Megan Kelso’s “Who Will Make the Pancakes” is a delightful anthology perfect for anyone who enjoys slice of life storytelling. The stories range from historical drama to straight-faced absurdity, but never stray far from the humanity of the cast. You’ll be left thinking about the stories long after you’ve finished reading them.
Cover by Megan KelsoWritten, Illustrated, Colored and Lettered by Megan Kelso
A suite of five brilliant comics stories united by themes of motherhood, family, and love by the acclaimed cartoonist Megan Kelso, exploring the connective tissue that binds us together despite our individual, interior experience.
These stories, created over the past 15 years, wrestle with the concept of motherhood and the way the experience informs and impacts concepts of identity, racism, class, love, and even abuse.
This book escaped my notice when it was originally released in November 2022. I only learned of it about a month ago when I was browsing “Best Graphic Novels of 2022” lists, which were full of entries that turned me away with their pretentious-sounding descriptions. Then I did a double-take when I passed “Who Will Make the Pancakes,” an enticingly goofy name. I’d never heard of the cartoonist, but I needed a book to review. Why not?
I expected “Pancakes” to be the breakout work of a fairly new talent, but it turns out Megan Kelso has been a successful cartoonist for over 30 years. She received a grant from the Xeric Foundation in 1992, its second award cycle. Her work has been published by “The New York Times Magazine” and Fantagraphics since 2006. At this point, I’d like to say I had an epiphany – ohhhhh, she’s that Megan Kelso! – but I did not. The more I looked into her, the more I realized that she’s been operating completely outside of my literary Monkeysphere.
Enough preamble! On with the review…
The first story in the anthology is “Watergate Sue,” which is told in three layers. The primary narrative is about Eve, a woman who was pregnant during the Watergate scandal. The framing device is Eve’s adult daughter, Sue, becoming pregnant for the first time and asking her mom to recall her pregnancy. The third layer comes into play occasionally when Kelso uses the top row of panels to give us a story-in-a-story, such as housekeeping guidance from a magazine Eve is reading or showing how Eve’s obsession with Watergate affects Sue’s older sister, Josie. These minicomics share a theme with whatever is occurring on the rest of the page.
This is not a pleasant tale. We’re confronted with a double whammy of America’s worst political scandal and a mother-to-be who can’t seem to separate her anxiety and frustration with Nixon from her feelings about her growing baby. As Sue learns the details her own birth, her fairytale expectations for her own motherhood are crushed. By the end, both women have come to terms with their experiences, even if they haven’t exactly dealt with them, only for another ugly event to arise.
The second story, “Cats in Service,” is easily the most fantastical tale in the book. In it, Carol and her family inherit her sister’s trained cats. These cats wear butler and maid uniforms, bringing the family meals and acting as the young daughter’s nanny. Things start off nicely, go downhill, but eventually come to a mostly happy conclusion.
The artwork matches the cartoony style of “Watergate,” minus the color, with the cats evoking Richard Scarry characters. The story is more linear than “Watergate,” but does feature some flashbacks. It’s also more streamlined, opting for a single point of view instead of complicated layers.
Next is “The Egg Room,” which is my favorite from the collection. There is a lot going on as we follow a week (maybe more?) in the life of Florence. We see her flirt with an employee at the grocery, fantasize, visit her stepson and ex-daughter-in-law, teach a night class on film, and regret that she was never able to bear a biological child. There’s no sense of finality to any element, except that by the end she and her husband have the sex she was craving through the whole story. This is inexplicably shown on the cover, even though it’s probably the least representative panel from the book.
Continued belowThe artwork is a big departure from the other stories. Kelso uses watercolors instead of pen and ink, which gives the story a more intimate, deeper feeling. The lack of conclusion further enhances Flo’s realness, as it feels truer to life. Many of the characters’ comments and actions hinted at deeper motivations that weren’t explored, leaving me wanting to know more about everyone who had appeared.
The longest story is “Korin Voss,” about a single mother in 1947 struggling to make ends meet as she falls in love with a married, globe-trotting soldier. The relationship and money woes weigh heavy on her and damage her relationships with her teenage daughters. Like “Watergate Sue,” the ending is bittersweet at best. Like “Cats in Service,” the artwork is black and white. Like “The Egg Room,” the characters feel fully developed and capable of supporting a longer work.
On the whole, “Who Will Make the Pancakes” surprised me. I was surprised by how long Megan Kelso has been working. I was surprised by how much I liked it. I was surprised by the title never appearing anywhere in the book. If you give it a chance, I think you’ll be surprised, too.
