Kramer's Ergot 7 [2008]

Kramer's Ergot 7 by Chris Ware [2008]

New in Publisher's Shrinkwrap. Hardcover; 96 pages
Buenaventura
6.6 pounds; 16 x 0.8 x 21 inches
980003954

Kramers Ergot, the most influential and acclaimed anthology of the past decade, returns in its seventh volume as a gigantic full-color 16 x 21 inch (that's bigger than a full page from your daily newspaper) hardcover! While past issues explored an innovative blend of art and comics, this collection focuses on expanding the boundaries of the narrative comics page. #7's massive page size has given these contemporary artists an opportunity to tell stories at a scope not seen since the expansive Sunday newspaper comics of the early twentieth century. Including over 50 of the world's greatest cartoonists, it draws on the talents of established cartoonists, newcomers, elegant stylists, and unpredictable innovators such as Al Columbia, Carol Tyler, Chris Ware, Paper Rad, Jaime Hernandez, Blanquet, Daniel Clowes, Mat Brinkman, Kim Deitch, Anna Sommer, Anders Nilsen, C.F., Adrian Tomine, Joost Swarte. From Publishers Weekly Starred Review. There's a sort of finality about this massive, ambitious art object of an anthology, produced with the finest paper stock and printing available. Editor Harkham has assembled the best-known names in art comics to use the huge page size—16"×21", larger than a newspaper page—as a blank canvas for experiments in storytelling. The result is a delirious, fantastic newspaper supplement as imagined through the lens of the last 20 years of comics experimentation and formalism. Although a few artists like Mat Brinkman and Helge Reumann use the giant page size as the setting for abstract art, many—Seth, Josh Simmons and Gabrielle Bell—cram intense yet minimalist narratives into a parade of tiny panels. The overall effect is overwhelming, but some stories stand out—Shari Boyle's gorgeous elephant fantasy, Tom Gauld's nearly abstract retelling of the Noah myth, Dan Clowes's one-page hard-boiled tragedy, Jaime Hernandez's compact triolet about cosmic unjustness and Matthew Thurber's lyrical nonsense about Brian Eno and a parrot. While the price tag is high, and some stories lack real narrative punch, this anthology is a high-water mark of intelligence and artistry, and will reward many rereadings by those who can find the shelf space to house it properly. (Dec.) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. Review If there's one book that art-comics enthusiasts would be happiest to find in their stockings this year, it's probably KRAMERS ERGOT 7 (Buenaventura, $125), except for the small matter that it's bigger than an entire hearth. This is one of the grandest English-language comics artifacts ever produced -- a mammoth hardcover anthology, 16 by 21 inches, of new stories by several dozen notable cartoonists, including Daniel Clowes, Seth, Gabrielle Bell, Kevin Huizenga, Sammy Harkham (who also edited the book) and The Simpsons creator Matt Groening. Like the early-20th-century broadsheet newspaper comics pages that inspired it, Kramers Ergot occupies its readers' entire visual field, and most of its contributors have some fun with its dimensions, cramming the page with tiny details or opening it up for apocalyptically huge vistas. The cleverest gesture comes from Chris Ware, whose two-page contribution is built around a cartoon of a sleeping baby printed at the child's actual size. --The New York Times About the Author Sammy Harkham was born in Los Angeles in 1980. his comic 'Poor Sailor' was included in the 2004 edition of the David Eggers-edited Best American Nonrequired Reading. 'Poor Sailor' was released in book form in 2005 and has since been published in Korean, Italian, and French. Subsequent work such as 'Somersaulting' has cemented his reputation as one of the most well-regarded cartoonists to emerge in recent years, with 'Lubavitch Ukraine 1876' appearing in Best American Comics 2007. Currently divides his time between editing Kramers Ergot and creating his ongoing comic Crickets.