THE INVISIBLES - GRANT MORRISON ET AL & KRAMERS ERGOT - EDITED BY SAMMY HARKHAM

I’m putting these together because they’re both relatively short and I finished reading them together on the same comfortable chair that, sadly, is returning to my partner’s classroom, where it lives during the school year. Irregardless, I’ll start with THE INVISIBLES because it would be extra sus to give it its own review (and thus goose the total review count) since I just read like half of the contents of this trade. For whatever reason the count is off, or I was pulling from two different print editions but the first half of this book was the 2nd half of the last Invisibles collection I read. While somewhat disappointing that only a segment of this was new, sadly, the disappointments didn’t end there. The new section was really all over the place, it mostly concerns the backstory to Lord Fanny, an Invisible we met early on. She’s a transvestite, a terms the book uses which gives you an idea how this thing reads now-a-days. His notions of gender and sex are really phallocentric, the sexaual violence seems to be there just to shock and he uses the wrong sort of butterfly for Ītzpāpālōtl. There wasn’t anything, such as the guard sequence from the last volume, to really redeem this one and make it more than superheroes with a not-all-that-well-researched Aztec gloss. Not sure if I’ll make it through the next couple or if this reread is done. I suppose it depends on what they’ve got at the library. However, to switch gears, the Kramers was wonderful. KRAMERS ERGOT is a long running (this is the 10th) anthology that is now put out by hometown heroes, Fantographic Press. This thing is huge and gorgeous. They wisely put the table of contents at the very end so spent the whole time reading it, not knowing who wrote what. The folks I did recognize were universally excellent. I especially enjoyed the Anna Haifishch stuff. It’s great to get here weird, spare animal/artist world in such an oversized format. The greatest discovery was this story called “Sarka” by Lale Westvind, an artist I’d never heard of. The story concerns a woman who becomes some sort of mythical fish/shark creature in a series of underseas adventures. It is very weird and very beautifully drawn. You can get a quick sample of the style by looking at the cover. Gonna have to check out more Westvind. Also, for whatever reason, there are several comics where characters are talking about different “sectors” in a fantastic/sci-fi setting.  A great sampling overall and a clear sign that Fantographics is the best at what they do. 5 disappointed yawns for THE INVISIBLES, 2019 emerging comiX artists for KRAMERS ERGOT