Once upon a time, the best selling comics weren’t about superheroes – they were romance anthologies. You can find my review of a collection of the oldest romance comics line, Young Romance, here. These romance comics were unabashedly soapy and melodramatic, but not very diverse. Now we have a new romance comic magazine, Fresh Romance.
In my review of the first issue, I said that the first issue was too short but that the stories have promise. Now that Issue 2 is here, I feel pretty much the same – the stories are so much fun, but it’s frustrating to see so little of them at a time.
In this second issue, the three stories take more shape. School Spirit involves a Corrine, who can do magic and who is dating a mortal boy in secret, and Malie and Justine, a lesbian couple. Corrine helps Malie and Justine hide their relationship and they help her hide hers. Corrine’s dads are fine with her dating “a warlock, or a witch – we don’t judge!” as long as she doesn’t date a mortal, which I thought was a cute touch. Not much happening with this storyline yet except that both couples have a need for secrecy, both couples are adorable, and there’s an element of fantasy with Corrine and her magical dads.
Ruined is a Regency romance that moves very slowly. I love the art – it’s very simple and soft and flowing. I love that it’s a Regency romance, because hey, who doesn’t like Regency romance? But there’s not much happening yet. Catherine has some scandal in her past and is clearly still carrying a torch for the past guy, whatever his deal is, but she just got married to someone else to save the family honor and she’s worried because, as she says to her sister (or possibly best friend), “No decent man would want me, so what does that say about him? Either he does not want me, or he is not decent.” That’s a pretty stunning line but the rest of the issue is her riding to her new husbands’ estate in his carriage and falling asleep on the way. So…not a lot going on yet.
My favorite story so far is The Ruby Equation. In the last issue, it looked like Ruby had made her quota for matchmaking and was about to return to her home planet. But apparently her matches aren’t working out. She has to stay on earth until she can make “a truly swoony match” involving someone who “has given up on love entirely.” Ruby has the perfect couple in mind – but Ruby herself seems to have a certain chemistry with a certain guy. It’s a cute story that actually moves forward a bit in this issue.
Even though I’m a comics fan, I’ve never liked the issue-by-issue format because it’s too little story (for my taste) at a time. That’s why I tend to wait for trades, which are volumes that collect a series of issues into a single book.
In this instance, not only do you have a small number of pages in each issue, but also those pages are shared by three individual stories, so you barely get a glimpse of them before they are over. This will probably not bother fans who are comfortable with and accustomed to the format of comic book issues. It’s also totally consistent with the genre that the editor and contributors are paying tribute to.
Still, as a reader, I’m frustrated that as soon as I get curious about a story we are off to the next one. In this issue, the worst offender is Ruined, which involves a two second long conversation and a nap. With a longer format, these scenes might help build an atmosphere of dread and estrangement, but as presented I feel like the issue is wasted on filler when it comes to that storyline.
Speaking of art, this issue has a great article on fashion in romance comics in the 1960’s and 1970’s. If you are into fashion be sure to check it out. As usual, there’s a romance advice column as well.
I recommend this comic with the qualifier that you may find the format frustrating. If you prefer to read your stories in longer chunks, then you might want to wait a few months for issues to pile up and then have a nice happy binge. The benefit to buying issues as they come out is that it’s a good way to support the series and ensure that there’s something to binge on later. Common sense would dictate that I would collect each issue but save them to read later but that requires a level of self-control I do not possess! The art is great (each story has its own art style), the characters are engaging, and the storylines seem interesting, and the inclusion of diversity is matter-of-fact instead of being preachy or fetishistic. The only drawback is that clearly story development is going to be a slow process.
I always wait for the trades for that same reason.