Posts Tagged ‘David Kelly’

Stumptown Comics Fest 2012

// April 28th, 2012 // // Bold Riley, Events, Glamazonia, Rainy Day Recess, The Mark of Aeacus, The Power Within

Join us for Northwest Press’ second appearance at the Stumptown Comics Fest on April 28th and 29th, where we’ll be sharing space with the fine folks at Prism Comics. Come and meet Charles “Zan” Christensen and Mark Brill (The Power Within, The Mark of Aeacus), Justin Hall (Glamazonia: The Uncanny Super-Tranny), David Kelly (Rainy Day Recess: The Complete Steven’s Comics) and Leia Weathington, creator of the upcoming Northwest Press book Bold Riley.

CAKE 2012

// April 18th, 2012 // // Bold Riley, Events, Glamazonia, Rainy Day Recess, Teleny and Camille, The Mark of Aeacus, The Power Within

Northwest Press is pleased to be part of the first annual Chicago Alternative Comics Expo, or CAKE, taking place June 16th and 17th in Chicago! (What’s a swapped C and K amongst friends?)

Come and visit with Charles “Zan” Christensen (The Power Within, The Mark of Aeacus), Justin Hall (Glamazonia: The Uncanny Super Tranny), Jon Macy (Teleny and Camille) and David Kelly (Rainy Day Recess: The Complete Steven’s Comics) and celebrate the queer side of indie comics!

Also, CAKE will mark the debut of the brand-new Northwest Press book The Legend of Bold Riley! Be the first to get your copy of the breathtaking sword-and-sorcery epic!

Emerald City Comicon 2012

// March 30th, 2012 // // Events, Rainy Day Recess, Teleny and Camille, The Mark of Aeacus, The Power Within

Northwest Press will be once again partnering with Prism Comics to appear at a deluxe booth at Emerald City Comicon in Seattle from March 30th to April 1st. Stop by and meet NWP creators Jon Macy (Teleny and Camille),  Charles “Zan” Christensen (The Power Within, The Mark of Aeacus), Mark Brill (artist on The Power Within, The Mark of Aeacus) and David Kelly (Rainy Day Recess: The Complete Steven’s Comics). Browse all the NWP stuff, plus discover a ton of great LGBT comics from a wide variety of talented folks!

Nominate NWP Books for Harvey Awards!

// February 28th, 2012 // // A Waste of Time, Diary of a Catering Whore, Rainy Day Recess, The Power Within

Hey there, comics professionals!

The voting has opened for the 2012 Harvey Awards, and all comics industry professionals are welcome to submit their nominations for the best of 2011. I would be oh-so grateful if you could keep the four Northwest Press books from 2011—Rainy Day Recess: The Complete Steven’s Comics, The Power Within, A Waste of Time and Diary of a Catering Whore—in mind when assembling your nomination lists.

Here are the categories that the books are eligible for; you can nominate up to five people/titles per category. (And if you’d like me to nominate your work from 2011, please let me know!) Download the email-able ballot, fill it in with your choices, and send it to harveyballots@hotmail.com.

Thanks for your support!

1) BEST WRITER
Charles “Zan” Christensen — The Power Within

2) BEST ARTIST 
Mark Brill — The Power Within

3) BEST CARTOONIST 
Rick Worley — A Waste of Time
David Kelly — Rainy Day Recess: The Complete Steven’s Comics
Sean Seamus McWhinny — Diary of a Catering Whore

7) BEST COVER ARTIST
Rick Worley/Phil Good — A Waste of Time
Mark Brill — The Power Within

8) MOST PROMISING NEW TALENT
Rick Worley — A Waste of Time

14) BEST GRAPHIC ALBUM – PREVIOUSLY PUBLISHED
Rainy Day Recess: The Complete Steven’s Comics — Northwest Press

15) BEST SINGLE ISSUE OR STORY
The Power Within — Northwest Press

16) BEST DOMESTIC REPRINT PROJECT
Rainy Day Recess: The Complete Steven’s Comics — Northwest Press

18) BEST ONLINE COMICS WORK 
A Waste of Time — http://rickworley.com

19) SPECIAL AWARD FOR HUMOR IN COMICS
Rick Worley — A Waste of Time

22) BEST ORIGINAL GRAPHIC PUBLICATION FOR YOUNGER READERS
The Power Within — Northwest Press
Rainy Day Recess: The Complete Steven’s Comics — Northwest Press

Read About Comics reviews “Rainy Day Recess”

// February 10th, 2012 // // Rainy Day Recess

Greg McElhatton has written a wonderful review of David Kelly’s Rainy Day Recess: The Complete Steven’s Comics, on Read About Comics. He really picks up on the multi-layered way that Kelly tells the story: through a kid’s eyes, but with a window into a much larger picture that we are left to sort out for ourselves.

