§ Douglas Wolk contributes a a graphic novel list to the Times Holiday Books section:

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.


§ Meanwhile, STLtoday.com also make their opinions known: The best graphic literature of the year includes books on Feiffer and Kirby.

1 COMMENT