Palefire - by Mk Reed (Paperback)

About the Book

Book Synopsis

Can Alison play with fire without getting burned? From two comics superstars comes an explosive, high school noir romance for everyone with a mind of their own.

Everyone hates Darren, the firebug, the bad boy trouble follows everywhere. Alison finds a warmth to Darren, a spark everyone's missing. Alison knows what she's doing, but after tonight's fireworks, she'll find out who knows best.

Palefire, the first collaboration between writer MK Reed and artist Farel Dalrymple, takes us back to high school for a hot date to the party of the year. When you're not a girl, and not yet a woman, the last thing you want is advice. The road to hell may be paved with good intentions, but everyone deserves a second chance--even if it goes up in flames..

Review Quotes

"Palefire opens with a young girl asking her mom for permission to go out on a date with a guy who seems to have a reputation for trouble. Not only is her mom hesitant about it, but everyone else in her life tries to warn her off of him too. Reed and Dalrymple do a good job of capturing the uncertainty of teenage dating and of trying to make decisions at an age when you want to weigh what you already know about yourself against what you want to find out for sure." - mental_floss

"Palefire is a short and smart comics story made by a writer and an artist who clearly remember what it's like to be teenagers: How your emotions can turn on a dime, how little mistakes can have lasting marks, and how sometimes your friends' disapproval is exactly what it takes for you to want something even more. When Darren makes a unique sort of offering to show Alison just how he feels, the response isn't quite what he expects. And when Paul comes to the rescue, the results aren't quite what a reader might hope. But that's what teenagers do: frustrate the adults in their lives, because we want what's best for them even if they don't." - Slate

About the Author

Farel Dalrymple is the author of the New York Times Bestseller, the Wrenchies (First Second). He has also collaborated with author Jonathan Lethem (Motherless Brooklyn, the Fortress of Solitude) on Omega the Unknown (Marvel Comics). His comic, Pop Gun War, was a Xeric Grant recipient and won a gold medal from The Society of Illustrators. He is a co-founder of the comic anthology, Meathaus. He is currently residing in Oregon where he is working on a sequel to Pop Gun War, drawing his Eisner Award nominated webcomic, IT WILL ALL HURT, for Studygroup Comics, and illustrating the Earfarmer, a science fiction love story for Dark Horse Presents with writer Chris Stevens.

MK Reed is the author of the graphic novels Americus and the Cute Girl Network (First Second). She also writes and draws the web comic About A Bull. Her work can be found in anthologies like Papercutter, the Big Feminist But, and the Swedish magazine, Galago. Americus was the winner of NAIBA's 2012 Carla Cohen Free Speech Award, and was a 2011 American Booksellers for Children's New Voices title. The first chapter was nominated for an Ignatz Award for Outstanding Story in 2008 after its inclusion in Papercutter 7. MK lives in Seattle with a very tall nurse.