Best American Comics Criticism

Best American Comics Criticism (Fantagraphics)

Ben Schwartz, editor of the new anthology Best American Comics Criticism, will discuss comics and comics criticism with Kramers Ergot editor Sammy Harkham, graphic novelist Joe Matt (Spent), and comics critics Robert Fiore and Brian Doherty

Ben Schwartz lives in Los Angeles. Besides editing The Best American Comics Criticism for Fantagraphics, he works as a journalist and screenwriter and is currently writing The Lost Laugh, a history of American humor set between the two world wars.  He has written for The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, Suck.com, Vanity Fair, and The Atlantic on-line.  The screenplays he has sold collect dust on A-list shelves all over town.

Sammy Harkham is an Award winning cartoonist behind Crickets (Drawn & Quarterly) and the editor of Kramers Ergot. His work has been published in Vice, Arthur, numerous Best American Comics volumes, and The Best American Nonrequired Reading. Recently, he guest edited the annual Holloween comic, The Simpsons' Treehouse of Horror. He lives in Los Angeles.

Robert Fiore writes the long-running column Funnybook Roulette for The Comics Journal.  At Fantagraphics Books he edited a number of anthologies of underground cartoonists such as Robert Crumb, Kim Deitch, Spain Rodriguez and Vaughn Bode.

Brian Doherty is a senior editor at Reason magazine, author of the books This is Burning Man and Radicals for Capitalism, and a lifelong Friend of Comics.

THIS EVENT WAS RECORDED LIVE AT SKYLIGHT BOOKS MAY 27, 2010.