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The Squirrel Mother

By Henry Chamberlain
September 10, 2006 - 18:00

Megan Kelso is an artist with strong opinions. These opinions can seem contradictory until you take in her whole arguement. On a book tour to promote her new collection of stories, Megan stated on a Seattle radio station that her work is not autobiographical and, at a reading that night, she said her work is very autobiographical. She made these statements with great certainty and, in fact, both are valid. Her work is not autobiographical in the sense of documenting a particular story. And her work is autobiographical in the sense of capturing a mood, a place.

The setting of Megan's stories is as big a character as any in her work. She speaks of a dark and moody Seattle that creeps into her comics. That great Northwest noir, from Raymond Carver to David Lynch, can be found on the pages of Megan Kelso. The fact that she seems to conjure up this angst in her comics with such grace is quite remarkable.

That same melancholy that imbued Kurt Cobain's music and persona drifts its way into Megan's comics. But Megan's version is all her own: her own look, her own take on something hard to pin down with true orginality.

Among her new collection of stories in "The Squirrel Mother" is "Meow Face,"
which is perhaps the most eerie and full-bodied of the bunch. In the first panel, you have Molly, a teen working behind a local fast food counter. Blank-faced, with a slight slump, she provides yet another customer with their order with the usual, "Here ya go." To her left, a coworker warns her about the approaching Meow Face. This is Molly's aunt Kate who takes Seattle's siren song to be eccentric way too far by willing to abandon reality and pretending to be a cat woman.

The tug and pull of a perfectly tense situation is fully orchestrated by Kelso when Molly is left in the care of her aunt Kate over a couple of nights. At first, Molly is fascinated by her aunt's elaborate collection of clothes and they play dress up. But it's not long before Kate becomes unhinged, refuses to acknowledge the girl in favor of an episode of "The Love Boat," and all this craziness leads to Molly being forced out of the house to fend for herself and sleep in the garage.

Kelso is quick to point out that this is not a story about herself and her crazy aunt. But she's just as quick to point out how she finds ease and comfort from drawing from memory. She jokes about how the porch from her childhood home finds its way into just about everything she creates.

She won't get lost in the specificity of a true story in the same way she won't get caught up in the details of perspective. She'd much rather follow where a story takes her and, for that, we the readers are most grateful.

Last Updated: November 29, 2025 - 16:51