Transfixed is a trans and genderqueer erotic comics anthology that collects over 200 pages of brand-new stories, all exploring the fantastical worlds of fairy tales!
Title: My Boyfriend is a Bear
Creators: Format: EBook Print
Color: Color
Romanceiness: Definitely a Romance
Heat: PG13
Tags: comedy
Creators: Format: EBook Print
Color: Color
Romanceiness: Definitely a Romance
Heat: PG13
Tags: comedy
Where to Buy or Read:
Synopsis from the Creator:
Bear meets girl.
Nora has bad luck with men. When she meets an (actual) bear on a hike in the Los Angeles hills, he turns out to be the best romantic partner she’s ever had! He’s considerate, he’s sweet, he takes care of her. But he’s a bear, and winning over her friends and family is difficult. Not to mention he has to hibernate all winter. Can true love conquer all?
Love In Panels' Review:
I'll admit, when I first heard about MY BOYFRIEND IS A BEAR, my romance-reviewer brain went straight to "werebear." I was 100% expecting a man who turns into a bear on occasion. Maybe a rather hirsute man who was large and soft like a bear. Well, dear reader, I was selling this book short. The heroine, Nora, does indeed have a boyfriend and he is indeed a bear.
The bear, who never has a human name, is somewhere between 400 and 500 pounds, depending on proximity to hibernation. He and Nora have a meet-terrified (not at all a meet-cute) in the woods while she's avoiding yet another awful human boyfriend. When forest fires drive the wildlife south and into LA, Nora discovers a familiar bear rummaging through her trash bins. Thus begins an unusual romance, full of broken furniture and awkward conversations.
Bear is suprisingly considerate, handy, and compassionate. While Nora's friends and family certainly don't approve of the relationship (and are rather vocal about it), the central conflict arrives with the change of seasons - hibernation. Nora's finally found the boyfriend of her dreams, but can their relationship last while he sleeps for four months? Will he forget all about her?
The book comes in at just over 160 full-color pages, full of art that's so cute you can almost forget that Nora and Bear are engaging in an inter-species romance. It is, after all, a "complete" relationship, with physical intimacy not on page but heavily implied. The book is jam-packed with jokes, from honey-beer to claw-marks on the bathtub, which helpfully shift the tone from unsavory to downright sweet. It's a story of a love that doesn't make sense to anyone else, but seems to work quite well for the couple. If you can suspend your disbelief, you'll be in for a fun, light-hearted story of joy coming from unexpected places.
I've been a big fan of First Second since I started reading getting really into comics, so I'm thrilled to read this piece of news.
Faith Erin Hicks pairs a socially awkward hockey girl with an outgoing, confident drama boy in her latest YA graphic novel. Alix loves hockey, but her teammates... not so much. Team Captain Lindsay is a bully and none of the other girls stand up for Alix for fear of Lindsay turning on them next. Classic toxic high school behavior. One day something in Alix flips and she punches Lindsay. She's horrified by her behavior and, most of all, the fact that she didn't seem to be in control of herself at all.
The Princess and the Grilled Cheese Sandwich is almost exactly what the cover suggests: a whimsical queer romance with lots of cheese.
While everyone else was busy theorizing about Alexander Hamilton and John Laurens, Josh Trujillo and Levi Hastings were captivated by the story of Baron von Steuben, a Prussian military strategist--and kind of a con man, tbh--who played a pivotal role in the American Revolutionary War. Washington's Gay General: The Legends and Loves of Baron von Steuben is the expansion of Trujillo's much shorter comic at The Nib and is a much more thorough biography supplemented with author commentary, historical context and the inclusion of other figures of the time.
Thanks to Shop Your Shelves, I finally read Life of Melody, by Mari Costa. It's everything I hoped it would be.
Way back in 2018, I wrote a post about Merfolk in Romance and included what was then a webtoon publishing on Tapas, The Sea in You. Five years later--dang, I've been at this for a while--Iron Circus is publishing it in all its sapphic underwater glory! This full-color book is out in March, 2023.
When folks come to me looking for high quality erotic comics (this is more frequent than you might think), I almost always point them toward Iron Circus Comics' Smut Peddler series. These are giant collections of just-long-enough comics full of consent and joy, pining and hope, diverse bodies and identities and more. They're often weird, unique or thought-provoking. In all, they're good smutty fun.
Money Shot is a classic case of an entertaining premise falling apart after the first few issues. Without doing any research, I suspect that the creative team had planned out one arc and then the series was successful enough that they got more issues and just flailed about for a while. All that said, the first trade is very funny and appropriately porny.
Sigh. Chef's Kiss is pretty to look at (art below) but it's really shallowly developed. The opening scenes consist of Ben moving in with three roommates shortly after graduating from college. He applies to and interviews for lots of writing and editing jobs before stumbling upon a job opening at a nearby vegetarian restaurant. Thus begins a drawn out plot in which Ben has to cook three existing dishes and develop one new one for the restaurant and get approval of the chef's pig, Watson.
