Review: Steven’s Comics

Steven is a young kid living at the end of the 70′s, in a divorced family. David Kelly’s strip is narrated by Steven himself, and we learn a lot about his inner life this way. He’s a lonely kid, with very few friends, and has a very active imagination.

The main charm of the Steven’s Comics¹ strips is the way Kelly manages to show us a kid who’s obviously growing up gay in an environment which is definitely not conducive to the development of a temperament which does not fit in with the aggressive behavior of most kids around him. There are some tender moments, when Steven has a crush on one of his friends, or when he hopelessly and unconsciously pines for the friendship of a young swimming teacher who’s been nice to him. But this is not a pink-tinted world Steven lives in. He moves more than once, from his mother to his father, then to his grand-mother. The grown-ups are busy living their often fucked-up lives, and the kids have to bear it. The cruelty of kids toward one another is also very well shown.

Kelly’s art has vastly improved since the first strips published in 1994. His art is now very well suited to the stories he tells and yes, he does draw very cute guys, as can be seen in the small collection Calling All Boys or on his site, where you can see a lot of illustrations and short stories. You can also find more by him in Boy Trouble, a fanzine co-founded by Kelly and Robert Kirby: short stories of teenage love which will either make you think of yours or make you regret you started too late for that.

David Kelly is still working on a new Steven story, All about boys, which you can read for free on his website. For me, it is like meeting again an old friend I hadn’t seen in a few years. I know we have lots of things to tell each other.

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MAJ 07/2010: The comics are out-of-print, but a good number of the Steven strips can be found on the new author’s site.