Anthologies are back and romance comics are too, but Image Comics' Twisted Romance, a February-debuting romance comic anthology, does both of these a bit differently. The Alex de Campi-led four-issue miniseries pairs the writer with four different artists, shifting romance subgenres from noir to science fiction to fantasy.
Those teams are backed up by a second original comic and a prose story, each of which is fine tuned for the Twisted Romance vibe. As the organizer, curator, and lead writer for the series, de Campi could have approached the project as an auteur, but it’s clear from conversations with the team that Twisted Romance was collaborative from concept to completion.
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The basic concept of the book, a reinterpretation of Kirby/Simon and Lee/Romita Sr. romance comics, was something that de Campi hit on while vacationing in Maine. But making it a two-cover flip book that includes prose stories to smooth out the reading experience came from her collaborators.
“Peggy Trauth [backup cartoonist for issue #3] suggested we do the stories as a flip book when I broached having the backup artists do a back cover as well," de Campi said. "Then we added prose stories and bumped the book up to 48 pages, so when you finished one comics story you didn't end up at the last page of the other (flipped) comics story.” The effect is tactile and psychological: when reading the physical comic you get a break, a breath, and then you dive back in for another twisted tale, refocused. Flip books shift the weight of your attention so that backup stories seem less like a free gift with purchase, and more like a gift in and of themselves.
De Campi’s intent for the series wasn’t specifically to do something different, but she and her collaborators have gone and done that anyway. It’s a spectacularly curated miniseries. Issue #1 pairs de Campi with Katie Skelly for a noir tribute with a backup comic from Sarah Horrocks and a prose story by Magen Cubed. Issue #2 sees newcomer Alejandra Gutiérrez pair with de Campi on a fashion industry thriller, backed up by a new Meredith McClaren comic and a prose story from comics writer Vita Ayala. Skelly, de Campi, Horrocks and Cubed are all film nerds and fans of dark, sexy and weird. Gutiérrez, McClaren and Ayala all explore new and not yet settled romances.
"Allowing creators to interpret the idea of romance really pays off," Ayala said. "I had a lot of freedom on the project, and although I think given the same specific prompt, three different creators will come up with very unique end result, the encouragement to just take it and run really lets a creator explore themselves and the genre. You can learn a lot about a person with what they choose to do given the freedom, and you can learn a lot about yourself too.”
Issues #3 and #4, which round off the weekly release mini, pair de Campi with Carla Speed McNeil, in concert with a backup comic by Margaret Trauth and prose story by Jess Bradley, and with Trungles, backed up by a Sara Winifred Searles comic and Naomi Salman story. Where the lead artists were working from a de Campi script, all the backup creators were given a prompt and then set free to do what they would with it.
Having put together these teams largely from her existing network of friends and faves, de Campi was hands off. As she puts it, she “reached out to a bunch of people who were friends. That's the whole secret of who got picked for the book. A lot less thought went into it than many seem to believe. I flapped my hands at Trungles and Katie and Alejandra and Carla and went ‘help!’ and they laughed at me and agreed. I approached the backup folks next, and pretty much everyone said yes.” It’s kind of like if Island, the Image anthology curated by Brandon Graham, had a more specific focus.
Where Island allowed Graham’s favorite creators to do pretty much whatever they wanted -- and whatever they couldn’t do elsewhere -- Twisted Romance puts de Campi’s dream team to work within certain boundaries. The structural limits of a strict format and the creative limits of a genre prompt ensures that each story in miniseries speaks to every other one. Those limits also guarantee a tight focus that most other anthologies, too often bloated with filler stories in hopes that something, anything will stick, can’t deliver.
Have you ever felt winded by reading an anthology comic? Like that long sequences of comics, comics, comics has no clear starting or stopping points, and no natural flow? By opting to include fewer stories and giving them a regular format, de Campi and company have created a comic that includes many different voices, singing one tune: Twisted Romance is a complete and considered product, in a way that few other anthologies can claim. “
Alex’s vision is very articulate, and I think that’s the edge we have," Katie Skelly said. "The art is stellar and it’s all coming from very particular, distinct artists. A lot of versatility and hard work will be on display, and I’m so pleased to be a part of it.”
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Sarah Horrocks echoed Skelly’s comments. She said the setup of Twisted Romance -- freedom within a few limits -- and the team, helped to inspire her comic in issue #1. She explored similar terrain as her self-published romance-horror comic Goro does, but Skelly’s presence on the book helped sell her on the project. Skelly and Horrocks’ stories do similar work here, leveraging retro romance aesthetics. They’re well paired.
