No More Jews

Sammy at work. Photo by Cheryl Dunn.
 

Sammy Harkham is one of our favorite bearded guys in LA, and definitely our favorite one who draws. It’s been a good while since someone in the comics world has been able to pull off existential ruminating without it devolving into one big humorless precious-fest, but Sammy’s been hitting it pretty much clean on the head for the past few years. His comic Crickets is sort of like an immaculately drawn comic version of that movie Dead Man, but without all Jarmusch’s wanky pontification. He also helms the annual comics anthology Kramer’s Ergot, which is easily one of the best comic collections to come out of the west coast in a long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long time.

Page from Crickets #1

Cover of the most recent Kramer’s Ergo

You have a really big beard. Who do people mistake you for more often, Osama Bin Laden or the fiddler from Kansas? Life of Brian You’ve been editing Kramer’s Ergot for a good six years now. Do you like putting these anthology things together? Kramer’s. Hotwire One of Sammy’s watercolor paintings that he sells through his website, kramersergot.com. This one’s called Pussyfooting (yes, we realize you get it.
When was the first time your comic got you laid? I thought Crickets was a real breakthrough for you. You’ve started incorporating a lot more horror elements and violence than in your previous work, what happened? How do you think being a Christ-killer gives your work attitude? Sammy’s been working on a book/record collaboration with Will Oldham for what seems like fucking ages. It’ll eventually be put out by Buenaventura Press, who also do . Until that happens you can check out Drawn & Quarterly for his recent stuff, like and .