Utilitarian Review 12/14/13

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On HU

Featured Archive Post: Sharon Marcus on liking Wonder Woman the comic but not Wonder Woman the character.

Fleetwood Mac for the old and boring.

A short story about a kangaroo who changed the world, with illustrations by my son.

Chris Gavaler provides free script advice to DC on a Wonder Woman movie.

Osvaldo Oyola on double-consciousness and what Black Lightning could have been.

Me on Black Lightning in Chains in the not very good Batman and the Outsiders run in the 1980s.

Qiana Whitted with a PPP post on the connection between anthropomorphism and race in Krazy Kat.

Michael Arthur on the good, the sweaty,and the cute at Midwest Furfest.
 
Utilitarians Everywhere

At Salon I have a list of metal tracks for non-metal heads. I think I’m going to be doing music lists over there weekly for a while, so check in every Saturday, as they say.

At Wired I talk about the Tripods series, and YA hero as failure.

At the Dissolve I review Nuclear Nation, a film about nuclear refugees in Japan.

At Splice Today I write about:

— how superhero narratives are about fascism, which doesn’t necessarily mean that superheroes are fascist.

—how America’s incarceration boom is over, and no one will be punished for it.
 
Other Links

James Romberger interviews Paul Kirchner.

Noah Gittell on that crappy Walt Disney movie.

Why it’s worth caring about women on a bank note.

Kevin Drum on our educational apartheid.

Utilitarian Review 12/7/13

On HU

Featured Archvie Post: Eric Berlatsky on Maus and reality.

Voices from the Archive: Jason Thompson on Orientalism.

Me on abortion and violence.

Mahendra Singh on the limitatons of drafting in Maus.

Me on Maus and Marketing.

Chris Gavaler on an evil Christian comic parenting guide.

Frank Bramlett with the week’s PencilPanelPage post on linguistics and sound effects in Krazy Kat.

Pam Rosenthal on Jo Baker’s Longbourn, Pride and Prejudice through the eyes of servants, and the genre of romance.

Utilitarians Everywhere

At Salon I did a list of 19 cross genre covers.

At the Atlantic I wrote:

—about how Ted Rall got tripped up by comics’ history of racist iconography

—that Wonder Woman shouldn’t be a sidekick in Zack Snyder’s stupid new movie.

At Splice Today I wrote about:

—how Andrew Sullivan can’t stop making the Iraq war about himself.

—Joey Baron, Bill Frisell and avant jazz as dead end.

At Slate I told everyone to read Nora Olsen’s wonderful Swans and Klons.

Other Links

Paul Rosenberg on how the GOP knows nothing about food stamps (my cousin, David Simon, is cited!)

Kathryn Funkhouser on how people will pay to see female superheroes.
 

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Utilitarian Review 11/30/13

On HU

Featured Archive Post: Mahendra Singh illustrates Wallace Stevens.

For Thanksgiving I posted on America’s participation in Indonesian genocide.

I posted my complete 50 Shades/Cthulhu mash up. Enjoy the thrashing bosoms and heaving tentacles.

I sneer at the design of one page in Maus.

John Grisham still sucks.

Emily Thomas on what the Nao of Brown gets wrong about mental illness.

Chris Gavaler on chess for androids and evil geniuses.

I explain what I think I’m doing with HU.
 
Utilitarians Everywhere

At the Atlantic:

—I talk about the documentary At Night I Fly and whether art is a salve for prison.

—I review Homefront and talk about the link between home and violence.

At Splice I argue that a documentary about working dogs in Iraq leaves out some things.
 
Other Links

Tucker Stone and Abhay Khosla on harassment in the comics industry.

Laura Hudson on harassment in the comics industry.

Ashley Fetters on short guy, tall woman in the Hunger Games.

Mikki Kendall on black women, feminism, and concern-trolling Michelle Obama.
 
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Utilitarian Review 11/23/13

On HU

Featured Archive Post: Domingos Isabelinho on Shannon Gerard.

Richard Cook on Journey, the video game.

Eric Berlatsky on queerness and Krazy Kat.

Alex Buchet discusses superheroes and transhumanism in a coda to his prehistory of the superhero series.

Jacob Canfield reviews Benjamin Urkowitz’s Real Rap.

Osvaldo Oyola on Dan Slott’s She-Hulk as meta-comic.

Roy T. Cook for PencilPanelPage asks, Why does ignatz throw from right to left?

Chris Gavaler on the first mutant, from the age of eugenics.

Me on Krazy Kat, artifice and the comics canon.
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Utilitarians Everywhere

At the Atlantic,

—I talked about recent allegations against Brian Wood and sexism in comics.

— I talked about testing in the Japanese school system and why we shouldn’t see education as about economics.

— I argued that selfies are art.

At Splice Today

—I praised the fuddy-duddy music of Don Williams

— I bitch about he stupidity of evolutionary psychology trying to explain bitchiness
 
Other Links

Jane Doe with a brief insight into the relationship of trans identity, race, gender, and violence.

Jed Perl very satisfyingly sneers at Art Spiegelman.

Danielle Paradis on that Lily Allen video.
 

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Utilitarian Review 11/8/13 — Welcome to PencilPanelPage!

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News

We’ve got an exciting announcement to make. The wonderful blog PencilPanelPage is going to be moving onto HU. PPP is a comics blog with an academic slant. They’re going to post every Thursday, kicking things off with a Krazy Kat roundtable which will run for several weeks and be cross-posted here and at their old location (where you can also catch up on their archives if you haven’t been over there.

