Overview

Spit and Passion is about the transformative moment when music crashes into a stifling adolescent bedroom and saves you--suddenly, you belong. In this graphic memoir, cult illustrator Cristy C. Road brings ""to vivid life the experiences of a queer-identified Latina punk rocker"" (Bitch). At twelve years old, Cristy is trying to balance the values of a Cuban Catholic family with her newfound queer identity, and begins a chronic obsession with the punk band Green Day. In this stunning memoir, Road renders the clash between her rich inner world of fantasy and the numbing suburban conformity she is surrounded by. She finds solace in the closet--where she lets her deep excitement about punk rock foment and, in that angst and euphoria, finds a path to self-acceptance. Cristy C. Road has reached cult status for work that captures the beauty of the imperfect. Her career began with Greenzine, a punk rock zine, which she made for ten years. She has since published Indestructible, an illustrated novel about high school; Distance Makes the Heart Grow Sick, a postcard book; and Bad Habits, a love story about self-destruction and healing. She has also illustrated countless album covers, book jackets, and political organization propaganda. She lives in Brooklyn, New York.

Full Product Details

9781558618084

Table of Contents

Reviews

""Road, an artist and writer, borrowed her nom de plum from a Green Day song title, which gives you some idea of the punky, exuberant spirit behind her graphic memoir about growing up gay in a very Catholic Cuban family from Miami."" --Entertainment Weekly ""Veteran punk writer and illustrator Road weaves text and art together in a charming and angst-ridden coming-of-age story. Cuban-American and raised in a traditional Catholic family, the preteen Road has a number of identity issues: she does not fit into her cultural mold, she finds salvation in punk rock, and she has a conflicted gender identity. Embracing her tomboy nature, Road begins to come to terms with herself as a gay woman, building a closet for her secret that becomes her refuge. Road's identification with her teenage self feels genuine, and her recollections of pop culture (both embraced and rejected) of the 1990s will strike nostalgic chords in readers of that generation. Road balances long sections of prose with pages dominated by art; her pencil and marker style, with images populated by strange and imperfect-looking characters, is well suited to her story, even if the ending doesn't entirely solve her identity issues. Grotesque images of dangling eyeballs and gushing brains reflect the alternative scene the young Road has discovered. Readers who enjoyed Alison Bechdel's Fun Home will probably empathize with Road's story of sexual exploration and punk rock."" --Publishers Weekly ""I'm a big Cristy C. Roads fan. Spit & Passion is a graphic delight, and the depiction of awkward youth is spot-on, weird, and familiar. --Alison Bechdel, author of Fun Home ""Cristy C. Road is the Jack Kerouac of the young queer generation. She's as brilliant a writer as she is an illustrator.""--Kate Bornstein, author of A Queer and Pleasant Danger

Author Information

Cristy C. Road is a Cuban-American artist, writer and musician who's been supplying creativity for punk rock, publishing, & social justice movements since she was a teenager in Miami, circa1997. Road self-published Green'zine for ten years, and has since released three illustrated novels which tackle gender, sexuality, mental health and cultural identity; truthfully spoken with curse words and bathroom humor: ""Indestructible"" (2005), ""Bad Habits"" (2008), ""Spit and Passion"" (2013), and her most recent project, The Next World Tarot, a traditionally illustrated Tarot deck depicting resilience and revolution. C.Road's illustrations has been featured in New York Magazine, The Advocate, The New York Times, Maximumrocknroll, Razorcake, Bitch Magazine, Bust Magazine, and countless other publications; as well as on shirts, record album covers, concert and political advocacy posters worldwide. As a musician, Road is a songwriter and guitarist. She fronted the pop-punk group The Homewreckers for eight years, and currently fronts her new project, Choked Up. Road has been touring nationally and internationally on her own, with her punk rock bands, and with Sister Spit: The Next Generation since 2001. Cultivating a performance trajectory with a consistent show of defiance, she performs at bookstores, record stores, basements, bars, college campuses, and beyond. She is a Gemini and lives and works in Brooklyn, NY.

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