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 really 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 has 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, shit and treachery, mothers and monsters. (A framing story by Ariel Bordeaux will bookend the collection and thread between all the other stories, which range from 5 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. Further uniting this group is their belief in the *story*. Scheherazade is a celebration of narrative, the simple, human joy of spinning yarns.

Megan Kelso was born in Seattle, Washington. She attended The Evergreen State College between 1988 and 1991 where she began drawing comics. In 1993, she was the first woman to win the Xeric Grant, a cash award to self-publishing cartoonists. She self-published six issues of the comicbook Girlhero and in 1998 Highwater Books collected stories from those comics in the book Queen of the Black Black. She is currently serializing a graphic novel called Artichoke Tales, for which she won two Ignatz Awards at the Small Press Expo in 2003.

From Kelso's Afterword:
Since I began to put this book together, I've had to defend the wisdom of making women's anthologies, both to other people and to myself. The original purpose of women's anthologies was to argue that accomplished women creators existed. Thanks to Wimmen's Comix in the 1970's and Twisted Sisters in the 1990's we've won that argument hands down. This generation of female cartoonists doesn't have to carry that burden; what remains for them is to do excellent work. But many still find themselves uncomfortably on display, much like the curious "Lady Writer" of the early 20th century, singled out for attention more for her gender than the content of her work. This, admittedly, can make it difficult to argue for an artist's participation in a book that draws attention to her first as a woman. So I argue that while we demand to be judged for the excellence of our work regardless of our gender, we do not deny that qualities in our work are different because we are women. In one of his "Comix 101" lectures, Art Spiegelman said, in the 1970's and 80's, the biggest contribution that emerging women cartoonists made was, literally, the way they drew themselves and other women. Their drawings of women came in such dazzling variety, that they exploded the rigid female stereotypes of funny-paper tradition which even underground and alternative male cartoonists adhered to. What these male cartoonists saw, through the eyes (and pens) of female cartoonists, changed their own approach to making comics. Just as women speak differently than men, move differently, play basketball, sing, walk and dance differently, it stands to reason that we make marks differently---and make different marks. Today, a women's anthology doesn't have to argue for equality or deservedness; today it gets to be a heart-stopping chorus sung by all female voices---legitimate and gorgeously different. In conclusion, I would like to point out that this anthology has a role model instead of a theme. Queen Scheherazade, the heroine of the Thousand and One Nights was smart, inventive and a teller of well-made tales. She outwitted the King, cheated death and for 1,001 nights, kicked ass with her storytelling chops. Scheherazade is a celebration of narrative. I chose the artists herein for their energy, potential and ferocity. The fact that they all happen to be women is secondary to their promise as important contributors to a new era in the medium of comics. What ties this diverse collection together is the simple, communicative joy of spinning yarns, and in that endeavor, Queen Scheherazade is an inspiration to us all.