Seventh Avenue Productions Releases Lance Ward's Kmart Shoes

A graphic novel drawn with a raw, honest autobiographical voice.

2012-10-03

MINNEAPOLIS, MN, October 03, 2012 (Press-News.org) Kmart Shoes is the true story of Lance Ward's journey in and out of high school and his fights against abusive and uncaring family members, school yard bullies, and his own sense of self-worth. With his family in poverty, Lance grew up on sardine sandwiches and cabbage soup. He wore $8 shoes and tolerated hostile classmates and the nickname Kmart Shoes. On some days, Ward battled drug addiction and felony charges, on others he just needed to find a place to sleep in his own home. A con man screwed up his life, Ward's mother kicked him out, his father didn't want him, and the military wouldn't take him. Only one thing kept him going - he could draw. Now, years later, Lance looks back and tells us his story in raw, honest detail. An in-your-face story of struggle and survival that is heart-breaking, comical, sad and triumphant.

Kmart Shoes is the latest comic released from the Twin Cities, a town increasingly known for its independent comics scene, and Ward is one of the community's most talented artists. He wrote Kmart Shoes as a therapeutic exercise to eject the demons of his past but it grew into a labor of love. After self-publishing the book and shopping it around it was picked up by Minneapolis-based small press Seventh Avenue Productions.

"I immediately connected to the protagonist, who begins the story as an awkward 10-year-old kid with glasses," said Seventh Avenue publisher Mark McGinty. "And I quickly fell in love with Ward's unparalleled honesty and the seemingly unstoppable series of tragedies and setbacks that he so seamlessly described. Just when I thought it couldn't get worse, it got worse. Yet Ward is still here to tell his story."

Kmart Shoes will be released October 6th, 2012 by Seventh Avenue Productions in association with Blue Collar Comics and will premiere at the 24th Annual Midwest Comic Book Association FallCon Comic Book Party that will take place in the Education Building on the Minnesota State Fairgrounds on October 6th.

Copies are available for order here
http://store.seventh-avenue-productions.com//product_info.php?products_id=29

For review copies, author interviews or media kits, email Mark McGinty at mmcginty_32@yahoo.com or call 612-224-1852.

Visit Seventh Avenue Productions
http://seventh-avenue-productions.com

What People Are Saying About Kmart Shoes...

"There's a fantastic rawness to both his storytelling and drawing...Ward had a resiliency to him that allowed him to fight back against his tormentors and carve out an identity for himself...a bold, unadorned, and powerful autobiographical voice."
-The Comics Journal

"A seemingly endless parade of bad breaks."
-Small Press Reviews

"If by the end you are not humbled by this story, please check your pulse."
-Kevin Cannon, author of Far Arden (Top Shelf Productions)

Lance Ward is a national editorial cartoonist for Crowded Comics.com and the author of KLONKO, One Day in 1978 and Stovetop (Creator's Edge Press). His cartoons have appeared in The Pulse magazine, The Cedar magazine and City Pages. In 2011, he was featured artist for the "Just Add Ink" art show at Altered Esthetics Art Gallery.

6 x 9, 164 pages, black and white, soft cover

ISBN: 978-0-9838854-4-3

$14.95 US

About Seventh Avenue Productions
Founded by Mark and Meridith McGinty, Seventh Avenue Productions is a Minneapolis based small press specializing in trade paperbacks, graphic novels/comic books and anything else that we like and feel a need to publish. Our first publication was the award winning novel The Cigar Maker. We've published historical fiction and also the lighter side of war in the new comic anthology Germ Warfare. In 2011 we published our first non-fiction title, a genealogy book titled Our McGinty Family in America by Gerald K. McGinty Sr. We have two titles slated for 2012, the autobiographical graphic novel Kmart Shoes by Lance Ward and an illustrated children's book called Lolly Poppet's Lousy Year by Lupi.

In 2013 we will publish the World War II thriller Home to Nagasaki, by Mark McGinty.

Visit our store to purchase any of these titles!!
http://store.seventh-avenue-productions.com

Seventh Avenue Productions is a small press publisher of books, based in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

[Attachments] See images for this press release:

Seventh Avenue Productions Releases Lance Ward's Kmart Shoes 2

Seventh Avenue Productions Releases Lance Ward's Kmart Shoes 3

ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:

Firelight Fusion Electronic Cigarettes Offers Free Shipping

2012-10-03

The Firelight Fusion E Cigarette Brand is already the low price leader in the e cigarette industry, giving the most popular model of e cigarette on the planet at 20% less than other retailers. Now the company has announced on the Fusion blog that they are offering free shipping on all of their e cigarettes and accessories. This saves the average buyer an additional 10% that adds up to a total of almost 30% less than the competition. The company sells the KR808D-1 model electronic cigarette that is touted around the world as the best electronic cigarette on the market ...

