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Colleen Cavanaugh’s home world is ruled by Derichets, a tyrannical alien race bent on exploiting the planet’s mineral resources. Most of her family died in the war, and she now lives alone in the city. Aside from her acquaintances at the factory where she toils for the Derichets, Colleen makes a single friend in Jann, a member of the violent group of rebels known as the Chromatti. One day Colleen receives shocking news: her niece Lucy is alive and in need of her help. Shattered Warrior is a gripping science fiction adventure with a sweeping romance at its heart.
SHATTERED WARRIOR is a solidly YA graphic novel, but with lots of violence and, in Matt's words "an attempted rape scene and a boob." So, trigger warning for sexual assault and violence. (The breast in question is visible after a very subtle and consensual interlude.) All this has led to my R-rating, but I think it's totally appropriate for teens.
On to an actual review! SHATTERED WARRIOR is a modern take on classic themes of invasion, colonization, rebellion, and hope. The book includes a diverse cast, a bisexual hero, and acknowledgment of the ways in which privilege impacts our relationships and our approach to the world. Contains people doing awful things for the greater good, a good guy/bad guy in the Derichet establishment, and a heroine terrified of loving anyone (because they all die).
I picked up the book at least 90% because I love Molly Ostertag's art, so you can be sure that I found the artwork compelling. Because of the dirty, war-torn state of the humans and their environs, entire pages are rendered in shades of brown and gray. It's lovely and evocative. In her first graphic novel, writer Sharon Shinn has taken a step back and allowed panels to speak for themselves, not inserting dialogue or exposition where the setting can tell the story. It's a partnership I'd like to see more of.
Speaking of wanting more... My biggest gripe with the book is that it's one 246-page volume. The story is one of an epic struggle, and (spoiler?) ends with the beginning of a new war. I don't often say this, but I wish this was a duology or a trilogy. There aren't gaping plot holes, but certain plot points feel rushed, as does some emotional development.
Should you read it? If you want sci-fi with romantic elements and some people making hard choices and holding onto their humanity... yep. If not, I guess don't read it. I'm not really a sci-fi fan and I really enjoyed the book, however.
If anyone from First Second reads this - I would like a sequel with Lucy's story, please.
ADULTS ONLY
2012 Edition: Smut Peddler started back in 2003 as a series of dirty little minicomics featuring some of the coolest folks in indie comics. Now, it's back as a full-sized anthology, featuring 24 different stories of love, sex, and a little bit of angst by a huge array of talented creators.
This book offers something for everyone, showcasing a whole rainbow of relationships, sexualities, and genders, plus the occasional robot, satyr, shapeshifter, or major religious figure.
2014 Edition: Smut Peddler, the big, dirty book that rocked the world in 2012, is back with more and better than ever! The 2014 edition of this award-winning ladycentric porn anthology features a dream team of artists and writers, an all-star cast of creators premiering the finest filth you’re gonna find.
This isn't a porn or erotica review site, but these comics are SO GOOD I had to include them. Iron Circus says they're "by women, for everyone" and I agree. They feature a full array of relationships, bodies, situations, and art styles. Consent is present and enthusiastic. Much (not necessarily all) of the sex occurs inside a trusting relationship, with the romance that you'd expect. There are stories about couples who've been together for years, and couples who are just meeting. As with any anthology, you'll find some more to your liking than others, but these books are massive, so you're sure to find just what you want.
Buy it at your local bookshop!
In 2010, Lucy and her long-term boyfriend John broke up. Three long, lonely years later, John returned to New York, walked into Lucy's apartment, and proposed. This is not that story. It is the story of what came after: The Wedding.
DIY maven Lucy Knisley was fascinated by American wedding culture . . . but also sort of horrified by it. So she set out to plan and execute the adorable DIY wedding to end all adorable DIY weddings. And she succeeded. This graphic novel, Something New--clocking in at almost 300 pages of humor, despair, and eternal love--is the story of how Lucy built a barn, invented a whole new kind of photo booth, and managed to turn an outdoor wedding on a rainy day into a joyous (though muddy) triumph.