PPP is going to be independently edited, and they’ll have guest posts and roundtables from time to time. You can read more about the blog and contributors here. They’ve posted a farewell which you can also check out.

All posts on PencilPanelPage can be found through the PencilPanelPage category tag. There’s also a tab on our homepage which will show all the PPP posts.

Qiana Whitted, who’s written for us occasionally, is a regular on PPP, so we’re psyched to have her contributing more regularly. We’re also thrilled to welcome Frank Bramlett, Roy T. Cook, Michael A. Johnson, and Adrielle Mitchell.

So check back Thursday to find the first PPP post, and the start of their Krazy Kat roundtable. Please take a minute when you do to welcome them aboard in comments!

And thank you to Jacob Canfield for making the adjustments to our site so PPP can fit in comfortably.

On HU

Featured Archive Post: Susan Kirtley on hating Betty and Veronica.

Bert Stabler has Frederic Wertham decapitate Art Spiegelman, Scott McCloud, and others.

Ng Suat Tong on pro-KKK outsider art.

Ng Suat Tong on how even comics critics don’t care about comics criticism.

Alex Buchet continues his prehistory of the superhero with a discussion of the Superman and Superman.

Me on Michael DeForge and how comics aren’t for kids anymore.

Shonté Daniels on racial difference and cosplaying.

Chris Gavaler on Age of Bronze and comic book gods.
 
Utilitarians Everywhere

On Salon I wrote about Amazon’s censorship of erotic ebooks.

I also talked about the Salon piece on HuffPost Live, so this is your chance to see me live and stuttering. Selena Kitt was also interviewed, and is less stuttery and more awesome.

At the Atlantic I talked about

Gloria Steinem as a Disney Princess

the Tea Party and the virtues of petty jealousy.

— Joss Whedon’s not very impressive speech about the word “feminist.”

At the Chicago Reader I reviewed/recommended Julia Serano’s great new book Excluded on making feminist and queer communities more inclusive. Buy it at once!

At Splice Today I talk about when to write for free and when not to.
 
Other Links

James Romberger interviews Frank Santoro about his graphic novel Pompeii.

Anna March on making fatherhood a choice.

Tom Spurgeon interviews Jeet Heer.

Notorious Phd on the Daily Mail profiling young female historians.

Amanda Hess interviews Melissa Gira Grant about sex work.

Tim Hodler’s response to crit of tcj and the fanta kickstarter. Brief but worth reading.

Sam Riedel on DC’s new video game crapola.

Alex Pareene on racist old men.

A nice piece about early Grendel.

Utilitarian Review 11/2/13

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On HU

Chris Gavaler on Carrie, Jean Grey, and misogynist apocalypse.

Me on The English Teacher and why, despite its claims, it isn’t really set in my hometown of Kingston, PA.

Ng Suat Tong on the Trigan Empire, history and fascism.

Benjamin Rogers on fall comics from Hic&Hoc.

Me on the regency romance as feminist utopia in novels by Pam Rosenthal and Cecelia Grant.

Kimball Anderson on bodies and selves in Dollhouse and Kaiba.

Chris Gavaler on Captain America and the war on terror.
 
Utilitarians Everywhere

At the Atlantic I wrote about:

12 Years a Slave and historical accuracy.

—how strict copyright laws hurt educational materials.

At Splice I wrote about

Valerie June’s phenomenal Pushin’ Against a Stone. Best album of the year.

Jonathan Bernstein and why the best political pundits don’t know what they’re talking about.
 
Other Links

Tessie McMillan Cottom on why poor people “waste” money on luxury goods.

Julia Serano on why bisexual people don’t reinforce the gender binrary.

Utilitarian Review 10/26/13

On HU

A list of posts about femael indie comics creators on HU.

A list of posts by female indie comics creators on HU.

I talk about why Gwyneth Jones’ sci-fi novels and why a coke bottle can be indie comics.

Tom Gill reviews Midnight Fishermen, a Singapore-published collection of Tatsumi stories never before translated into English.

Robert Stanley Martin continues his reevaluation of Jim Shooter, looking at Shooter’s relationship with Tony Isabella, Steve Englehart, and Gerry Conway.

Alex Buchet with part 6 of his prehistory of the superhero series, this one focusing on Buffalo Bill, dime novels, and the pulps.

Chris Gavaler on Sandy Hook and the superheroic war on crime.
 
Utilitarians Everywhere

On Salon this week I wrote about:

—Selena Kitt’s erotic ebook “Babysitting the Baumgartners” and romance tropes.

—Orson Scott Card’s Xenogensis, white savior fantasies and sexism.

At the Atlantic I wrote about 12 Years a Slave and masculinity.

For my first piece at The Dissolve I reviewed When I Walk, a documentary about its creator’s multiple sclerosis.

At Splice Today I warned mamas not to let your babies grow up to be politicians.
 
Other Links

Craig Fischer with a massive piece on Dave Berg.

Rad-Femme Lawyer on why your penis is not a good lens through which to view human rights issues.

Danielle Paradis on bisexuality and the closet.

Mary McCarthy on not going crazy with the dieting.

Janine Ballard review the Slightest Provocation, a romance by Pam Rosenthal.

Jaclyn Frieman on how Men’s Rights Activism hurts men.
 

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