Category Archives: Blog

The Fae Will Take You On

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This review first appeared in the Comics Journal.
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Meatcake #17
Dame Darcy
Fantagraphics
24 pp (?)/ $3.95
B&W/softcover
ISBN: 9781560977957

Even when she’s not especially inspired, Dame Darcy creates superior goth comics: cheerfully mean-spirited, idiosyncratically stylish, and oozing with surreal ichor. Thus in this issue’s “Rockstar Romance,” we get to see rockstar Trixxie put paid to her stinking boyfriend Tex — the gross-out high point being a half-page panel in which Tex appears as a bulbous, weeping worm strangling itself with its own belt. “Spider-Silk Tropics” features Darcy regulars Effluvia (a mermaid) and Stega-Pez (a girl who speaks by spewing bloody, inscribed tablets from her throat) as they use their amorous wiles to bamboozle a spider-loving Duke. In both stories, Darcy indulges her goth tropes and her feminism: men are tormented, sisterhood is affirmed, and light-hearted squick is relished by all. And, as always, Darcy’s eccentric drawing is a joy, with perspective, proportion, and visual logic all flattened out to fit into geometrically obscure but oddly elegant patterns.

Again, I do have an effervescent attraction for these narratives. But I pledge my true and more hopeless passion to Darcy’s less tongue-in-cheek efforts. “We Are the Fae and There is No Death” forswears quirky hipster humor and jokey man-bashing alike. Instead, it simply tells a fairy tale; Oriana and her younger sister Hyacinth live in a castle ruled by their harsh father, a king whom we never see. Hyacinth wants to leave the castle and marry the forest ruler…but Oriana doesn’t believe there is any such person, and tries to stop her. As is the case in fairy tales, the plot takes numerous twists and turns, but has an eerie inevitability, pregnant with pain, love, death, and magic. The sisters do escape from the tyrant king, who is both abusive father, and, perhaps, life itself. But where do they end up?

Oriana answers in a remarkable poetic denouement, where she speaks for the first time directly to the reader — as if she has become unmoored from the story. Against a design of stars and flowers, she’s drawn with her hair down and in a transparent shift. “Am I alive or am I dead?” she asks. “It doesn’t matter in this place. Time does not run in a linear line as pronounced by man, but instead runs in an eternal spiral like the rings of a tree. My sister is in eternal holy union with a God.” A full page illustration shows two skeletons embracing; in the lower right of the panel, stylized but lovingly-patterned flowers contrast with the white bones. In the last panel, we see Hyacinth bathing in an idyllic pool, while Oriana sits beside it, head on her knees, butterfly wings sprouting from her back. Her expression is difficult to read; her face may be slightly smiling, or wistful, or perhaps just blank. “Now we are the fae,” the caption says, “and there is no death.”

This isn’t the retro-smirk of Jhonen Vasquez, or even, for that matter, of Edward Gorey. Instead, Darcy’s conclusion is reminiscent of the chillingly beautiful take on immortality at the end of Peter Pan…or of Lovecraft’s “Shadow Over Innsmouth.” “We Are the Fae …”, is in other words, not goth, but true gothic, in which queer doublings suggest a relationship between the human and the uncanny — or in which , indeed, the relationships are the uncanny. In Darcy’s other stories in this book, sisterly love triumphs, and evil men are destroyed. Here, in contrast, all love — between sisters, between parents and children, between men and women — seems to run together like dark water, where the self sinks and dissolves until all that’s left is a smiling, empty mask. All three of these stories end, more or less, with a “happily ever after,” but only in this one does it sound so resolutely inhuman.

Stepdown

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So I’m back from my summer gig as a teacher to feral high school students and I’m stepping down from blogging here at the Hooded Utilitarian.

No juicy gossip behind it, unfortunately.

I’m just joyously busy with business and life, requiting this & that, and setting aside most of my critical work. Instead I’ll pull some creative projects out from their dust clothes. Also, I’ve learned some very nice swears in Arabic (unrelated).

I have some articles & reviews coming from TCJ, as well as my desultory blog at my own site. I will change its focus from reviews into a freer, more personal notebook. Which had already happened, actually.