SOMETHING NEW, Lucy Knisley's autobiographical graphic novel about her wedding, hits that indefinable spot somewhere between memoir and how-to. If you've read RELISH or any of her travelogues, you'll know what to expect from this one: humor, lots of internal dialogue, and a level of detail that makes you feel like you just might be Lucy's friend.
The narrative brings us through the early stages of Lucy and her now-husband John's relationship, a winding journey that includes a three year (!) break and a lot of back and forth regarding career, children, and life goals. As a bisexual woman, Lucy has complicated feelings on the institution of marriage, and she doesn't shy away from talking about them. John has complicated feelings about having children, and Lucy doesn't shy away from talking about those either. It's an honest, considerate depiction of the types of conversations I had with my own husband before our marriage. (Of course, I'm viewing this all through the lens of a married bisexual white woman, so Lucy's story probably has a lot more resonance for me than it would for others.)
After the engagement, Lucy employs self-deprecating humor and pointed social commentary as she guides readers through the long and tedious process of planning "the event of a lifetime." An entire chapter is devoted to finding "the dress," an experience that is supposed to be fun, but usually causes undue amounts of stress.
Chapters on food, money, pre-wedding parties, and "emotional sickness," cover most of the wedding bases, though the book clearly can't be a "how-to" because every couple, every venue, every family is different. For example, Knisley married at her mother's rural home, but that's not an option or a preference for many couples.
The end result is a book that's part critique of the wedding industry and societal expectations, part tribute to the love and support she received throughout the process, and part funny retelling of all the things not to do.
From Vol. 1:
This first volume of the ongoing Spellbound series initiates us into Dufaux and Munuera’s Medieval-style fantasy land, a land brimming with witchcraft, demons, enchantments and foul-play. The whole of Middleland has been thrown into turmoil by the sudden and brutal murder of the king. The unfortunate victim’s dying wish was that his daughter, Blanche, should take the throne, rather than her weak-spirited brother. Thus Blanche finds herself catapulted into a position of power that she never expected, or even wished for. The grief-stricken young woman is forced to renounce her lover, and on top of that, the enemy’s army is assembled at the country’s border, poising to strike. Blanche looks like she’s off to a promising start as queen of the land, but unfortunately she’s no match for the various plots to topple her… at least, not yet…
This is a hard one to review, as I both loved and hated pieces of it. Each of the four volumes is 50-60 pages, combining for something close to graphic novel length. Each of the volumes is a distinct arc, but the overall story isn't complete until the last two pages of volume 4.
Here's the part I hated: there is no Happily Ever After. That's the covenant that the Romance genre has with its readers, and since it's been broken here, I have rated this as "romantic elements" and not "definitely a romance."
The first book opens with Blanche leaving her lover, Gaspard, because she has been called upon to serve her kingdom as the new queen. He takes it very poorly and visits an evil witch, Miranda, to put a curse on her.
Bad Things happen. Miranda is evil, after all. Blanche's brother is also evil, as is her mother. Everyone is evil, basically. Eventually, Blanche meets Maldoror, the prince of the World Below (hell) and he's very much a Lucifer archetype. He's blond and handsome and they fall in love. He helps her while everyone is scheming against her, she brings him back with a kiss from a magically-induced coma. Very standard fantasy/fairytale stuff. I'm going to try not to give spoilers here, but it's clear from about halfway in that Blanche is becoming everything she hates. She's becoming violent and untrusting and... kind of evil, herself. It could be argued that she's never actually a "good" character to begin with, but the reader does start out this journey giving her the benefit of the doubt.
In the first two volumes, I had serious issues with the portrayal of Blanche's scheming brother. He's a hunchback, and the story was falling into that ableist trap of making the disabled character evil... because he's disabled. The mother was similarly one-dimensional, as was the witch, Miranda. I was starting to feel like every "bad guy" in the book was going to be female or disabled. Not cool. Enter the advisors and "allies." We got a whole bunch of evil, white, able-bodied men. It became clear to me that maybe this was a story in which no one is actually good, which somehow bothered me less. Equal-opportunity evil, or somesuch thing.
