Cat grooming nightmares revealed!

-Here's a question related to yesterday's post. As almost all of you know, there's a dedicated community of bloggers who write about the portrayal of women in Marvel/DC comics. Though I think they're absolutely right and I greatly appreciate their efforts, this nevertheless seems like an exercise in frustration. Reading these various blogs, I'm under the impression that many feminist bloggers are still reading books which portray women in a sexist or even misogynistic light. I'm not suggesting that these bloggers take the advice of fanboy apologists ("if you don't like it, just don't read it and shut up"), because I think it's enormously helpful that someone is confronting Marvel and DC with these issues. Still I wonder, what exactly keeps you going? Why not write off these books and move on? Are you following them in a journalistic way, keeping up with them in order to monitor the portrayal of female characters? Is it an attachment to the superhero genre? To these particular characters? Do you enjoy other aspects of these series enough that, on balance, you'd prefer to keep reading them despite their problems? What books have pushed you to quit buying them or following them online via spoilers or, uh, whatever means available?

-And here's a question for everybody. Which is more egregiously sexist and/or misogynistic: "mainstream" comics art or "mainstream" comics writing?

-Johanna Draper Carlson calls Robert Kirkman's writing "pedestrian and perfunctory." Is "perfunctory" really the right word there, or did Carlson just like the alliteration? It's an odd choice; if forced to use it to describe mainstream comics writing, I would probably choose Warren Ellis' superhero work at Marvel or Chris Claremont's entire body of work since the second Reagan administration.

-What the fuck is "concern trolling?" Also, are people (read: men) really trying to woo other (female) bloggers somehow? Wouldn't that be kind of expensive in terms of airfare? Or is there a whole cross-country internet-enabled hookup scene I'm too old to know about?

-The design on these upcoming Vertical releases are incredible. I certainly hope there's a market for non-Tezuka classic manga. I guess Drifting Classroom is doing pretty well, though Museum of Terror really hasn't. Reprints certainly seem to be doing well at Fantagraphics, IDW, and D&Q. Hopefully Vertical or other publishers will take a chance on releasing some vintage material from names less familiar to American readers.

-I've been there, sadly. Except it wasn't grass, but hair.

-Greg Rucka likes the Tomb Raider games, or at least one of them. He also praises the Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic games, which really are pretty swell. But still...Tomb Raider?

Nasty spring weather

-I wasn't really prepared to hear Marshall Rogers had died. The first superhero comic I collected, rather than bought only when the cover looked interesting, was the 80s/90s version of Silver Surfer. So Rogers (along with Steve Englehart) was a somewhat seminal figure in my development as a comics reader. In recent years, I've come to think of him mostly as the artist on the greatest run of Batman in the history of the character. Sad news.

-I know that I'm not really in a position to criticize someone for this kind of writing, but I had a hard time following Rob Vollmar's review of Ode to Kirihito. This passage in particular had too many clauses (or is that phrases?):

More damning is the frequent use of coincidence to bring the plot around to where you know it’s going, some three hundred pages before it gets there. This sense of expectation is more forgivable when brought about by a clearly articulated motivation of a major character by virtue of their actions but too often in Kirihito, Tezuka goes back to more primitive devices that don’t deliver the same sense of satisfaction.

On the other hand, it's a useful review and I think I agree with Vollmar's conclusions. Did I miss all the initial reviews, or did it actually take a few months before people started reviewing this book? I think I only remember one mention of it in the Best of 2006 edition of the Comics Journal.

Related: this sentence from Tom Spurgeon is no picnic either:

This is an interesting issue to me because I do think there are comics that are like that because of market pressures or failure of ambition on the behalf of a creator or creators, but I also think there are artists who create surpassing works composed of building blocks restricted to the surface elements of comics.

Is he talking about cartoonists who emphasize form and craft over literary content? Reading this sentence makes me feel dumb, and I'm really not that dumb.

-Isn't this the sort of post one of the animals usually makes? Is the dog spoken for? Maybe a "Prescriptive Pooch" or something like that?

-I discovered yesterday that, for a brief time, we had three distinct brands of split peas in the cupboard: Jack Rabbit, Shur-Fine, and Goya. And I'm pretty sure there's another variety sold at the supermarket where we bought the other three packages. I'm not sure if this reveals more about the dried legume industry or the particular grocery store at which we shop. Also, I can strongly recommend this split pea soup recipe.

-As long as I'm talking about non-comics things: Devil Summoner is a lot of fun. I really, really like these Shin Megami Tensei games, especially the ones involving demon fusion. For those who have played it, is Demi-Kids worth the effort of tracking down? (I haven't played either Disgaea, but I really don't like tactics games.)

-A defense of body odor in gaming conventions. The thought of being forced to attend a gaming convention puts my fear of forced attendance of a comics convention in perspective.

Because nobody demanded it

Here's one of the playlists I made for playing Saint's Row on the X-Box 360. I've got another one, but I can't easily list all the songs on it. I guess it's similar in spirit to this one, only less prog rock/British folk rock and more early rock and roll/punk. "The Girl Can't Help It" by Bunker Hill is the perfect soundtrack for pointless chaos, BTW.

1. Nick Lowe - Marie Provost
2. Gentle Giant - The Boys In the Band
3. Dick Hyman - Blackbird
4. Mekons - Last Dance
5. Music Machine - Talk Talk
6. Exuma - Damn Fool
7. Genesis - I Know What I Like (In Your Wardrobe)
8. Pink Faries - I Wish I Was a Girl
9. Amon Duul II - The Return of Ruebezahl
10. Dovers - Your Love
11. Pavement - Silence Kit
12. Kinks - All of My Friends Were There
13. Dinosaur Jr. - Almost Ready
14. Strawbs - Benedictus
15. Mott the Hoople - All the Young Dudes
16. Slade - Everyday
17. T. Rex - New York City
18. Sepultura - Ratamahatta
19. Hollies - Sorry Suzanne
20. Hackamore Brick - I Watched You Rhumba
21. Dovers - What Am I Going To Do
22. Rabble - Candy
23. Velvet Underground - Stephanie Says
24. The Nazz - Open My Eyes
25. Richard & Linda Thompson - When I Get to the Border
26. Leatherface - Not a Day Goes By
27. Ian Hunter - Once Bitten Twice Shy
28. Neil Young - Too Far Gone
29. Undertones - Teenage Kicks
30. Barclay Jame Harvest - Taking Some Time On
31. Neil Young - Like a Hurricane
32. La Peste - Better Off Dead
33. Pretty Things - The Letter
34. Sweet - Action
35. Harmonia - Sonnershein
36. Hollies - Jennifer Eccles
37. Elastik Band - Spazz
38. Dovers - I Could Be Happy
39. Lazy Cowgirls - You're Gonna Miss Me
40. Motorhead - Overkill
41. Germs - Now I Hear the Laughter (This was a mistake; I meant to have ripped "Not All Right," but my finger must have slipped or something. "Now I Hear the Laughter" is not on the short list of Germs songs I can tolerate, much less the extremely short list of Germs songs I like.)
42. Kinks - Wicked Annabella
43. Caravan - Golf Girl
44. Meat Puppets - New Gods