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Blue is having a hard time moving on. He’s in love with his best friend. He’s also dead. Luckily, Hamal can see ghosts, leaving Blue free to haunt him to his heart’s content. But something eerie is happening in town, leaving the local afterlife unsettled, and when Blue realizes Hamal’s strange ability may be putting him in danger, Blue has to find a way to protect him, even if it means… leaving him.
This review is a bit late, since the 6 year old living in this household stole my copy of TAPROOT and ran off with it for a week. When I finally snagged it back and immersed myself in the beautiful, eerie world that Keezy Young created, I completely understood the 6 year old's urge to read it over and over.
Pitched as "a story about a gardener and a ghost," TAPROOT is part love story, part ghost story, part spooky fantasy. If, like me, you don't love horror but do love Halloween, this book is perfect for the season. There's a lot of eeriness to be had, particularly when Blue (the ghostie) starts being pulled through the veil. Said eeriness is balanced with beautiful verdant plant imagery and a sweet love story that transcends the limits of space and physical vitality. Without giving a spoiler, I'll warn romance readers that the HEA isn't what you probably expect/hope for in a romance.
You'll notice that I let my 6 year old read it - it's definitely something you can give to kids to read. There's a kiss, there's a bit of spooky, and some peril at one point, but it's very cute and the ghosties are kids and teens.
As for the art, you can get a pretty clear idea of Keezy Young's style based on the cover. The book is in color, with a palette of greens and browns and a muted blue that suit the book's themes of nature and life. It's a style that will either appeal to readers or be sort of "meh," and I think I fit into the latter category. The story, however, resonated with me enough that I eventually settled into the art style and ended up loving the book as a whole.
Jon Macy, longtime contributor to gay comics publications such as Gay Comics and Boy Trouble, has adapted a moving and erotic gay love story from Oscar Wilde’s classic Teleny: Or the Reverse of the Medal.
Camille, a wealthy young gentleman in Victorian London, falls in love with the handsome and mesmerizing pianist Teleny. While Teleny performs on stage, the two star-crossed lovers discover they share a psychic link in the form of an erotic vision. While Camille struggles to resist his homosexuality Teleny is being pursued by others. After telepathically witnessing the erotic encounters Teleny has with both sexes, Camille attempts suicide. Teleny rescues Camille physically and emotionally with his rapturous love forsaking all others. In this newfound happiness Camille tries to forget that Teleny owes much of his success to the generosity of the women who desire him.
Fans of gay comics and gay love stories will devour this sensual tome.
May 16, 2008 - In the span of a single day, Amal calls off his arranged marriage, comes out to his conservative parents, promptly gets disowned, goes on a bender... and wakes up the next morning to find TJ, a lanky, dreadlocked vagrant, frying eggs and singing Paul Simon in his kitchen.
TJ claims that the two have made a drunken pact to drive all the way from Berkeley to Providence. As it happens, Amal promised his sister he'd be there for her graduation from Brown University. And TJ, well... TJ has his own reasons. The agreement is simple: Amal does the driving; TJ pays the way - but a 3500 mile journey leaves plenty of time for things to get complicated.
Featuring 19 comics by 23 different creators, THE OTHER SIDE is a celebration of queer romance and the paranormal! Inside, you'll find positive romance stories featuring a wide variety of queer and trans protagonists -- as well as poltergeists, shadow monsters, guitar-playing hypnotists, lost angels, genderfluid vampires, trickster ghosts, and many more!
THE OTHER SIDE features the talents of: Kou Chen, Mari Costa, Natasha Donovan, Melanie Gillman, Kori Michele Handwerker, Gisele Jobateh, Margaret Kirchner, Hannah Krieger, F. Lee, Kate Leth, Mildred Louis, Sfé R. Monster, Katie O'Neill, Amelia Onorato, Aatmaja Pandya, Fyodor Pavlov, Bitmap Prager, Ezra Rose, Britt Sabo, Bishakh K. Som, Sarah W. Searle, Laurel Varian, Mary Verhoeven, and CB Webb.
