Comic Book Resources

Kramers Ergot 7: the minicomic?

Hall Hassi's "ke7 zine"

Standing nearly two feet tall, boasting over 50 contributors (including Matt Groening, Chris Ware, Jaime Hernandez, Daniel Clowes, and Adrian Tomine), and costing $125, Kramers Ergot 7 -- the latest installment of the avant-garde anthology series from editor Sammy Harkham and publisher Alvin Buenaventura -- was a famously, even infamously, grand production. And now...it's a minicomic?

Artist Hall Hassi has created what she calls a "ke7 zine" -- a 96-page, 8.5" x 5.5", black-and-white xeroxed version of the massive full-color hardcover. Pictures of the finished product can be found at the blog of artist Blaise Larmee, who notes that "sometimes the text is entirely legible. sometimes not at all." God only knows what kind of Kinko's kung fu had to be applied to even get the book to fit on a photocopier, so not being able to read some of it seems like a small price to pay.

Email Hassi if you're interested in purchasing one -- unless you're Sammy Harkham himself, who's still waiting to find out when he can expect a contributor copy.

(Via Kramers contributor James McShane.)

Kramers Ergot meets the Simpsons in this year's Treehouse of Horror

©2009 Bongo Entertainment, Inc. The Simpsons © & ™Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation. All Rights Reserved.

I somehow missed this in Tucker Stone's report from MoCCA last week, but luckily Heidi over at the Beat caught it -- Stone spoke with John Kerschbaum about his future projects, and the creator revealed that he's working on this year's Bart Simpson's Treehouse of Horror book for Bongo Comics.

Kerschbaum isn't the only one working on the book, though; as you can see below in the solicitation copy that Bongo was kind enough to send us, they've recruited a Murderer's Row of creators, including Jeffrey Brown, Kevin Huizenga, Matthew Thurber and many more, and it's edited by Sammy Harkham of Kramers Ergot fame:

Bart Simpson’s Treehouse of Horror #15
Edited by Sammy Harkham
$4.99
48 pages/standard format/color/humor
UPC: 01511 (7-98342-02851-5)

Guest edited by Sammy Harkham, the award-winning creator of the popular Kramers Ergot anthology, this year’s issue is a jam-packed with some of the most idiosyncratic (and weirdest) takes on “The Simpsons” universe ever. Among Halloween-inspired short strips by such visionary cartoonists as Jordan Crane (Uptight), C.F. (Powr Mastrs), Will Sweeney (Tales from Greenfuzz), Tim Hensley (MOME), and John Kerschbaum (Petey & Pussy), are four featured tales of inspired Simpsons lunacy: heralded artists Kevin Huizenga (Ganges, Or Else) and Matthew Thurber (1-800 Mice, Kramers Ergot) collaborate on a weird and wild story equal parts Lovecraftian eco-horror and Philip K. Dick identity comedy. Jeffrey Brown (Incredible Change-Bots, Clumsy) does a creepy and suitably pathetic story featuring Milhouse in a “Bad Ronald”-inspired tale of murder and crawl space living. Harkham and Ted May (INJURY) pull out all the stops for a tragic monster tale of unrequited love, bad karaoke, and body snatching at Moe's Bar. Ben Jones (Paper Rad) does the comic of his life with an epic tale of how bootleg candy being sold at the Kwik-E-Mart rapidly spirals out of control into an Invasion of The Body Snatchers-like nightmare of a Springfield filled with cheap bootleg versions of familiar characters. And nobody does squishy, sweaty, and gross like up and coming cartoonist Jon Vermilyea (MOME), who outdoes himself with “C.H.U.M.M.,” a C.H.U.D.-inspired parody featuring everybody's favorite senior citizen, Hans Moleman!

With a cover by Dan Zettwoch, Bart Simpson’s Treehouse of Horror #15 is like nothing you've ever seen, and is sure to be one of the most talked about comics of the year by alternative comic readers and Simpsons fans of all ages!

This goes on my "must buy" list.