The Big Belch is "...great stuff!" says Stanford Professor Robert Proctor. Bill McKibben "...enjoyed [The Big Belch] much." "...The characters and illustrations are quirky and delightful..." "...is terrific, I was laughing throughout..." - Judy Morgan "...book is terrific I was laughing throughout the read and the mountain of drawings was excellent." - Steve Donegan "Entertaining, funny, and enlightening, with wonderfully drawn characters who reveal their personalities as the story progresses ... The illustrations ... are uniquely the work of this artist, and go far beyond the call of duty in terms of expressiveness and the complex details of interior spaces and landscapes, I spent a lot of time just looking at the pictures. I loved this book." - Elissa Gold "...I love the asides, little extras, and details that flesh things out and make it richer...I also like it that you show that too little knowledge is dangerous, and that there are loonies on both sides of the story... Go for it! An excellent start. I look forward to the next one, can't wait..." - Tess Frost The Big Belch, Kay Wood's very funny graphic novel, is about our seriously insane fossil fuel mania. A greedy oil company causes an enormous oil spill. In its desperate quest to save its bottom line and get the media off its case, the company tries a hastily concocted test of a volatile new oil spill cleanup method - despite the dangers. If this reckless experiment goes awry, it could blow up the world. Will a cast of assorted villains and general screw-ups connive and bumble toward disaster, or will a wild crew of environmental crime fighters save the day? Written and illustrated by artist Kay Wood, The Big Belch recently won The Leeway Foundation an Art and Change grant and successfully attracted start up funding on Kickstarter.
Kay Wood has an extensive exhibition history of her artwork. Her paintings have been shown in galleries and museums in the United States, Europe, and Japan, and her work is included in both public and private collections. Now in her sixties, Wood discovered graphic novels just a few years ago while working on a cartoon series with two other artists, and was inspired by the expressive power potential of the medium - a medium she immediately realized was perfect for telling stories she had long wished to tell. She began work on The Big Belch - a quirky and droll graphic novel on a very serious and frightening environmental subject - three years ago. Start up funding for the project was raised on Kickstarter. She was also recently honored with a Leeway Foundation award to help complete The Big Belch and offer it to the public.
