Artichoke Tales books cover

MEGAN KELSO CELEBRATES NEW GRAPHIC NOVEL AT THE THIRD PLACE BOOKS ON JULY 20

Suffering from Comicon separation anxiety? Fantagraphics Books and Seattle's Third Place Books are proud to present an evening with acclaimed graphic novelist Megan Kelso on Tuesday, July 20, talking about and signing her new graphic novel, ARTICHOKE TALES, which the NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW recently hailed as "surprising and wonderful,” and about which STRANGER Books Editor Paul Constant declared, “[it] feels like a series of expansions. The characters and their world grow to envelop the reader in a singular, charming way.”

Kelso will be making a rare appearance in her hometown of Seattle, WA, giving a multimedia talk called "Big and Small": How do you construct a story that includes the big wide world, history, culture, sweeping events like war and political change, but that also includes personal, intimate character-driven things like friendship, family relationships, love, sex, babies and dying? How do you meld the two together into a believable whole? How do you humanize important historical players, kings, queens and presidents, and also show how the personal lives of ordinary people are affected by grand events that take place outside their doors? These are the essential questions that Kelso asked herself throughout the creation ofArtichoke Tales, and she answers them through examples of her own work, as well as other artists who are engaged with similar issues, from Joe Sacco to Lynda Barry.

This lively talk will be followed by a question and answer session with the audience and book signing.

Listing information:
WHO: Megan Kelso
WHAT: Multimedia talk and book signing
WHERE: Ravenna Third Place Books, 6504 20th Ave. NE, Seattle, WA 98115
WHEN: Tuesday, June 20, 7PM

ARTICHOKE TALES is the long-awaited graphic novel from Megan Kelso, a six-years-in-the-making family saga spanning three generations and an entire continent. This coming-of-age story is about a young girl named Brigitte whose family is caught between the two warring sides of a civil war, taking 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 combining delicate linework with rhythmic, musical page compositions, creates 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. This is Kelso’s first new work in four years; the widespread critical reception of her previous work, THE SQUIRREL MOTHER, makes Artichoke Tales one of the most eagerly anticipated graphic novels of 2010.