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Summary
Summary
Comic artist Ivan Brunetti, the creator of Schizo , offers a best-of anthology of contemporary art comics, along with some classic comic strips and other historical materials that have retained a "modern" sensibility. As with Chris Ware's selections for his best-selling McSweeney's anthology, Brunetti's choices make for a highly personal book ("my criteria were simple: these are comics that I savor and often revisit") that serves as a broad historical overview of the medium and a round-up of some of today's best and most interesting North American comic artists. Included here are works from such well-known artists as Robert Crumb, Kim Deitch, Art Spiegelman, Chris Ware, Ben Katchor, Charles Burns, Gary Panter, Seth, Phoebe Gloeckner, Daniel Clowes, Lynda Barry, Joe Sacco, and Jaime and Gilbert Hernandez, as well as many other pioneers whose names may be less familiar.
Brunetti offers selections from the works of more than seventy-five avant-garde comic artists. His selections are arranged by genre and grouped thematically. Luxuriously produced and printed in four-color throughout, the book is a must-have for collectors, aficionados, readers of comics, and those generally interested in cutting-edge art and literature.
Author Notes
Ivan Brunetti is the creator of the comic Schizo , published by Fantagraphics, of which four issues have appeared. In 2005, he curated The Cartoonist's Eye, an exhibit of 75 artists' work, for the A+D Gallery of Columbia College Chicago. He lives in Chicago.
Reviews (3)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Brunetti's stated criteria for what made the cut for this hearty and hefty volume comes in his refreshingly honest introduction: "Ultimately... these are comics that I savor and often revisit." Luckily Brunetti's got a fabulous eye for an artist's signature work. The selections are difficult to argue with, hitting not just the expected luminaries (Chris Ware, Daniel Clowes) but lesser-knowns like surrealist Mark Beyer and Richard McGuire, whose "Here" breaks down the time-space continuum with mind-bending ease. Brunetti includes usually just one work from each artist, but makes exceptions for the likes of R. Crumb, and he isn't above putting his own work in, a move that's somehow more charming than obnoxious. Any fallow patches are more than made up for by, say, Jaime Hernandez's cinematic miniepic "Flies on the Ceiling." Unlike other recent anthologies, women cartoonists are represented with some of the best work in the book, like Debbie Drechsler's horrific "Visitors in the Night." While one may question the need for another comics anthology in a year unusually heavy with them, Brunetti has gone beyond the obvious to create an anthology of what is truly the finest in comics. (Oct.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Booklist Review
Editor Brunetti sets himself a daunting task: an overview of the art-comics movement, complete with a handful of the classic newspaper strips that informed today's creators. He finds room for such established veterans as R. Crumb, Lynda Barry, Gilbert and Jaime Hernandez, Daniel Clowes, Gary Panter, and Chester Brown as well as many less-familiar creators. Given the stellar lineup, high points are hard to isolate, yet a consistently brilliant set of tributes to Peanuts 0 creator Charles Schulz by Art Spiegelman, Chris Ware, Seth, and Robert Sikoryak is especially impressive. Brunetti admits that his selection criteria are highly personal, but as a cartoonist himself, whose work combines a socially transgressive spirit and impressive formal capability, his idiosyncratic approach is based in professional expertise. If his choices are sometimes arguable, his iconoclasm makes the book livelier and less predictable than such anthologies are wont to be. --Gordon Flagg Copyright 2006 Booklist
Choice Review
Brunetti, a cartoonist with work in various magazines and the comic Schizo, selects some of his favorite works from the field for this delightful introduction to contemporary "art comics." The 75 mainly North American artists were also included in his exhibition The Cartoonist's Eye at Columbia College Chicago in 2005. Brunetti writes a brief introduction and contributes only one page of comics, but the choice of work and arrangement of the book are entirely based on his view of the art form. This volume contains primarily comics originally published in books or magazines, though some content was created for this project. Save for a small number of essays (reprinted) and captions, no annotations to the artists' works are included. Brunetti does not arrange the artists chronologically or alphabetically, but as a "continuum" that moves from simple single panels to excerpts from long, complex stories. The index with brief artist biographies is helpful. Few anthologies of comics contain the work of so many artists, but much more comprehensive bibliographies are available, e.g., John Lent's Comic Art of the United States through 2000, Animation and Cartoons (CH, Oct'05, 43-0660). ^BSumming Up: Recommended. Lower-/upper-level undergraduates, general readers, and professionals. J. J. Meier University of New Orleans