One of the early stories in Rainy Day Recess, by way of example, involves Steven taking in his sister’s two Indian dolls for show and tell; the dolls are stolen out of Steven’s desk and it’s a heartbreaking moment when Steven realizes that someone’s taken them. Even when they’re found, badly damaged, as a reader it’s hard to not feel great anger at the student who stole and broke the dolls, no doubt out of malice. But then Kelly gives us a glimpse into the life of the kid who took them, and suddenly nothing is quite so simple. What at first comes across as nothing but mean-spirited now feels like it’s part of something much larger and also much more depressing than just a broken doll. Since this is told entirely from Steven’s perspective, we never get the whole story, or in some ways even a proper conclusion to this other student’s story. Instead the reader, like Steven, is left to wonder and try and fill in the blanks themselves. It’s impressive how much emotion Kelly is able to wring out of his audience in just a few pages, and in a story that leaves so much hanging.

Check out the whole review of Rainy Day Recess at Read About Comics!

“Rainy Day Recess” Reviewed on No Flying No Tights

// January 31st, 2012 // // Rainy Day Recess

The fabulous site No Flying No Tights recently reviewed David Kelly’s collection Rainy Day Recess: The Complete Steven’s Comics, and had a lot of good things to say about it.

These are a series of autobiographical comics that Kelly drew in the ‘90s. He does have some commentary about the comics, which helps place them in time and explains their sequence a little. They were originally published sporadically, and this collection has them all in the same place for the first time. While the stories are all self contained, you do follow Steven’s life. And because of that, it leaves you wanting more. You see Stephen struggling to figure out who he is and also what is going on in his very dysfunctional family. And then, the comic stops. This is a short collection that leaves you wanting more.

No Flying No Tights is a ”page devoted to graphic novel reviews specifically for those who read them the most—mainly teens—and for those who might be involved in distributing them to teens—namely teachers, librarians, and parents.”

The name of the site comes from the rules adopted by the creators of the Smallville TV show, which reinforced their desire to steer away from the “super” and toward the characters as people. Despite that, No Flying No Tights reviews the occasional superhero book when it merits a look.

Check out the whole review of Rainy Day Recess: The Complete Steven’s Comics at No Flying No Tights!

Northwest Press on the iPad… for $5!

// December 16th, 2011 // // A Waste of Time, Glamazonia, Rainy Day Recess, Teleny and Camille

Happy Holidays from Northwest PressHey everyone! We’re going to be lowering the price on all our graphic novels available through Apple’s iBooks for a limited time; for just over a week—from December 21st through December 30th—every title will be priced at just $4.99 in the US and Canada, and 3.99 GBP in the UK. This is a drop of as much as 65% off the regular price!
We’ve had a great year, and we want to celebrate. This special deal will make it easier for people to give Northwest Press ebooks as gifts or try them out for themselves if they’ve been curious. They look great on the iPad, have really great browsing and bookmarking features, and a few even include material not found in the print editions.
(And it would be great if you could take a moment to rate the books and write a little review. :-)The books included in the sale include:

Thanks to everyone who’s made this such a successful first full year for Northwest Press!

Northwest Press Helps It Get Better

// November 1st, 2011 // // Rainy Day Recess, The Power Within

Today, I’m proud to let you know we made our first contribution to the It Gets Better Project from proceeds from the sale of David Kelly’s book, Rainy Day Recess. A portion of the sale of each book goes to help the organization which was started by Dan Savage in October of 2010 in response to a rash of teen suicides.

Funds collected by the It Gets Better Project benefit The Trevor Project, a 24-hour suicide prevention hotline, and GLSEN, the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Educator’s Network, which works with educators, policy makers, community leaders and students on the urgent need to address anti-LGBT behavior and bias in schools.

In addition to our contribution to It Gets Better, today we sent out over 300 more free copies of our anti-bullying comic book, The Power Within to more than 20 schools, youth groups, and community centers around the country (and around the world!) These organizations work directly with kids, and contacted us to ask for copies of The Power Within to use as a teaching and outreach tool. We’re glad that the book is getting into the hands of kids who need its message the most.

We’re a little startup publisher in a niche market, but we’re digging deep to keep giving back to the community we love. We urge you to do the same and make a donation if you can.

Tell us how you’re pitching in in the comments section!

Jet City Comic Show

// September 24th, 2011 // // Events, Rainy Day Recess, The Mark of Aeacus, The Power Within

Northwest Press will be exhibiting for the first time at the Jet City Comic Show, with special guests David Kelly (Rainy Day Recess: The Complete Steven’s Comics) and Mark Brill (The Power Within, The Mark of Aeacus).

The Gay Comics List reviews “Rainy Day Recess”

// April 12th, 2011 // // Rainy Day Recess

François Peneaud over at the Gay Comics List has written a glowing review of David Kelly’s new book, Rainy Day Recess: The Complete Steven’s Comics! He picked up on one reason that I thought it was so important to publish this collection:

The fact that Dan Savage has written an introduction for Rainy Day Recess is of course very significant: I’ve found his It Gets Better campaign toward gay youth very interesting, especially since I can’t see something like that happening in my own country. Anyway, that’s not the point. The point is that American culture seems to be at a tipping point, where queer people are being mainstreamed and homophobes are finally being shown by the general culture as the danger they really are, the same way antisemitism and not Jewish people are the problem. That sounds so obvious, but the way that it is now seeping through popular culture makes me a bit more optimistic. In that regard, David Kelly’s strips are even more relevant than they were a decade and a half ago.

Check out the whole Rainy Day Recess review at The Gay Comics List!

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