As to the Utilitarian, it’s been quite a pleasure to spend a while here in the company of these writers. Noah’s great to work with, and everyone else is a joy to read and spar with in the comments. I always enjoyed that I never had any idea what the next post would be about, or what angle it might take. Some ways of reading, like those informed by gender, don’t come naturally to me, so I’ve profited from them. And I never found my own critical perspective flattered. Which is why I’ll still be reading. And why I’m sad I to go.

I want to leave on this note:

In the Summer 2009 issue of Bidoun, a magazine of arts & culture from the Middle East, there’s an interview with the four cartoonists behind Samandal, a trilingual comics anthology published out of Lebanon. (You can download the first three issues of the young, so far middling anthology– I liked Sandra Ghosn’s entry in #3, anyway.)

A lot of the interview’s childhood nostalgia between Fdz and Hatem Imam. Some standard fare about comics’ junk status meaning political freedom, about censorship. This and that.

And there’s this:

NA: Who’s your youngest contributor?

FDZ: Hashem Raslan. He’s in high school. He sent us a comic about killing his teachers. I think he’s the youngest. Then there are the girls in Tripoli– they’re maybe nineteen.

NA: Who are the girls in Tripoli?

OMAR: They contacted us with a submission. They are very shy and quiet– three veiled girls who are influenced most by yaoi manga, which are Japanese comics about beautiful boys that fall in love with each other. It’s a genre. I found it very peculiar.

NA: Do they know Japanese?

OMAR: No, they were reading online fan translations, which have horrendous English. …The girls submitted tales of unrequited love!

How dumb is the Second Amendment?

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I’d say anyone who really, really wants to exercise his right to carry a loaded weapon outside a presidential appearance is probably 1) angry, and 2) not blessed with good judgment. This reassures me!

Of all rights, the right to bear arms is the fucking stupidest. Arizona’s “open carry” law sounds like a delicious refinement on this stupidity. 

Of course, whoever’s head finally pops may not take a shot at Obama, he may just spray the crowd. Or maybe nothing will happen — guessing is part of the fun. 

update, At least he’s smiling. Note: This is the fellow that Allahpundit and Confederate Yankee thought might be pro-Obama because he was strolling with his loaded automatic weapon near people who had pro-health reform signs. What does the fellow himself say? “Taxation is theft.” So there goes the “both sides are packing” meme.

On a brighter note, he tells us, “We will forcefully resist people imposing their will on us through the strength of the majority with a vote.” If you lose an election, start shooting. (Via Talking Points Memo.)




AssaultrifleObama_ac556.jpg

 [ added 8’20: The third photo and an accompanying thought: Did the guy change from a white shirt to a blue shirt during the rally? And for a lunatic he is one good-looking man. ]

update, So Uland calls me out in Comments with his views on gun control. He raises good points, so now I’ve expanded my thoughts. They’re presented here as responses to various bits taken from his comments, starting with:

“Is this post for me? Thank you.”

No! I’m just pissed and feeling vocal. But I can see how you might think it was a jab at you, so I apologize for that.  


“First off, the right to carry that exists in some states is not a second amendment right . Related, of course, but those are distinct sets of policy in which special license is required.”

I know that! From my post: “Of all rights, the right to bear arms is the fucking stupidest. Arizona’s ‘open carry’ law sounds like a delicious refinement on this stupidity.” So I get the distinction.

“I don’t think they ‘want to’ carry guns around the president.”

Then they must be sleepwalking or under mind control. What you call symbolic is still a real action, and it’s an action that I very much dislike and resent. I don’t want my country’s political system at such immediate risk of destabilization thru violence.

“Since conceal/carry laws have been passed in many states, the crimes-with-firearms rates have not moved one way or the other.”

What about accidental shootings? And here I’m actually curious, not trying to pose a stumper.


My feeling: guns are fine in the right context, like a firing range or a hunting trip, or if they’re being handled by a security officer who’s been trained decently, but otherwise I don’t want them around. Especially if the person who’s the lynchpin of my country’s government is anywhere nearby. Doesn’t mean I want to ban guns; does mean I think it’s stupid to treat them as a right. If the 2nd Amendment ever gets offed, put me down for any regulations that would prevent spectacles like the one in Arizona.

A final point, an important one. Uland says of the gun fellow’s comment:

he’s saying that a majority cannot vote away the rights of a minority; that’s the premise of inalienable rights/Constitutional system.