As a reader of comics and paranormal romance novels, I was reeeeally excited about this anthology. While I ended up really liking it, it wasn't what I was expecting, so here are the talking points summarized for you:
If you want a light, happy read in which you can find some queer people finding happiness with paranormal entities, this is the book for you.
Our comic was inspired from Tchaikovsky’s “The Swan Lake”. However we have twisted the characters, events, and setting into our own shape and made a story of loyalty, love, duty and greed that we are very excited to share with you all.The comic begins, as fairy-tales so often do, in a faraway land, with mysterious events on the edge of a forest that will put the Prince of the kingdom on the path of an adventure that will forever change his fate, and the fate of two kingdoms.
Pitched to us on Twitter as a "comedy/drama about some queer boys in the 90's, mostly dealing with abuse."
15th century Europe — To foster good relations with its southern territories, the Holy Roman Empire has been sending one of its princes on yearly visits to the Kingdom of Italy.
Tomas is the son of a powerful Sienese family who have the privilege of hosting the royal visits. He’s been spending his summers with prince Emil at a remote family estate in Civita. But Emil is an ostentatious, spoiled brat, and Tomas couldn’t care less for such “honor.” The only thing that makes the whole situation bearable is another boy in prince’s retinue. Matthias is everything Emil is not: kind, easy going, and makes for good company; nicknamed “St. Matthias” for his God given ability to ease the effects of prince’s grating personality.Having to play nice with royalty is a pain, but Tomas’ true worry is a private one—he’s unfulfilled in his romantic life. Relationships seem so complicated. Pessimistic about anything long term, he’s equally unenthusiastic about the casual life of a bachelor. But…what else is there?Contemplation leads him stumbling into unexpected feelings for Matthias, his childhood friend. Consumed by this newly discovered attraction, and eager to forget his woes, Tomas dreams of a fun, uncomplicated summer romance.But what awaits him is anything but simple. The young men who return to Italy the following summer are not the Matthias and Emil that Tomas once knew. Both have changed in unexpected ways, and more importantly, both are hiding something. Tomas soon finds himself drawn into a mystery spanning two years and three hearts—one of which is his own.
The Sun Prince, The Saint and the Changeling is a Renaissance romance with modern sensibilities. It’s an original BL graphic novel by Chama.
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.
Leslie J. Blair is a simple pig girl, she loves sushi and she is trapped in a job that she hates. She lives with Trish, her best friend. In her world, which is full of anthropomorphic creatures, with a totalitarian government that interferes in the personal lives of its citizens, up to the point of allowing only relationships between individuals of the same race. The transgressors are punished. They are accused of being... unnatural!
Leslie dreams of something different for herself. But these dreams are becoming dangerous, especially because they feature a mysterious wolf. And, when she wakes up, she thinks that she is being watched... And, as if that were not enough, on the day of her twenty-fifth birthday, Leslie receive an email that she would never have wanted to receive.
But she still does not know it's just the beginning...
The hit Italian comic, a fantasy, erotica, romantic suspense series by MIRKA ANDOLFO (Wonder Woman, Harley Quinn, DC Comics Bombshells) will bring you in a colorful but terrible world, where personal freedoms are superfluous. Follow Leslie on a breathtaking plot, between thriller and fantasy with a touch of sensuality.
A graphic novel biography of Baron von Steuben, the soldier, immigrant, and flamboyant homosexual who influenced the course of US history during the Revolutionary War despite being omitted from our textbooks
In this graphic novel biography, author Josh Trujillo and illustrator Levi Hastings tell the true story of one of the most important, but largely forgotten, military leaders of the American Revolution, Baron Von Steuben, who brought much-needed knowledge to the inexperienced and ill-prepared Continental Army. As its first Inspector General, Von Steuben created an organizational framework for the US military, which included writing the Blue Book guide that became the standard for training American soldiers for more than a century.
Von Steuben was also, by all accounts, a flamboyant homosexual in an era when the term didn’t even exist. Beginning with Von Steuben’s career in the Prussian Army, Trujillo explores his recruitment by Benjamin Franklin, his work alongside General George Washington at Valley Forge, and his eventual decline into obscurity. In Washington’s Gay General, Trujillo and Hastings impart both the intricacies of queer history and the importance of telling stories that highlight queer experiences.