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One kiss from Tinka's sparkling lips leads to some unexpected consequences for the callous boys of Portage High School. After a secret romance goes up in flames, she looks to a fortune teller for answers on finding true love, which leads to the summoning of some accidental — but hilarious — magic. But in the end, Tinka has to learn to take responsibility for her own decisions, with or without the aid of magic.
First things first: the description of this comic is a bit misleading. I don't find it about Tinka learning to take responsibility for her actions so much as all of the boys in her life learning to take responsibility for theirs. Tinka is every girl who wants to be liked and is trying (unsuccessfully) to fit our society's completely unattainable criteria for acceptance and love.
Tinka likes makeup and dressing up. After she overhears the boy she's been secretly seeing (because he refuses to go public with their relationship), Tinka asks a friend to read her palm. Magic happens, and her newest, glittery lipgloss is enchanted. That boy, Jason, wakes up the next day as a girl, and has to experience the weight of societal expectations of women for the first time.
A while back, one of the other boys at school decided to publicly shame Tinka because she wouldn't do anything more than kiss him. In her words, "A slut is someone who sleeps with everyone. A bitch is someone who sleeps with everyone but you." Tinka is called both, and mocked by both sexes at school. It's an unfortunately honest and common high school story.
I appreciated the revenge fantasy that is GLITTER KISS. It was refreshing to see both boys and girls buying into and falling victim to misogynistic mores. Not that it's fun in fiction or in real life, but it's important that we acknowledge that it's not just boys or just girls who treat girls poorly for these reasons. A girl labeled "easy" is going to get hit from all sides. A girl who visibly seeks approval and affection? Even worse. She must be desperate.
Tinka's eventual confrontations with Jason, with her father, and with the boys at school who've been mistreating her are resolved in what I felt was a wholly satisfactory way, and I kind of wanted to do a fist pump. Don't take their shit, baby girl.
Gothic Tales of Haunted Love is an exciting new collection of gothic romance comics.In 1950s Vietnam, a lost soul comes to the aid of a farmer’s field under attack.In Victorian Boston, a new governess comes to care for the rogueish widower of a stately manor and his charming brood of children.A fashion journalist lands the interview of her dreams – but it unearths deadly secrets of Taiwan’s most popular fashion designer.A Sioux elder heals a recently deceased woman who sets out to recover her lost love. And a young bride spins a story of murder and deceit that paints her husband as a killer . . . but is there any truth to her tale?Featuring 19 original stories from some of modern comics’ finest talent, Gothic Tales of Haunted Love collects fragments of lovers torn apart, ghostly revenge, and horrific deeds, in the vein of 1970s gothic romance comics such as Haunted Love, Ghostly Tales, Dark Mansion of Forbidden Love, and Gothic Romances. Discover a diverse range of heroes and villains, spirits and monsters, in a modern reimagining that will leave your heart pounding and broken in the same seductive breath. Contributors and stories include:
Gothic Tales of Haunted Love was one of my most anticipated titles of 2018. I backed it on Kickstarter and was enchanted by the images I saw in preview. You can read the launch post here. All of this is to say that I suspect my expectations were set too high and somewhat unrealistically. The resulting anthology is a solid piece of work, filled with beautiful gothic paintings and some creative twists on gothic stories of old.
It's also not romance. The love in these stories is that of a fleeting encounter with a phantom; a powerful need to protect children from an abusive father; a war-time show of brotherhood (or more). There are a few HEAs, but it's probably better to approach this anthology as an experiment in trope subversion than as a romance anthology. Heroes and heroines come from varying sexual orientations and racial and ethnic backgrounds and occupy space in different time periods and locations. There's certainly a gothic element to each story, something spooky or unexplainable or just plain terrifying, but I'm not sure the volume as a whole is cohesive.
I will say that, given the current political climate, it was immensely satisfying to see a female serial killer take out her romantic competition before realizing that it was the man she desired who was the true obstacle to her happiness. Whatever it takes to keep those kids safe and happy, right?
Overall, I found myself visually drawn to the paintings and to several of the comics. My heart, however, was most engaged by the foreword written by Jacque Nodell, who runs the vintage romance comics site, Sequential Crush. She walks us through the history of gothic romance comics and how they changed to be less romantic and more of a horror genre. It's a fascinating piece of comics history.
