This is Universal Love, a month-long spotlight on LGBTQ comic book stories that I have enjoyed over the years. This isn't meant as a "Best Of" list, since there are so many great works out there and so I'll spread the love around a bit, as it were.

Today, we look at Bingo Love, from Tee Franklin, Jenn St. Onge and Joy San. I loved this love story so much that I featured it in my month of comics back in January as my pick for a love story I love, so I had to feature it here, too!

Bingo Love is a delightful love story published by Image Comics about two women (Hazel and Mari) who first met when they were barely even teenagers in 1963 at their local Church Bingo...

For Hazel, it was love at first sight, but her feelings for Mari were still so new for her that she wasn't really sure what she felt for Mari other than she wanted to be her friend and be around her all the time. This all changed when Mari gave her a seemingly innocent kiss on the cheek and Hazel realized that she was in love with Mari...

Eventually, she learned that Mari felt the same way, but by this point, even though they were basically adults, it was still 1967 and so the idea of two black girls from conservative families would be able to be together was still a bit of a fantasy and so their respective families tore them apart. They both got married and had families and they didn't see each other again for almost fifty years, until Hazel was at a Mother's Day Bingo with her youngest child, who was almost forty years old and pregnant when she made one of the most amazing discoveries of her life...Mari!

If Bingo Love was only about two young black women dealing with their love for each other in the 1960s, it would already be a powerful story, but Franklin cleverly goes well beyond that with the story of what happens when they are able to reunite after almost 50 years. What do you do when you've been married for almost 50 years and have three children and a bunch of grandkids? Franklin handles what comes next beautifully. I especially marvel at how well she handles the reactions of the various other people in her life (her daughter does not exactly react well to her mother suddenly kissing another woman in front of everyone at church).

If you have a suggestion for an LGBTQ work that you'd like to see me spotlight, feel free to drop me a line at brianc@cbr.com.