In the end, I don't know if I can recommend this to romance readers or not. There are some stunningly romantic moments, a few interesting magical events, and many, many battles. As a French-to-English translation, some nuance may have been lost, but I think the art manages to convey the emotion and magic of the tale adequately. If you need an HEA, don't pick this up. If you want to see an anti-heroine killing lots of people and not ever being slut-shamed? This might be for you.
Liz, trying to get rid of her writer's block, gets caught up in the weirdness surrounding the nurse she interviewed.
From Volume 1:
A companion book to both Sunstone and Swing, Sugar is about a couple who embark on a relationship that starts as more of an arrangement and ends with them falling in love...but that love has consequences! Julia works three jobs and is trying to finish college in her early 20's. John is recently divorced, still stinging from that breakup and trying to start anew. Neither has ever done anything like this before and the emotional swings they face challenge what could be a perfect match.
Spinning of from the universe of Sunstone comes a slice of life romantic story about a couple trying to regain the sexual energy from the beginning of their relationship by swinging with other couples. An emotional journey of two people fighting to stay in love.
I really wanted to love SWING. I adored SUNSTONE and was ready for more of the humor, emotional depth, and romance. Unfortunately, Linda Sejic's lovely art couldn't save the awkward writing and construction of this first volume of SWING.
(If you want to read more about the series and the writing team, we interviewed writer Matt Hawkins in May 2018.)
The book is 132 pages, but only the first 100 are the actual story. The backmatter is cluttered with an excerpt from another Sejic project, BLOODSTAIN, and a bunch of information on swinging. How to get into it, the pro's and con's, resources, etc. This is all well and good, but the BLOODSTAIN excerpt comes before the info on swinging, which doesn't make sense. (Perhaps this will be different in the final version?) The book also opens with an extremely awkward two page sex scene written as prose. It's so clinical that any emotion or arousal the writer wanted to elicit is completely lost. [Then he went down on her and we watched. After a minute, I asked her how she wanted it and she said 'doggie' and I f*cked her for a few minutes.] It's just... awkward. Leave it out next time, please. That opening isn't billed as a preface or an intro to swinging, either, though it's clearly intended as such.
It was a relief to finally get to the actual comic, which is much better than the intro. We're led through the two main characters meeting in college, getting together, and then the next eight years of their lives before they find themselves in a romantic and sexual rut. They then try out a swinging club (with a genuinely funny attempt at oral) and the book ends with the heroine inviting her best friend over for a threesome, which goes well. Then... the book is over.
I understand that the series will continue, but I'm not sure that I'll continue with it. I'm so desperate for romance comics that are sex-positive and beautifully illustrated that I very well may, however. This book is both of those things, but the writing is stilted, jumps around, and could have used an editor or a couple of beta readers who read within the genre.
Beatrice “Bea” Whaley seems to have it all; the seventeen year old high school senior is beautiful, wealthy and the star performer of the drama club. And with her uncle’s connections to Broadway theater, the future looks bright ahead of her. Little does she know that her future might actually be brighter behind her. Bea begins having vivid dreams about a brave and handsome soldier named Alan Warren–a member of an elite group known as Knowlton’s Rangers that served during the Revolutionary War. Prone to keeping her head in the clouds, Bea welcomes her nightly adventures in 1776; filled with danger and romance they give her much to muse about the next day. But it is not long before Beatrice questions whether her dreams are simply dreams or something more. Each night they pick up exactly where the last one ended. And the senses–the smell of musket shots and cannons, the screams of soldiers in agony, and that kiss–are all far more real than any dream she can remember.
THE DREAMER turned 10 years old this Independence Day. That's 10 years of Revolutionary War nerdery and romance! Like pretty much anything having to do with American history, I have complicated feelings, but I think this comic has figured out what it is and does that pretty darn well. It's worth noting that this comic came before Hamilton, but has all the names you'd expect to see dropped, like Hercules Mulligan and Alexander Hamilton.
