Overview

Prior to cartoonist Megan Kelso's long-awaited 2022 release, Who Will Make the Pancakes, Kelso spent six years creating her first long-form graphic novel, 2010's Artichoke Tales. The book, a fantastic family saga spanning three generations and an entire continent, was a critical smash named to many ""Best of 2010"" lists. Fantagraphics is proud to bring this perennial classic back in print with a new paperback edition. Artichoke Tales is a coming-of-age story about a young girl named Brigitte whose family is caught between the two warring sides of a civil war. It takes place in a world that echoes our own, but whose people have artichoke leaves instead of hair. Influenced in equal parts by Little House on the Prairie, The Thorn Birds, Dharma Bums, and Cold Mountain, Kelso weaves a moving story about family amidst war. Kelso's visual storytelling uniquely combines delicate linework with rhythmic page compositions, creating a dramatic tension between intimate, ruminative character studies and the unflinching depiction of the consequences of war and carnage, lending cohesion and resonance to a generational epic.

Full Product Details

9781683966753

Table of Contents

Reviews

Surprising and wonderful... Kelso's ligne claire artwork is consistently sweet and airy... The approach provides a likable surface for a story with much darker and stickier depths, about a land whose cultural heritage is rotting away in the aftermath of a civil war.--Douglas Wolk The New York Times Book Review A coming-of-age story about a young girl from a family caught between sides in a civil war, set in a world similar to ours but where people have artichoke leaves instead of hair. ... Its delicate, rather impish black-and-white linework comes from the creator of the subtle and poignant Squirrel Mother.--Martha Cornog Library Journal

Surprising and wonderful... Kelso's ligne claire artwork is consistently sweet and airy... The approach provides a likable surface for a story with much darker and stickier depths, about a land whose cultural heritage is rotting away in the aftermath of a civil war.--Douglas Wolk ""The New York Times Book Review"" A coming-of-age story about a young girl from a family caught between sides in a civil war, set in a world similar to ours but where people have artichoke leaves instead of hair. ... Its delicate, rather impish black-and-white linework comes from the creator of the subtle and poignant Squirrel Mother.--Martha Cornog ""Library Journal""

Author Information

Megan Kelso has been drawing comics for over 30 years. In 2007, she was invited by The New York Times to serialize her ""Watergate Sue"" comic as part of the weekly ""Funny Pages"" feature. In 2019, she was selected for a public art commission for Climate Pledge Arena in Seattle. Her books include The Squirrel Mother (2006), Artichoke Tales (2010), and Queen of the Black Black (2011). She lives in Seattle, WA with her husband and daughter.

Tab Content 6

Countries Available