"If there's a future for comics, Kramers Ergot seems to have bottled it. The first really new paradigm for an avant-garde comix anthology since RAW.” –Art Spiegelman
Kramers Ergot is the premier comics anthology of the twenty-first century. Since its inception in 2000, it has revolutionized the medium, introducing new talents, solidifying aesthetics and standing as a state-of-the-medium book.
Kramers Ergot has always been a reflection of editor Sammy Harkham's current interests in comics past and future. So it is in this spirit, with this new volume, that he severs the anthology from many of the formal and stylistic elements with which it made its name. Whereas past issues were oversize, colorful and filled with a variety of artists all designed to overwhelm the reader with raw power,
Kramers Ergot 8 is a complete shift both aesthetically and physically. The size of the book is smaller, to encourage a more intimate reading of the material, and the content reflects a focus on substantial works from a small group of no more than a dozen artists who, rather than being aesthetically disparate, reflect a more specific and unified aesthetic space of discipline, sophistication and quiet power. Among the contributors are Anya Davidson, Leon Sadler, Ben Jones, CF, Sammy Harkham, Tim Hensley, Kevin Huizenga, Takeshi Murata, Robert Beatty, Chris Cilla, Gabrielle Bell, Frank Santoro & Dash Shaw, Johnny Ryan and Gary Panter. It also includes a 40-page reprint of the 1970s comic strip "Wicked Wanda" by Frederic Mullally and Ron Embleton as well as an introductory essay by Ian Svenonius. Packaged in clothbound covers designed by artist Robert Beatty, this is the essential comics title of 2011.
The book is a beautiful object, a love note to good printing and care for materials, with soft cloth you want to rub against your cheek and a three-color foil stamp in black, neon orange, and gold. It’s the kind of book printers send out as a sample to show what they can do. Its contents, on the other hand, and I believe the contrast is intentional, seem designed to make you so uncomfortable that the resulting feeling is about half an inch away from nausea.
This book has plenty of good reads, but it will also make you very uncomfortable. That impact, however, is a rare one from any artform, and it feels like something new and important. (Hilllary Brown Paste Magazine)
Every few years a comics compilation arrives for those of us who like our stories sans superheroes and a little cutting-edge.
I own three previous Kramers books, and all of them feature some of my favorite artists, along with several up-and-comers. This time around, editor Sammy Harkham chose creators that "reflect a more specific and unified aesthetic space of discipline, sophistication, and quiet power." (Whitney Matheson USA Today)
Eight installments in (and now on its third publisher), Kramers Ergot is sometimes discussed as if it’s merely a report card on the state of alternative comics, as if the table of contents is all that requires our attention. Ergot 8 looks to shake that foundation a bit, opening as it does with the most bewilderingly aggressive tract Harkham’s discovered thus far. From there, the book does take on a bit of a laundry-list quality ― there’s Johnny Ryan, there’s Ben Jones, there’s Frank Santoro, Gabrielle Bell, all of your big dogs, they’ve come for your bones ― but don’t let the brevity trick you into thinking there’s not something of substance going on. There’s a method to the madness, and by the anthology’s weird, atonal closer, you’ll be laughing (or wryly grimacing, at the least) right along with it. (Tucker Stone Flavorwire)
In a reduction in size from the massively oversized previous issue, which is comprised of mostly single "broadsheet" comics pages by over 50 artists, KE 8 takes the form of a compact hardcover that focuses on short but mostly multipage visual progressions and graphic stories by eighteen contributors. These display a widely divergent range of visual styles, which are unified in their narrative content by irony and ambiguity. (James Romberger Publisher's Weekly)
Despite featuring a much smaller roster than previous volumes in the series, and despite a much less “noisy” visual aesthetic than that which has characterized the series since its phone book-sized fourth volume caused a sensation upon its release at the MoCCA Festival in 2003, Kramers Ergot 8 has an intensity that’s tough to shake.
A cheekily provocative introductory essay from musician Ian Svenonius and a massive selection of racy reprinted Oh, Wicked Wanda! comics from the pages of Penthouse prove perplexing – but it’s a good perplexing, because it forces the reader to consider just how fingernails-on-a-chalkboard effective the rest of the volume is at discomfiting them. (Sean T. Collins Robot 6)
