Milk White Steed

Story collection

Published by Drawn & Quarterly in feb. 2025

Between 2022 and 2024, I set about producing comics that reflected the pessimistic side of life in England that I have experienced as someone of Caribbean and Irish heritage.

Through introducing the Duppy and other Caribbean spirits to the graphic novel form, I’ve attempted to create a form of magical realism in British comics. One that can respond to the contemporary situation here in the U.K.

The acceptance that hope is not always easy find for Caribbean people in the U.K has resulted in a series of dark fairytales that compose the work in Milk White Steed. Made with disposable pens and cheap paper, the 10 comics are a celebration and of human spirit and imagination in the face of a bleak and unforgiving environment.

Words from the publisher, Drawn & Quarterly…

“Inspired by the folk tales and oral traditions of his Caribbean roots, Milk White Steed is a dreamlike venture into the messy truths of everyday West Indian lives: the abiding pursuit of the familiar and the vicious appraisal of their own otherness, all at once. Phantom desires, unchecked reveries, and surreal visions of the future flood the page in full-color. Kennedy’s decisive woodcut-inspired brush-strokes draw a striking portrait of the Black diaspora as it sees itself, always searching and yet forever seeing.”