Seventh Avenue Productions Releases Lance Ward's Kmart Shoes

    MINNEAPOLIS, MN, October 03, 2012 /24-7PressRelease/ -- 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 [email protected] 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.

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