Comic Art Magazine #8
edited by Todd Hignite
Buenaventura Press
$19.95
A 176-page, annual, delux magazine of comic art.
In this issue:
- A '40 Cartoon Books Of Interest' booklet by Seth
- A wrap-around cover by Richard McGuire
- An appreciation of Richard McGuire's Here strip by Chris Ware
- An article on Drew Friedman, We Can't All Be Movie Stars by Ben Schwartz
- Cartoonists In Navajo Country by Jeet Heer
- A profile of Anke Feuchtenberger
- The dark mirror of Jim Starlin's Warlock by Douglas Walk
- and much more.

Shenzhen: A Travelogue From China
by Guy Delisle
Drawn & Quarterly
$19.95
Shenzhen is entertainingly compact, with Guy Delisle's observations of life in a cold urban city in southern China that is sealed off from the rest of the country by electric fences and armed guards. With a dry wit and a clean line, Delisle makes the most of his time spent in Asia overseeing outsourced production for a French animation company. By translating his fish-out-of-water experiences into accessible graphic novels, Delisle is quick to find the humor and point out the differences between Western and Eastern cultures. Yet he never forgets to relay his compassion for the simple freedoms that escape his colleagues by virtue of living in a Communist state.

"Named for the economic region of China in which the action unfolds, Delisle's autobiographical tale is one of the most gripping stories of cultural alienation yet produced in the comics form. In 1997, Delisle worked in mainland China as a supervisor at an animation firm. This comic is a lengthy diary recounting his experiences from that period, as a solitary Canadian lost and alone in a world that is largely alien to him. Delisle's careful manipulation of the comics medium allows him to switch modes neatly from the distanced and observational to the subjective and neurotic. His images, awash in grey tones that tend to downplay the "exotic" aspect of his life but underscore some of its dreariness, are a wonderful balance of cartoony and realist styles. In 2003 Delisle released a sequel of sorts to this book, Pyongyang, this time detailing his work in the even more closed society of North Korea. Can a book set in Vietnam be far behind?"
The Twenty Best Eurpean Graphic Novels You Haven't Read, Indy Magazine

Chicken With Plums HC
by Marjane Satrapi
Pantheon
$16.95
Angouleme Award Winner
Set in pre-revolutionary Iran, Chicken With Plums tells the story of Nasser Ali Khan, a famous musician who sets out to die after losing his ability to take pleasure in life. Family and friends try to dissuade him, but Khan's mind is made up: why live when even his favorite dish, chicken with prunes, has lost its flavor?

"For Satrapi, who was born in Rasht, Iran, and grew up in the last years of pre-revolution Tehran, this is a deeply personal fable. Nasser Ali Khan was Satrapi's real-life great uncle and, one suspects, she might have shared his artistic repression had she not divorced her Iranian husband and fled the Ayatollah Khomeini's fundamentalist police for Paris - as described in Persepolis 2. Thus, Nasser Ali Khan's longing for a more open Iran is especially heartbreaking, as readers of Satrapi's other work know that even the limited freedoms he enjoys will disappear in the wake of revolution."
The Virginia Quarterly Review - Read the full review and extract here.

Kramers Ergot Vol 6
edited by Sammy Harkham
Buenaventura Press
$34.95
Kramers Ergot is a vital comics anthology featuring the cream of alternative comic creators, while treating comics as a serious artform. Contributors to Volume 6 include Shary Boyle, Victor Cayro, Vanessa Davis, Jerry Moriarty, Fabio, Gary Panter, Paper Rad, John Porcellino, Ron Rege Jr and others. Read a preview of Kramer's Ergot Vol 6 here.

"In June 2003, Manhattan's Puck Building was the site of the second annual MoCCA comic arts festival. Over the course of the single-day event, many attendees spent the day crowding around a table off in the corner, eager to see and buy Kramers Ergot, a defiantly unconventional, rainbow-colored, paperback tome roughly the size and weight of a telephone book. Self-published by editor Sammy Harkham's Avodah Books, Kramers Ergot 4 (2003) sold out its 3,500-copy print run (largely through touring and festival appearances) and garnered an enthusiastic readership and significant critical response."
Publishers Weekly. Read the full article on the history of Kramers Ergot here.

"Appearing only annually, last year's giant issue established the series as the premier showcase for emerging/edgy talent by insisting on the seriousness of their endeavors with its sumptuous production values. Printed in full color on thick paper stock at a large size, Kramer's Ergot allows artists who would otherwise only know inexpensive reproduction to see their work monumentalized. This latest issue goes one better than the last by including both lesser known artists and also relative veterans whose work fits the avant-garde mold of the series. As a result Kramer's Ergot #5 stands out as not just one of the year's best anthologies, but also one of the year's most gorgeous books."
Time.com review of Kramer's Ergot Vol 5. Read the full review here.

In The Studio: Visits With Contemporary Cartoonists
by Todd Hignite, featuring Ivan Brunetti, Charles Burns, Dan Clowes, Robert Crumb, Jamie Hernandez, Gary Panter, Seth, Art Spiegelman & Chris Ware
Yale University Press
$29.95
The In The Studio feature from Comic Art magazine is collected in book form together with additional artist visits, featuring some of today's most popular and innovative comic artists who present an unparalleled look at the cutting edge of the comic medium. The artists offer insights into the creative process, their influences and personal sources of inspiration, and the history of comics. The interviews amount to private gallery tours, with the artists commenting, now thoughtfully, now passionately, on their own work as well as the works of others. The book is generously illustrated with full-color reproductions of the artists' works, including some that have been published and others not originally intended for publication, such as sketchbooks and personal projects. Additional illustrations show behind-the-scenes working processes of the cartoonists and particular works by others that have influenced or inspired them. Through the eyes of these artists, we see with a new clarity the achievement of contemporary cartoonists and the extraordinary possibilities of comic art.

"An essential work for anyone interested in contemporary American art and culture."
John Carlin, author of Masters of American Comics 

Bardin The Superrealist HC
by Max
Fantagraphics Books
$14.95
Every-man Bardin finds himself transported to another dimension where an analusian dog serves as his ill-tempered guide. In a series of vignettes, gags, illustrations, text-pieces and dream stories, ping-ponging back between the surrealist world and the real world, Bardin examines and questions his own beliefs and convictions.

"The Bardin strips are wild, illogical, surreal (or, rather, "super-real"), and utterly charming, and the wizened shape-shifting character of Bardin himself seems a wry stand-in for the author. These strips owe less a debt to Dadaism than to a personal mythology that Max is slowly revealing to us (or perhaps discovering himself), and the strips sometimes read like a mad cross between Peanuts, Jimmy Corrigan, Salvador Dali, and the Rarebit Fiend, but beautifully executed in Max's underground/ligne clair style. While as-yet-uncollected, the Bardin strips are slowly building into an important new body of work from a major cartoonist."
Indy Magazine: The Twenty Best European Graphic Novels You Haven't Read