Artichoke Tales
*Starred Review* In Kelso's first graphic novel, everyone's hair looks like an inverted artichoke. Though that seems to betoken a fantasy, the only magic here is the healing effected by the herbal prescriptions old Charlotte dispenses from the Quicksand family's apothecary. This is a family saga spanning three generations and embracing a civil war between North and South whose causes are similar to some of those that produced the U.S. Civil War. The book begins with the present, postwar generation, specifically with Brigitte, Charlotte's granddaughter, and Adam, a soldier in the North's “police” forces. They fall in love, of course, reprising a family pattern, for Charlotte met Brigitte's grandfather, Jimmy, while studying in the North. Though the Quicksand men have important scenes, Kelso concentrates on the Quicksand women to portray a society of greater gender equity than humanity has produced and includes scenes of birth and lovemaking. Kelso's striking visual conceits (e.g., singing expressed by two lines forming an opening funnel from the mouth), turquoise-on-white drawing, jump-cut transitions, and constantly shifting viewpoints conjure a richness of implication and feeling of which her light-seeming, cartoony style would seem prima facie incapable. But here, as in the contemporary nonfantasy stories of The Squirrel Mother (2006), she is a thorough and intelligent artist whose work is moving and invaluable. --Ray Olson