Comics Kingdom | Kevin and Kell by Bill Holbrook

Bill Holbrook

About

Years ago, Kevin Kindle the rabbit and Kell Dewclaw the wolf met in an online chat room. After falling head over heels for each other, they decided to meet in person. It wasn't until then that they realized they were from separate ends of the food chain.

However, the relationship they'd developed online overcame Kevin's instinct for self-preservation, and Kell's heart melted from such a demonstration of trust. Kell was energetic and vivacious, qualities Kevin had found lacking in herbivores. Such a relationship between predator and prey seemed doomed to fail but these two opposites were determined to overcome the barriers that society placed in their path.

They eventually married knowing good and well they would be outcasts. They settled in the suburb of Domain, which borders both a large metropolitan area and an uncharted region known simply as The Wild.

Along for the ride was Kevin's adopted hedgehog daughter Lindesfarne from his previous marriage and Kell's wolf cub son Rudy from hers. A year later, Kell gave birth to Coney, the carnivorous baby bunny who inherited Kevin's big ears and Kell's meaty appetite.

Other than their unconventional pairing, these woodland Bradys are not unlike a typical American family. Kevin and Kell live within a tree (at the corner of Tooth and Nail Streets) containing all the comforts of a suburban home: TV, indoor plumbing and neighbors with binoculars. Kell works as a Staff Predator for Herd Thinners Inc., the world's primary supplier of grocery meat by-products. Kevin runs the local Internet Service Provider called Hare-Link from the basement of their home. Lindesfarne attends Beige University when not assisting with the ISP's tech issues and Rudy is on the varsity hunting team of his high school, Caliban Academy.

Lindesfarne is engaged to a bat, Fenton Fuscus, who sees her differently than others do (i.e., with sonar). Rudy's girlfriend is Fiona Fennec, whose enormous ears give her super-hearing (This means she's aware of the slightest change in his emotions thanks to being able to hear his heartbeat.) Meanwhile, the mothers of Kevin and Kell, Dorothy and Elanor, are engaged in a struggle over toddler Coney's omnivorous diet.

Welcome to the world of Kevin & Kell.

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Characters

Kevin Dewclaw

A six-foot-tall rabbit in his forties who works from home. He is married to Kell Dewclaw, his second wife. Kevin has always stood out from other rabbits, not just in being large and coming from a “litter” of one, but in not fearing predators. His brawn probably had something to do with it, even enabling him to become a pro wrestler, though he was glad to leave that chapter of his life behind. Marrying a predator, of course, made him even less popular with the warren.

Kell Dewclaw

A wolf in her early 40s, married to Kevin. She used to be a professional predator at Herd Thinners, Inc., but when she left Herd Thinners for good she launched Dewclaw’s Fine Meats. This is Kell’s second marriage, her late husband being a hunting casualty (stepped on by a moose). She is the mother of Rudy and Coney and tries to be a good mother to her adopted daughter, Lindesfarne. The Dewclaws are a proud family, descended from the Big Bad Wolf, and Kell’s family did not take her marriage well.

Lindesfarne Dewclaw

Lindesfarne is Kevin’s 23-year-old daughter adopted in infancy from an English hedgehog orphanage. Her quills give her the defense she needs in a predatory world but make it difficult for her to develop personal friends. She is an expert hacker and scientific genius. Her husband is Fenton Fuscus. She is a grad student at Beige University, near Domain, and now has a daughter, Turvy, a bat with quills.

Rudy Dewclaw

Kell’s natural son, currently 20. He is a predator, half wolf and half fox. He has had difficulty accepting a rabbit as the head of the house and repeatedly challenged Kevin for alpha male status. His attitude toward Kevin—and herbivores in general—has mellowed over the years. Rudy and Lindesfarne have been rivals on the surface, but each will step up to save the other in an emergency. Nowadays, he frequently visits her residence at Beige University, if only for dinner and, at this point, to be a fun uncle to Turvy.Rudy’s girlfriend is Fiona. His best friend has been Bruno, though they no longer go to the same school.

Coney Dewclaw

The daughter of Kevin and Kell, born a year after their marriage. Coney combines Kevin’s physical appearance with Kell’s carnivore appetite and is a very effective predator in her own right. Coney is now 5.

Author

Bill Holbrook

Bill Holbrook was born in Los Angeles in 1958 and grew up in Huntsville, Ala., after his father was transferred to work in the space program. According to his mother, he started his career as an artist by drawing on the household walls.

Holbrook majored in Illustration and Visual Design at Auburn University in Alabama. He was the Art Director of the student newspaper, where he produced a weekly comic strip. He also did the paper's editorial cartoons and was published regularly in the Huntsville Times and the Monroe Journal. After graduation in 1980, Holbrook joined the Atlanta Constitution as an editorial staff artist. But his ambition remained to do a syndicated strip of his own.

During a 1982 visit to relatives on the West Coast, Holbrook was able to meet with Peanuts creator Charles Schulz, who advised him to continually work on comic strip ideas, weeding out the bad, keeping the good, rather than waiting for one big concept. Armed with that advice, Holbrook created a strip in the fall of that year about a college graduate working in a run-down diner. It did not stir syndicate interest, but what he learned on the strip helped the young cartoonist create his first winner, On the Fastrack, which was launched in syndication by King Features in 1984. There have been three anthologies of strips published.

In October 1989, Holbrook launched his second strip, Safe Havens. Initially about a day care center, this strip evolved into the adventures of Samantha Argus and her friends. King Features has distributed the comic since 1993.

In September 1995, Bill began a third strip called Kevin & Kell about a functional family of animals in a dysfunctional world. The strip is available online and also in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

Holbrook lives in the Atlanta area with his wife and two daughters.

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