“Katie is a good friend, and someone who keeps me from slipping in terms of my comics, but it's also cool to see stuff from Trungles who I think is amazing, and Alejandra, who I think this is the longest comic thing of hers I've gotten to read, but she's really talented and super smart," Horrocks said. "I think everyone Alex picked for the project are powerhouses in their own right, so it's really cool to see all of those forces harnessed in one direction in such a short amount of time.”
Including prose stories is another part of what sets Twisted Romance apart. Extensive backmatter is increasingly common in comics again, and when prose is included in comics, that’s too often what it’s treated as: an afterthought, complementary to the lead story but of clearly less importance. But the return of backmatter (and the proliferation of comics magazines) can be traced to Kelly Sue DeConnick's curation work on Bitch Planet, where the essays aren’t explanatory or extra credit reading, but are as much of a selling point as the comic itself.
In Twisted Romance, de Campi is doing something similar. There are only four prose stories, one per issue, and every writer was thoughtfully selected, reflecting de Campi’s tastes and bringing to the table their own. They’re fanfic writers, mostly, in addition to their other published work, and that’s important. Why fic writers? Well, because fic is great, of course. But de Campi zeroed in on one of fanfic’s greatest strengths: “how well the emotional arcs [are] executed.”
Comics, especially superhero and licensed comics, get compared to fanfic a lot. But although they’re both forms of derivative fiction, they are distinct, both in who makes them and what they are made for. That makes the inclusion of original prose by fanfic writers in a comic organized by someone who’s done a fair bit of licensed work interesting. Franchise and licensed comics are tasked with creating the continuing adventures of ____. Fanfic, on the other hand, can be anything the writer wants it to be, either yet more continuing adventures or, more commonly, an emotional deep dive into what makes the characters work, with or without adventures. Some stories substitute emotional for plot entirely, interested only a micro-examination of an emotional arc. (As someone who wrote a 50,000 word story where the Winchesters do laundry, and hurt each other with words, trust me on this.)
Which means one of the things fanfic does very well, often better than superhero and licensed comics that need to tie into other comics or meet editorial objectives, is execute emotional arcs. That goes for thrillers as much as it does for romance. And that’s why these writers are a good fit for Twisted Romance, an anthology that relies on them to deliver a highly condensed, intense emotional arc while also employing that other essential fanfic skill: being the bridge between two tenuously related stories.
Romance novelist and fanfic writer, Magen Cubed, who was tapped for a prose story in issue #1, said that they met “through Twitter a few years ago, and I always really enjoyed [de Campi’s] work. There's an emotional frankness to it, as well as her general online presence, that I appreciate.” De Campi has always been upfront about her love of fanfic and how she thinks that more and more professional creators have a secret past as fic writers, herself included. That sensibility is apparent in who de Campi brought in for the project and how it was made: it’s a collaborative metatext where these disparate creators bring their own interpretations and sensibilities to bear on a problem that changes with every new addition.
Each issue of Twisted Romance is different, de Campi and her collaborators exploring different romance sub genres, in vastly different ways. In issue #1, de Campi and Skelly start the series off with a mod-noir anti-romance, which de Campi describes as “every Jess Franco movie rolled into one... Night Porter meets Disco Inferno” and Skelly calls “the next step in [my comics] evolution.” Horrocks, (previously the only other writer Skelly has collaborated with on a comic), delivers a comic that is much less straightforward, more goth-y impressionism. And then there’s Cubed’s short story, which she calls “a romcom spin on monster hunting fiction, as popularized by Supernatural and similar stories.”
Issue #2, though, sees de Campi and Alejandra Gutierrez going YA with a romance that doubles as a coming of age (or experience). Meredith McClaren’s short comic, “Would You Even Know It?” has a young girl debate the meaning of love with AI, and Vita Ayala’s short story is all young love and “soft, queer, angst.” They said “curating the anthology the way Alex did really showcases just what a broad and beautiful range romance stories can have. You have meet-cutes, horror, fantasy, kink... the list goes on. A project like this really showcases possibility and potential.”
Twisted Romance is an unusual new anthology, one that promises interesting work from some of the best in contemporary comics, and a project that expands the idea what a romance comic can be in the mainstream market, both structurally and thematically. Issue #2 backup artist Meredith McClaren summed up the anthology best: “[our stories] ask you to consider what your responsibilities are to yourself and to relationships of this nature. What does it mean to be in love? Have you considered what you bring to the relationship? Are you entertaining realistic feelings? Are you being fair? Are you willing to cultivate a longer lasting relationship? I think Twisted Romance offers a wonderfully broad range of discussion about love and its effect on our lives.”
Twisted Romance #1 is scheduled for release on Feb. 7. The four-issue series then continues weekly through the month of February.