Something Different
- School Spirit: Written by Kate Leth, Art by Arielle Jovellanos, Colors by Amanda Scurti, Color Assit by Enlsey Chau and Clare Dezubbi, Letters by Taylor Esposito
- Ruined: Written by Sara Vaughn, Art by Sarah Winifred Searle, Letters by Ryan Ferrier, Historical Consultant Joanne Renaud
- The Ruby Equation: Written by Sarah Kuhn, Art by Sally Jane Thompson, Colors by Savanna Ganucheau, Letters by Steve Wands
So confession time, I have a huge soft spot for romance stories. I love me some rom-coms, and think Four Weddings and a Funeral is one of the best films of the 90s. So when the Rosy Press Kickstarter was launched by comics editor and ComicsAlliance contributor Janelle Asselin my interest was piqued. Romance comics were at one point a major part of the early comic book industry during the age before Superheroes and sometime after in post-WW II America. The King himself, Jack Kirby worked the genre with titles like Young Romance. Now they are a footnote in the cape driven mainstream historiography of the medium.
I rarely bring up price, but it is worth noting that Fresh Romance #1 is $4.99 on both the Rosy Press website and Comixology. For that price you get 40 pages, 30 are story content, each short runs ten pages, and some background information on the design of Kevin Wada’s cover, the Dicorce(e) Club letters section, and character sheets for “The Ruby Equation”. Since I backed this during its Kickstarter, I was able to purchase a 6 month subscription for $25. Currently Rosy Press is offering a 12 month subscription for $49.99. As an individual purchase this may not be the best deal. There is plenty of content to be had but none of it can provide the catharsis one seeks when reading a story(yet). This is akin to the grouping of old serial programs or episodic television; no one thing can provide the pay off most likely.
Overall as a package, Fresh Romance delivers what is promised with a varied selection of stories within the romance genre but all digging into separate sub genres, presented with unique creative teams. “School Spirit” is a high school queer romance with a twist. “Ruined” is a regency romance (think Jane Austen). And “The Ruby Equation” is a matchmaker comedy.
I wouldn’t say Regency Romance is really my thing because prior to this I didn’t even know that was technically the generic classification for stories such as Pride & Prejudice. When put to film, the manners driven setting creates an interesting play on melodrama expectation. Characters, often talk in verbose and heightened fashioned that isn’t too far removed from Starz’ Spartacus minus all the awesome swearing and punning. Their dialog is so heightened it creates a dissonance with the lack of heightened expression on the face, where most melodramatic value is derived; they present a stiff upper lip. This lack of physical action can be derived from both social norms and well the costuming while beautiful probably isn’t the most movable.
Presenting melodrama in comic book or more traditional artistic form is an interesting navigation. Whereas film is literally moving pictures, comic books are static images meant to convey many and singular things all at once. As a comic book “Ruined” relies upon a synthesis of the dialog/narration written by Sara Vaughn and art provided by Sarah Winifred Searle to create the drama and to a degree that melodramatic dissonance. Vaughn’s words though most be put to the page by letterer Ryan Ferrier, who gives a skeuomorphic design the narration provided by the letter Catherine is reading. However, the lettering was a small and hard to read on my Nexus 7 tablet without going into the panel view in the Comixology app. Searle’s character and overall design is a surprisingly effective mixture of complex and cartoony. Her character designs aren’t overly complex but the costuming on them is. Look at the wedding headband, Catherine is wearing or the detail on her future husband’s jacket compared to the faces or background. In terms of actual emotional evocation the little nuances Searle gives with Catherine’s eyes is amazing. Just small little shifts in perspective totally remake the emotion being presented on her face. She’s the only one presenting emotion for the most part everyone else is that stiff upper lip.
“Ruined” opening chapter is largely propelled by dialog or narration that isn’t provided by its lead, Catherine, a woman who is about to get married. As reader we have to play catch up to what is about to happen. It’s a purposefully limiting chapter, leaving us with more questions on a totally dramatic cliffhanger.
“School Spirit” has one of the most immediately recognizable creatives in writer Kate Leth(Adventure Time, Bravest Warrior) and a more contemporary and understandable setting: High School. At = 10 pages there has to be a lot of narrative efficiency, necessary to setup what’s to come and tell an interesting episodic story. “School Sprit” opening chapter isn’t the most efficient story in Fresh Romance. Centered around 3 friends, Justine, Malie—who isn’t named in the issue but is in the back—,Corrine, and Miles, “School Spriit” is solicited as a romance between Justine and Malie who do not wish to have their relationship known to the school. So they use fighting over Miles affection as cover, which provides some good opportunity for double entendres. The fact that this story centered around two women isn’t the twist, they’re also witches!
“School Sprit” opening chapter throws a lot out there without much in the way of pay off. There is some effective character development due to the art provided by Arielle Jovellanos, showing a range of emotive reaction to situations. I don’t really have a clue what’s going to happen in this but using the setting and social norms of high school (both preformative and not) has me interested.
Fresh Romance final story is “The Ruby Equation” a surprisingly whimsical story about a binary matchmaking alien (though she could also be an angel you don’t know). The titular Ruby has been sent on a mission to make 10,044 matches and it’s her lucky day.
The coffee shop setting is an interesting place for such a story. In many ways due to Friends it’s the equivalent of the day time bars, people just sit there working and sipping coffee quietly alone. Baristas are kind of like bartenders but without the tropic sage wisdom provided for the price of a glass at Happy Hour.
Ruby’s kind of cold formulaic driven sense of matchmaking is countered nicely with the vibrant cartoony art provided by art team Sally Jane Thompson(pencils) and Savanna Ganucheau(color). O yeah she also has a matchmaking cat faerie thing, this story has a lot of personality to it. Ruby isn’t totally cold hearted or unexpressive as drawn by Thompson but she is written to be like that. But after making 10,044 matches you tend to demystify some of the magic.
Overall I backed Fresh Romance because I wanted something different in my comics consumption and so far this is defiantly different. In a time when the Big Two a running cross dimensional crossovers and blowing up their multiverses there’s something nice about how “normal” this is.
I am Michael Mazzacane. You can find me on Twitter @MaZZM and at ComicWeek andNXTDayTV.