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Queen
of the Black Black
by Megan Kelso Highwater books: $12.95
Megan
Kelso's work has a refreshing directness, similar to other female
cartoonists such as Julie Doucet or Aline Kominsky. But Kelso takes
this directness further, which is unmistakable in her non-pondering,
to-the-point short stories from her self-published (and, of course,
Xeric funded) comic "Girlhero." These stories, along with two new
features (the title piece and "The Daddy Mask"), appeared next to
Kelso's epic "Bottlecap," but the author explains in the introduction
that even though quite a bit of her effort was going into the epic,
it was the short stories that turned out best. I couldn't agree
more.
Flipping
through "Black Black," one notices Kelso's style has changed quite
a bit from her first five years in comics. What is discovered after
reading all the stories in this volume is that Kelso's writing remains
wonderful and compelling despite her developing drawing skills.
The fully formed Kelso can be seen on the stories produced specifically
for the collection, and her clean line style is perhaps the best
in comics today.
Kelso
has discovered (and refined) something that takes other artists
years to find: the simplification of images, without compromising
the quality of the artwork, leads not only to a more pleasing story
visually, but a happier marriage between art and writing (a good
example of this simplified style is Chris Ware). I assume Jason
Lutes (Berlin), a friend of Kelso, had a lot to do with this. Again,
Kelso's writing is top notch at all points, but when her artistic
skills reach the level of her writing, it's impossible to ignore
the power and importance of these stories.
The
best part about Kelso's work is the looseness of her concepts, coupled
with her precise execution. Take "The Daddy Mask," for instance.
The story deals with a small girl waking up and stumbling upon her
parents in the middle of a party. The mood of the story shifts from
aspect to aspect, and Kelso is able to show us the situation from
the eyes of a child. Again, it's a loose concept that might fall
apart in the hands of another creator, but Kelso is able to keep
the feeling of confusion and energy without sacrificing her attention
to detail or ever letting the reader remember that someone is drawing
this story. You're that caught up in the illusion of pen and ink.
(Of course, this does not apply to Kelso's earlier work. The craft
is more obvious, but they're still good pieces.)
"Daddy"
is a good example of another innovation of Kelso. It's her third
attempt at drawing music, and though she says she's not satisfied
yet, her efforts are certainly unique. Music is hard to express
in the comic book form, yet Kelso doesn't back down from it, even
though she's pretty much a rookie in the comics industry. She wants
to experiment with the comic form, but unlike other creators, she
can pull it off without letting the reader know she's experimenting.
Published
by Highwater books, the production is superb. One of the best
books of 2000.
Copyright
© 2001 Austin English. All Rights Reserved.
Austin English is *spark-online's window into the world of serial
art.
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