Electro Pop Duo The Green Children Set to Release "Feel the Light" EP on October 30th; Highly Anticipated Sophomore Album Soon to Follow

2012-10-03

One of the most unique and captivating European musical groups, The Green Children will officially release the 'Feel the Light' EP on Tuesday, October 30th, 2012. While immersed in the mystical Norwegian countryside, Marlow and Milla wrote, recorded and produced the follow up to their critically acclaimed debut album, 'Encounter'. 'Encounter' received rave reviews from countless media outlets including Mobo and Rolling Stone Magazine. The Green Children's debut single, 'Dragons', peaked at #3 on Amazon's 'Pop' chart and remixes by world renown DJ's Paul Oakenfold, Digital ...

Oniqua Announces Release of Oniqua Analytics Solution Version 6.4

2012-10-03

Oniqua MRO Analytics (www.oniqua.com), the leading provider of analytics-based MRO optimization solutions for asset-intensive organizations, today announced the release of Oniqua Analytics Solution (OAS) Version 6.4 - the company's most advanced software offering to date. OAS 6.4 supports a full array of 24 value-based elements, extending OAS capabilities across six key MRO (maintenance, repair and operations) value domains, including: Equipment Performance, Maintenance Effectiveness, Inventory Optimization, Procurement Effectiveness, Supplier Performance and Supply ...

Scientists discover novel way to remove defects in materials

2012-10-02

VIDEO: This video shows colloidal beads (bright dots) that have assembled themselves on a liquid droplet to form a three-dimensional curved crystalline structure. The positive electric charges cause the beads to... Click here for more information. In a paper just published in Nature Materials, a team of researchers that includes William T.M. Irvine, assistant professor in physics at the University of Chicago, has succeeded in creating a defect in the structure of a single-layer ...

New hope for taming triple-negative breast cancer

2012-10-02

SAN ANTONIO (Oct. 1, 2012) — Disease-free survival is short-lived for women with triple-negative breast cancer — a form of the disease that doesn't respond to hormone drugs and becomes resistant to chemotherapy. Thankfully, a promising line of study in the School of Medicine at The University of Texas Health Science Center San Antonio suggests it is possible to fine-tune the properties of this fearsome cancer, making it more sensitive to treatment. Once preclinical studies have been completed in coming months, this new approach should be ready to test in female patients, ...

UCLA-led study finds direct correlation between hospital bedsores, patient mortality

2012-10-02

A new clinical study spearheaded by the dean of UCLA's School of Nursing has found a direct correlation between pressure ulcers — commonly known as bedsores — and patient mortality and increased hospitalization. The research is believed to be the first of its kind to use data directly from medical records to assess the impact of hospital-acquired pressure ulcers on Medicare patients at national and state levels. According to the study, featured as the lead article in the current issue of the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, seniors who developed pressure ...

Restoring sight would save global economy $202 billion each year

2012-10-02

Restoring sight would save global economy US$202 billion each year. Governments could add billions of dollars to their economies annually by funding the provision of an eye examination and a pair of glasses to the estimated 703 million people globally that needed them in 2010 according to a new study to be released soon. The health economics study calculated that there would be a saving of US$202 billion annually to the global economy through a one-off investment of US$28 billion in human resource development and establishing and providing vision care for 5 years.1 ...

Sandia builds Android-based network to study cyber disruptions

2012-10-02

LIVERMORE, Calif. — As part of ongoing research to help prevent and mitigate disruptions to computer networks on the Internet, researchers at Sandia National Laboratories in California have turned their attention to smartphones and other hand-held computing devices. Sandia cyber researchers linked together 300,000 virtual hand-held computing devices running the Android operating system so they can study large networks of smartphones and find ways to make them more reliable and secure. Android dominates the smartphone industry and runs on a range of computing gadgets. The ...

Concussion spectrum in college athletes wearing helmets: 'Not so simple,' say researchers

2012-10-02

Charlottesville, VA (October 2, 2012). What does it mean to have a head concussion? Much has been written in recent years about the short- and long-term consequences of concussions sustained in sports, combat, and accidents. However, there appear to be no steadfast rules guiding the definition of concussion: the characteristics associated with this type of traumatic head injury have shifted over time and across medical disciplines. Within the context of a larger longitudinal investigation of the biomechanical factors in play that correlate with concussions in collegiate ...

Children's bicycle helmets shown to be effective in impact and crush tests

2012-10-02

Charlottesville, VA (October 2, 2012). A favorite physical activity engaged in by Americans is bicycling, and children are perhaps its most ardent participants; it has been estimated that 70% of children ages 5 to 14 ride bicycles. Bicycling is not without its dangers, however, and one of the worst is the risk of head and brain injury during a crash. According to the US Centers for Disease Control, head injury is the most common cause of death and serious disability from bicycle crashes. The best protection offered to mitigate this injury is the bicycle helmet. However, ...

Seventh Avenue Productions Releases Lance Ward's Kmart Shoes

ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:

LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES: