Scheherazade: Stories of Love, Treachery, Mothers, and Monsters [Paperback]

Megan Kelso (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 22, 2004

This is a collection of material from 23 of the most exciting and interesting female cartoonists working today. For years Kelso wanted to edit an anthology of female cartoonists, but didn't know what would tie it together. A few years ago, she noticed an explosion of younger female cartoonists who were truly ambitious and promising, and got this idea to work with them as a very active, hands-on editor, which is all too rare in comics. In "Queen Scheherazade of the 1001 Nights", Kelso found a role model: the archetypal (female) storyteller, cheating death by enthralling her royal captor with new installments of a vast, interconnected story. Like her stories, the tales in this book take on broad human concerns: love, life, death, money, food, treachery, mothers and monsters. (A framing story by Ariel Bordeaux will bookend the collection and thread between all the other stories, which range from five to 14 pages each.) But the fact that they are all women is secondary to their promise as important contributors to a new era in the medium of comics, one marked by their energy, their potential and their ferocity.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

For this anthology, Kelso has assembled an all-star lineup of women cartoonists—almost all under 35 years old—and given them the mandate to show what they can do. The result is a dizzying variety of work, most of it impressive and some superb. Andrice Arp takes on the "Scheherazade" theme most literally, adapting a tale from The 1001 Nights that nests stories within stories, and reflecting its structure in her page compositions. Ariel Bordeaux contributes a wordless story whose panels appear between everyone else's pieces. Some of the stories are solemn, like Leela Corman's "Fanya Needs to Know," a chapter from her graphic novel-in-progress about an abortionist in early 20th-century Jewish New York; others are cute and whimsical, like Sara Varon's adorable untitled piece about a dog that builds a robot. There are cartoonists who draw on fine art (e.g., Vanessa Davis, whose "I Wonder Where the Yellow Went" is a series of her fluid autobiographical sketches) and on prose literature (e.g., Gabrielle Bell, who adapts a Kate Chopin story as "One Afternoon"). Kelso's own contribution, "The Pickle Fork," is one of the book's highlights, a dark but loopy narrative, drawn with clean-lined elegance, about a museum of silverware and the people who have to polish it. This notable anthology could launch more than a few careers.
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From School Library Journal

Grade 10 Up–An anthology presenting the work of outstanding young female cartoonists and graphic novelists, most of them Americans. Though a tale from "1001 Nights" kicks off this collection, the fabled storyteller is not its subject, but its inspiration: the primary emphasis is on the literary aspect of graphic novels. The 23 brief gems, none of them previously published, range from the grim (an abortion on Hester Street) to the whimsical (a dog and his robot at the beach) and from wordless to wordy. Artistic styles (all black-and-white drawings) are equally divergent. A sense of unity comes from the consistently youthful attitudes and perspectives of the storytellers, as well as from the purpose of the book, which is to celebrate the abundance of talent emerging today. Those themes are cunningly woven throughout the book in Ariel Bordeaux's delightful comic strip about a girls' night out: single drawings appear in between all the other stories, and a rollicking party breaks loose in a four-page spread near the middle of the volume. Those who read contemporary female graphic novelists such as Marjane Satrapi will want to sample these storytellers, and because the stories are strong on narrative, Scheherazademight also be enjoyed by adventurous readers who are not usually (or primarily) fans of graphic novels.–Christine C. Menefee, Fairfax County Public Library, VA

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Product Details

• Paperback: 224 pages
• Publisher: Soft Skull Press (November 22, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1932360549
• ISBN-13: 978-1932360547
• Product Dimensions: 9.9 x 6.9 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,304,990 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Ms. Boylan is right, but you can get the 2nd edition free, December 3, 2004

By 

Yakov Hadash (New York, NY) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Scheherazade: Stories of Love, Treachery, Mothers, and Monsters (Paperback)

From Richard Nash, publisher:
"Anyone who buys the first printing can tear out any page from p.111 to p.117 (where the problems are clearest), mail it to Soft Skull Press,
71 Bond St.
Brooklyn NY 11217
attn. Scheherazade [don't forget the attn to line!] and we will mail you a copy of the second printing gratis."

The five stars is for the material irrespective of the printing.

A lot of the controversy can currently be found on the online message board of The Comics Journal.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Not the greatest, February 2, 2008

By 

Dorian Clevenger (WA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Scheherazade: Stories of Love, Treachery, Mothers, and Monsters (Paperback)

I agree with other commenters that it's fantastic to have a women's anthology of comics, but the strips contained in this collection are mediocre at best, with two stories (the first and last, oddly enough) being the only memorable or well-told and rendered tales. With as many fantastic female story tellers and illustrators/comic artists putting out great work, I'd hoped for much, much better than this collection had to offer.

1 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Forgettable but important, July 27, 2005

By 

Cheryl A. Gladstone (New York, NY) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Scheherazade: Stories of Love, Treachery, Mothers, and Monsters (Paperback)

I love the idea of having a sequential art (or whatever you want to call comics) anthology by all-women. And I love that the introduction is written by one of the greatest feminists of my generation, Kathleen Hanna. however, besides the fact that all the stories were written by women, there was a strong common thread lacking through all the pieces (as is usually the case in most sequential art anthologies). There were some gems, and it is definitely a book that a female comic afficianado will want to have on her shelf, but it it's not hard to put it down and forget about it.