First, because I haven’t heard the rest of the fellow’s comments, it’s possible that he was talking specifically about rights. But the quote in question does not specify the minority’s rights as being at stake. And, at any rate, the fellow believes that taxation is robbery, so what he considers a right may well be very different from what people of normal mental constitution might consider a right. So I stand by my summary of his position: When you lose an election, start shooting.

Second, he is definitely not saying only “that a majority cannot vote away the rights of a minority.” He is advocating the resolution of such situations thru force.

And, you know, we have a court system. That’s what it’s for. The guy seems to care about the Constitution as long as it puts a gun in his hands, and after that the law can go out the window. Maybe he’s an Eagle Scout, but he scares me and I don’t like what he’s saying.

Twisted Piece of Crap

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This essay originally ran in the Comics Journal.
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Metamorpho Year One
Dan Jurgens, Mike Norton, Jesse Delperdang
DC Comics
softcover/color
142 pages/$14.99
9 781401218034

One of the first comics I read was The Brave and the Bold #154, featuring Batman and Metamorpho. Metamorpho had hardly any face time, as it turned out, but his brief appearance made a decided impression. Bob Haney’s plot had the element man wearing jodhpurs and consorting with Turkish drug dealers while spouting supposedly hip but actually dadaesque lines like, “Wowee! Kaman kiddo wasn’t kidding!” Meanwhile, Jim Aparo drew that malleable body from all sorts of bizarre angles — an almost unreadable shot upward through telescoped metal legs; a vertiginous shot from above with Metamorpho’s mouth gaping open as a baddy shoots a flamethrower down his gullet. Both artist and writer were clearly having a blast, and their enthusiasm for the character was infectious. I wanted to read more about him.

I never did though. Oh, I read a fair number of comics featuring Metamorpho, but none of them had anything like the charge of that first meeting. Still, even with my expectations suitably lowered, Metamorpho: Year One is quite, quite bad. Jurgens and Norton switch off on the drawing chores, but neither of them takes any advantage of Metamorpho’s visual potential. Everything looks CGI, with limbs turning into smooth blades or smooth drills — it’s like Metamorpho’s a bottom basement Terminator. Nobody here can even draw mildly successful cheesecake. Sapphire Stagg, the Metamorpho mythos’ gratuitous sex bomb, has the requisite blond hair, big bazoongas, and lack-of-attire, but through the miracle of stiff poses, shaky anatomy, incompetent stylization, and godawful computer coloring, she still ends up looking as sensual as a hunk of plastic.

Dan Jurgens’ story is, if anything, even worse than the art. Rex Mason (the guy who turns into Metamorpho) has all the personality and gumption of a wilted houseplant. The evil Simon Stagg tries to kill him? He gets so mad that he…whines a little. The beautiful Sapphire Stagg doesn’t want him anymore because he’s all, like, ugly now? He gets so mad that he…whines a little. And when the Justice League tricks him into thinking he’s fighting a deadly super-villain and then brags about how clever they were, Metamorpho…tells them how super-heroic they are. Oh, yeah, and then he whines a little. Peter Parker had angst; Metamorpho has querulousness.

Still, I’m not in any position to whine myself, I suppose. To read a comic based on your affection for a character you first encountered 30 years ago is pretty much begging for disappointment. I guess I momentarily forgot that the whole point of super-hero comics these days is to sully the childhood memories of paunchy middle-aged fanboys. At that mission, at least, Metamorpho: Year One succeeds admirably.

Update: I confused Star Sapphire and Sapphire Stagg in the original post. I bet they get that all the time.

Funny line

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Mark Kleiman on Lanny Davis, “who will never sell out because he’s always for rent.”


update, This year is a good example of shitty-August syndrome, by which I mean August usually makes for a shitty news month and this August has been especially bad. In the old days newspapers called this the silly season; now major-league public issues get dragged into the bullshit, things like whether we should invade another country or how we should reform health care. The point is to make a big noise about something dumb, preferably dumb and scary — like shark attacks, Saddam Hussein or government euthanasia — but dumb and truculent can also work, as with last year’s “Drill, baby, drill.”

Of course, last year events swung pretty well for Obama after August had passed, so we’ll see how he does this fall on health care. But so far, not good.