What It Is:
A time-slip story with a teenage protagonist who quite literally dreams herself into the early days of the Revolutionary War. There's a strong parallel between the literal dreaming that she's doing and the metaphorical dreaming of the rebels as they envision a future for their new country.
Peppered with references to battles, historical people of note, and uniforms/attire that much have been dreadful to illustrate, the story feels well-researched and educational as well as fantastical.
The romance is confusing at times, as Beatrice doesn't remember the life she had in the past, or her relationship with Alan, just that some part of her loves him. She tries to stay interested in present-day Ben, but it's hard for her to do so when she's visiting another man every night in her dreams. Any confusion felt by the reader is likely that of Bea, trying to sort out what she should feel and what she does feel.
What It Isn't:
A treatise on race or on the roles of free and enslaved African-Americans in the war. The heroine's best friend in the modern day story, Yvette, is dark-skinned, as is her present-day love interest, Ben. In 1776, however, we see people of color only in serving roles, and a couple as soldiers. If you're looking for a story that will emphasize the parts played by PoC in the war, this isn't the place to go.
It's also not a story in which the main character is perfect. She kind of sucks a lot of the time, to be frank. She's selfish, treats Ben, her friends, and her family poorly, and generally acts like a self-centered teenager. BUT she also appears to be growing as a person. She's realized how her actions are not only unhelpful, but pretty destructive. If you start the comic and hate her, know that she does, in fact, get better.
What made me keep reading is that this is also not a HELL YEAH AMERICA story. The characters, particularly Alan, are conflicted about the toll the war is taking on the populace. Are stamps really worth this many lives? There's very little emphasis on American exceptionalism, with more focus on liberty and self-governance.
Miscellany:
The art is clean and beautifully colored, though some of the numerous white men in uniform eventually blur together (this may be entirely on me). I bought the first volume digitally, which was I believe 5 issues. As of 7/6/17, I couldn't buy the next volumes digital, but all three are available in print or you can do as I did and read the rest as a webcomic.
As for the research, creator Lora Innes has a "Library" tab on her site, where you can find a bunch of the research and supplemental materials she's used while creating this comic.
THE DREAMER is still running, updating 3x a week. If you're curious, A couple of issues worth of reading will give you a good idea of whether you'll like the comic as a whole.
The follow-up to the smash-hit The Secret Loves of Geek Girls,this brand new anthology features comic and prose stories from cartoonists and professional geeks about their most intimate, heartbreaking, and inspiring tales of love, sex, and dating. This volume includes creators of diverse genders, orientations, and cultural backgrounds.
Featuring work by Margaret Atwood (The Handmaid's Tale), Gerard Way (Umbrella Academy), Patrick Rothfuss (The Name of the Wind), Dana Simpson (Phoebe and Her Unicorn), Gabby Rivera (America), Hope Larson, (Batgirl), Cecil Castellucci (Soupy Leaves Home), Valentine De Landro (Bitch Planet), Marley Zarcone (Shade), Sfe R. Monster (Beyond: A queer comics anthology), Amy Chu (Wonder Woman), cover art by Becky Cloonan (Demo), and more!
Four stories of love and lust from comics' coolest artists and writer ALEX DE CAMPI! First, a demon who prowls the 1978 New York disco scene in Old Flames, drawn by KATIE SKELLY. Then, a curvy photographer's assistant who falls in love with someone way out of her league in Twinkle & The Star, with ALEJANDRA GUTIÉRREZ. A spacefleet captain who captures a most infuriating pirate in Invincible Heart, with CARLA SPEED MCNEIL. And a princess who runs away with a dragon in Treasured, with TRUNGLES.
Plus steamy prose romance stories from awesome folks like Magen Cubed and Vita Ayala, and more comics shorts about love from Meredith McClaren, Sarah Horrocks, Margaret Trauth and Sarah Winifred Searle.
Collects Twisted Romance #1-4.