Recent Press on Kindred

By Damian Duffy on

How you been, Internet? 

Me, I’ve been travelling to the awesome Black Comic Book Festival and Black Comix Art Fest, and then recovering from that travel while my children did me like Hop on Pop for daring to be away from the house for like 6 days.

And along the way there, Kindred hit number one on the New York Times hardcover graphic best-sellers list. And we’ve gotten some wonderful, thoughtful reviews and press. And it’s gratifying and humbling and to tell you the truth, I’m not quite sure how to act. I think I may still be in shock. 

But John and I are also busy putting together the February Kickstarter for Black Comix Returns, the sequel to our 2010 art book Black Comix: African American independent comics art & culture, coming out from the Magnetic Collection at Lion Forge Comics.

All of which is to say, I don’t know what to say, and I don’t have time to say it, so let me just say Thank You to everyone who’s checked out the book.

And with that I’ll copy and paste it on over to the fine folks at Abrams ComicArts, who have collected all the recent press on Kindred

(Shout outs and much love to all the good people out marching this past weekend.)
 
 
Kindred is featured in next week’s issue of Entertainment Weekly, and they gave it a rave review and an A rating!!! See the clip below. On stands January 27th. 
 “… Duffy and Jennings have risen to the challenge; their book highlights all of the medium’s strengths while still respecting Butler’s original words… It’s a good introduction not only to Butler’s body of work but also to the potential of the graphic-novel form.”

 

Afropunk.com — both an online community and the official site for the popular Afropunk festival that takes place in NYC every year — posted a great feature on the book.
 
 
Kindred was featured in an Facebook NPR Live video today! NPR Books reviewers Petra Meyer and Glen Weldon do a bi-weekly comics roundup video for NPR’s Facebook, and Kindred was picked as one of the top graphic novels to look out for in comic book stores this week. Meyer called Kindred “a brutal, uncompromising, necessary book”.
Check out the full video here
 
Kindred was featured on Vice’s blog The Creators Project in a roundup of graphic novels – read the full story here
 “This adaptation of the classic science fiction/neo-slave narrative novel by Octavia E. Butler is required reading.”
 
It was also featured for a SECOND time on B&N’s Sci-Fi and Fantasy blog – read about it here
 “…there’s never been a better time for this graphic adaption to share her message with a wider audience.”
 
Online literary quarterly Cleaver Magazine has a great feature on the book on their site. Read it here
“Nearly four decades after its original printing, Kindred remains a valuable story and teaching tool. From its pages, we are reminded of the destructive consequences of prejudice.”
 
The authors had a great launch weekend with the Black Comic Book Festival in Harlem this past Friday (picture from their panel below) along with fellow ACA author Kyle Baker, as well as in San Francisco at BCAF (Black Comic Arts Festival) where they did a series of panels and signings for the book’s west coast launch. 
 

 

Gizmodo published a rave, full length review of Kindred today. Check it out here: The Kindred Graphic Novel Should Be Everyone’s Introduction to Octavia Butler.

 

“Together, Duffy and Jennings manage to condense Kindred into 240 pages that are respectful of Butler’s original work while also feeling like a distinctly new story at the same time. In exchange for some of Butler’s scene descriptions, the book offers up a richly rendered, raw take on Dana’s experience, heavy with thick lines and blurred movement conveying her existential disorientation.”

Clutch Magazine calls the book “brilliantly illustrated”.

 

 

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