Megan Kelso (in green sweater) as she prepares for her afternoon "long" interview. As it turned out, her "brief" morning discussion with Jon-Mikel Gates was actually longer since most of the later session was taken up with a great visual presentation/narration overview of her cartooning career. Since I had agreed to be her interviewer, this made my task much easier!
I must admit although I was very aware of Megan's stature as a cartoonist, I had not really been exposed to much of her work until last week, when I was conscripted into the Fest as an emergency measure. This is no reflection on her, since I confess in addition to not being a comic collector, I'm also not much of a comic reader! Go figure. Actually I'm not much of a reader in general, either. So why am I a cartoonist and librarian? But this isn't about my existential mind taffy, so let's move on.
Anyway, I took a self-imposed crash course on her work and career and found an intriguing artist I'll enjoy watching for the next few decades. She graciously signed a copy of Artichoke Tales for me (which will go to the WSU collection) and treated all my questions with serious consideration.
I felt a real kinship with some aspects of her development as a cartoonist. Both of us were born and raised in Washington State, we both attended The Evergreen State College, we both lived on the East Coast for awhile and found ourselves missing the special kind of rain and mystery our corner of the world possesses.
But in many other ways her work was very foreign to me, as I mentioned in the interview. Most comix create a lot of noise in the head of the reader, but her show-not-tell style is very quiet and nuanced. The Japanese film director Ozu was one her stated artistic influences, whereas I was emotionally touched by Jim Varney's Ernest movies. But we did have Lynda Barry in common. And like Lynda, Megan came to the world of cartooning during her time at TESC.
I really enjoyed Kelso's Watergate Sue series and hope she expands the concept of exploring that era through the eyes of the little girl that she was during the first half of the 1970s. Such a great way of storytelling on many different levels. Megan's insight here is nothing less than astounding considering she was working from the memory of child. I'm speaking as one who was a McGovern volunteer at the time.
Generally Megan takes more risks in her writing than she does with her graphics, which creates the effect of a cautious visual lid on the cauldron of emotion in the story, of which there is plenty. And since she doesn't use captions, this creates a sophisticated tension. She makes comix for grownups. And does it well.
She seems at a crossroads, which is where any good artist should frequently find themselves. Hope I get a chance to have the long interview with you in a few more years, Megan, to catch up on your interesting journey.
For some reason, and this has never happened before with my phone photos, my shot of the photogenic Katy Ellis O'Brien got eaten by the pixel monster. So I'm substituting the promo sheet she handed out.
The Comix Jam Workshop hosted by Chelsea Baker with me as her co-pilot. I was gratified to see almost half of the people in the room were left-handed. At the table in the foreground, 3 out of 4 were lefties! Hopefully, Chelsea will be scanning and the posting the results of this effort on the Fest blog. In the space of an hour several coherent and very funny jams were produced.
The right-handed gentleman is Mr. Rex N. Munger. He is my oldest friend. We have known each other since Eisenhower was president. Rex and I were avid comrades in comic book collecting during the 1960s and early 1970s. He also has many of my earliest publishing efforts when I drew superhero and funny animal comic books. So if friendship includes mutual blackmail, Rex has the goods on me! But don't mess with him, he's an attorney.Rex is also an astute student of sequential narrative and any comic art scholar would benefit from hearing his observations.
The left-handed gentleman is Steve Blakeslee, who came up with great laugh out loud zingers to conclude a few comix jams.
Chelsea Baker was the 4th member of our comix jam table. Perhaps there is no other cartoonist in Olympia history who has done as much to create a community of comrades in our art form. Given our natural contrary nature, this is an objective with many inherit obstacles.OK, I'll only say this once. I'm not much of a joiner, but if I was, I'd join these guys. This trio really projected a true love of our genre. It is great to see their kind of creative energy in Olympia. Having gone from Kindergarten through college in Oly, I never would've dreamt this sort of interest would ever happen here, especially in the days before Evergreen landed.
Jon Mikel-Gates apparently said something that made the poor guy at the table cover his face. Meanwhile, Angelica Blevins, the artist who created the poster for this year's Fest, looks on with the kind of detached amusement we cartoonists are noted for.
So, there is a young woman who slid out of the middle chair and under the table rather than appear in this phone photo. I was tempted to lift the tablecloth and snap a shot of her crouching underneath. Charlie Daugherty handed me a microcomic in the meantime.
Rick Perry gave an excellent presentation at the morning stage show on the different social interpretations of Superman during the last 70+ years.
