Bernstein on how Rand Paul’s campaign is like Jesse Jackson’s.
 

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Utilitarian Review 4/5/14

On HU

Featured Archive Post: Matthias Wivel on racism and free speech articles in Scandinavia.

Ariel Schrag‘s “Wandering Hands” — Gay Utopia cartoons.

Who is the most overrated 20th century novelist? Hemingway! (we talk about most underrated too.

Chris Gavaler finally unmasks the Joker.

I wrote about YA dystopias and historical romances.

Subdee reviews Noah and the not totally awful apocalypse.

Roy T. Cook wonders if She-Hulk doesn’t superhero, is she still in a superhero comic?

Chris Gavaler on Native American schools and supeheroes.
 
Utilitarians Everywhere

At Salon:

— I asked, ““why should we care about Wonder Woman?” (and reviewed Tim Hanley’s excellent new WW book.)

— I listed 12 great Beyonce mash-ups, from Nirvana to Abba.

At the Atlantic I wrote about James Baldwin’s The Devil Finds Work, the greatest piece of film criticism ever.

At Splice Today I wrote about:

Carlene Carter‘s lovely new album, and how she makes more sense as she ages.

Jonathan Chait telling non-white people of the world to give thanks

— the Rumsfeld bullshit and why we love it.

At the Reader I reviewed an amazing show on the visual culture of Chinese opera.

At Salon Sean McElwee argues that only privileged people get to be writers. He uses a piece I wrote a bit back as a launching pad, and somewhat distorts it to do so, but overall it’s a good piece.

And at Reason I was quoted in this article by Elizabeth Nolan Brown, talking about sex work and Katha Pollitt.
 
Other Links

Monika Bartyzel explaining to Hollywood why it sucks for not making female superhero movies.

There was an interesting conversation on twitter about race and rock music. (I joined in a bit.)

Nic Subtirelu on the linguistics of “bossy”.

Ta-Nehisi Coates on his origin story.

R. Fiore wrote a piece on Walt Kelly’s relationship with race that I disagree with fairly strongly. There are good comments from David Brothers, Sarah Horrocks, Jeet Heer, Brian Cremins and others though. (I left a comment or two as well.)
 

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Utilitarian Review 3/29/14

On HU

Featured Archive Post: Betsy Phillips on Iron Man the song and the superhero.

Lee Relvas‘s lovely vision of the gay utopia.

We all chatted about the most overrated television show (and possibly most underrated if such things exist.

Alex Buchet on the mediocrity of the recent Asterix legacy volume (Asterix and the Picts).

Chris Gavaler on the sources of Sandman.

I ask if this post needs a trigger warning.

Adrielle Mitchell on comics and walking (for PPP.)

Kailyn Kent on wine at the Grand Budapest Hotel.
 
Utilitarians Everywhere

At the Atlantic I wrote about:

—the self-conscious incoherence of Divergent

the 4 ways sci-fi handles race

Johnny Cash as trend chaser

—I wrote about the bracingly cynical Schwarzenegger cop drama Sabotage

At Splice Today I wrote about:

— how Ginsburg and Breyer should retire

— student debt as nightmare dystopia in the comic The Default Trigger

And I worked on this study guide for Orson Scott Card’s Speaker for the Dead
 
Other Links

Julianne Ross asks why all action heroines are petite.

Hoping I get to see Dear White People at some point.

The debut issue of the journal Porn Studies is online.

Erin Gloria Ryan on CancelColbert; Brittney Cooper on the same.

Russ Smith tells alt weeklies to go out with some dignity, for pity’s sake.
 

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