Danica Novgorodoff signs Slow Storm

Sep ’08
20
7:00 pm

With commanding landscapes and a lyrical rhythm of prose, SLOW STORM is the first full length graphic novel from 2007 Eisner nominee , and introduces an exciting new talent in comics.

SLOW STORM tells the emotional story of two individuals brought together by loss and loneliness.  On the day after the Kentucky Derby, tornado season descends on Oldham County.  With yesterday’s results still resonating, lightning strikes and sets a barn ablaze.  In its embers, a poignant but fleeting relationship is kindled between forlorn firefighter Ursa Crain, an out-of-place woman struggling to fit into her small Kentucky community, and Rafi, a Mexican immigrant wondering whether his American dream will ever be fulfilled.

By turns violent and poetic, magical and mundane, SLOW STORM follows the flight of a young illegal both enchanted and disappointed by America, and a woman with dark clouds looming above and within her.  Their interaction, though passing, evokes powerful imagery of homeland and family, and leaves the reader questioning his own sense of these values.

This compelling story explores the heart-wrenching struggle of immigration, an outsider’s difficulties to find her place in the world, and the power created when unexpected relationships find us.  SLOW STORM’s poignant themes, accompanied by Novgorodoff’s lush watercolor washes and masterful linework, tell an emotionally-charged tale of homesickness and horses, storms and saints.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Originally from Louisville, Kentucky, Danica Novgorodoff studied painting and photography at Yale University and cowherding in the Andes Mountains.  She has worked as a horse trainer in Virginia, an English teacher in Ecuador, and assistant to photographer Sally Mann, and an artist review writer for galleries in Chelsea and SoHo, New York.  In 2006 she won the Isotope Award for her mini-comic A Late Freeze and in 2007 was nominated for an Eisner Award.  She currently lives in New York City, where she works as a designer for First Second.