Toby Landon's love life is a bloody mess. His on and off girlfriend has once again tossed him aside. His mate Mark gives him some advice: Try something different. With a kiss, the lives of these two friends go from being black and white to being full of vivid color. But, all colors can get a little hazy...
Heartbreak's a bitch.
No one knows this better than Eulalie "Lee" Griffin.
After three years of what seemed like the perfect relationship, she found herself watching Ant leave after the discovery of his long-term affair.
A demon summoning later, Lee's down one ex-boyfriend after a brief reconciliation that only uncovered the depth of Ant's deceit.
It's only a matter of time before Rosier collects. There's still questions about the circumstances around Ant's death, not to mention damage control for any unforseen consequences of Lee's actions.
From Volume 1:
From critically acclaimed creator Natasha Alterici (Gotham Academy) comes an Nordic fantasy adventure that defies conventions and expectations. Aydis is a viking, a warrior, an outcast, and a self-proclaimed heathen. Aydis is friend to the talking horse Saga, rescuer of the immortal Valkyrie Brynhild, and battler of demons and fantastic monsters. Aydis is a woman. Born into a time of warfare, suffering, and subjugation of women, she is on a mission to end the oppressive reign of the god-king Odin.
Collects the first four sold-out issues!
When Chris joins the staff at her local record store, she’s surprised to find out that her co-workers share a secret: they’re all members of a secret fight club that take on the patriarchy and fight crime!
Starry-eyed Chris has just started the dream job every outcast kid in town wants: working at Vinyl Mayhem. It's as rad as she imagined; her boss is BOSS, her co-workers spend their time arguing over music, pushing against the patriarchy, and endlessly trying to form a band. When Rosie Riot, the staff's favorite singer, mysteriously vanishes the night before her band’s show, Chris discovers her co-workers are doing more than just sorting vinyl . . . Her local indie record store is also a front for a teen girl vigilante fight club!
Follow writer Carly Usdin (director of Suicide Kale) and artist Nina Vakueva (Lilith’s World) into Heavy Vinyl, where they deliver a rock and roll tale of intrigue and boundless friendship.
After a long journey, the young witch Victoria finally arrived in Port Arbores, the city on the edge of the abyss. Can the city’s secret protector, the Strayer, help her find her missing mother?
"HERE LIES is a beautiful and atmospheric love story between two young women, one of whom happens to be a ghost. Her mortal lover is pulled further from the world of the living as she tries to free her from the abandoned house she's forced to haunt." — MICEXPO
HIDE & SEEK: A CRYPTID TRIPTYCH is 79 pages of gorgeous smooching magic! From a cozy stroll through snowy hemlock forests to a deep dive through crystal caves, each story tells the tale of a search for love in a wild world of cryptids and magic. With art to charm and words to spellbind, this collection of three short comics from consummate artists Maria Frantz, Caitlin Like and Aud Koch is the perfect addition to your Hallowe’en (& General Spoopy-Feels) bookshelf!
The table of contents:
Maria Frantz’s “Hector and the Hidebehind” is the charming tale of a grumpy old biologist who finally meets the cryptid he’s been researching for years — and things don’t go as planned.
Caitlin Like’s “My Reluctant Prince” is a hilarious romp about a royal bodyguard who is banished from the surface world, and must choose between returning home or rescuing his kidnapped prince.
Aud Koch’s “The Flicker in the Tower” is an epic ballad about a dragon on a quest to save the cursed fairy prince he loves.(Each comic is guaranteed to contain one good smooch, or you get your money back!)
New York Times bestseller Faith Erin Hicks is back with Hockey Girl Loves Drama Boy, a young adult graphic novel romance about a hotheaded hockey player who asks for temper management lessons from the cool, calm boy in drama club.
It should have been a night of triumph for Alix’s hockey team. But her mean teammate Lindsay decided to start up with her usual rude comments and today Alix, who usually tries to control her anger, let it finally run free. Alix lashes out and before she knows it, her coach is dragging her off Lindsay, and the invitation to the Canada National Women’s U18 Team’s summer camp is on the line.
She needs to learn how to control this anger, and she is sure Ezra, the popular and poised theater kid from her grade is the answer. So she asks for his help. But as they hang out and start get closer, Alix learns that there is more to Ezra than the cool front he puts on. And that maybe this friendship could become something more....