Yesterday online, writer Paul Allor and artist Irene Koh shared a pitch for a comic they’re doing called “XOXO.” A romance comic planned as “an anthology series of stories set in a shared universe (think “Criminal”, but with romance)”, the pitch is short and sweet and funny and very well illustrated and engendered a lot of positive feedback from fans and professionals alike.
It began some time ago when Allor put out a random thought online about working on comics of this nature and, thanks to the modern wonders of the internet, met Irene Koh, who collaborated with him and illustrated the pitch. “I’ve been interested in romance comics for a while, but it was probably about a year ago that I started working towards creating one. I casually mentioned on Twitter that I was thinking about it, and artist Irene Koh (whom I didn’t know at the time) expressed interest in collaborating. I was just blown away by her art. It’s been such a joy to co-create this comic with her.”
Part of the reason to do a book like “XOXO” is simply because there isn’t really anything like it on the stands anymore. There aren’t a lot of slice-of-life romance comics in the veins of classics like “Strangers in Paradise”, and the most modern comparison we have is “Sex Criminals” or “Saga” — and while both books are inherently great, they also bend in other directions, like science fiction. “XOXO” would be more grounded, and as Allor says, harken back to the days of Simon and Kirby’s “Young Romance”, which helped in part to inspire “XOXO.”
“Fantagraphics’ astounding restoration of Simon and Kirby’s “Young Romance” stories certainly kicked my interest up several notches,” Allor said on his interest in exploring and reviving romance comics. “Romance is just such a universal genre. Most of us can look at a love triangle, and know what it’s like to be all three people in that triangle. We’ve gone through it. Maybe we’re still going through it. One of the greatest things fiction can do is to remind us that we are not alone; to create a sense of empathy with those around us. I think romance stories are uniquely suited for that.”
“I also think they can give us a sense of joy in a way that few other genres can. And we could all use a little more joy in our reading lives.”
And true to point, “XOXO” is specifically designed to be a book that hits on universal themes and characters, particularly in its presentation. As Allor says in the pitch, “XOXO” is designed to be an “extremely inclusive book, with a cast that cuts across race, ethnicity, age, body type, sexual orientation and gender identification,” which is immediately apparent; our lead for this first story is Asian, and his best friend is a Black woman dating a White man. This isn’t just cookie cutter Hollywood romance; it’s modern and full of heart and warmth, and the underlying element of pain that comes with any great romance.
“There are unlimited stories to tell about people searching for a connection in this life. “XOXO” is fun, it’s goofy, it’s dramatic, it’s heartfelt, it’s optimistic. In short: it’s romantic.”
However, the thing to note is that the book has no home. That was the point of putting it online, after all: to gauge interest in an audience for something like a potential Kickstarter, or perhaps to see if any publisher would be interested in taking it based on the online reaction. After all, it’s not all that unusual for books to find alternate ways to become published in the digital age; Allor and Koh met online via a stray remark on Twitter, let alone past examples of creatives using social media to their advantage, so certainly with the advent of resources that social media provides this idea of putting out a pitch into the wild and seeing if it sticks is perhaps indicative of the Internet Era’s changes in the standard approach to comic creation, pitching and sharing.
Allor disagrees a bit, though. “I just think it’s indicative of a dumb idea that I had to throw this pitch out into the wild and hope that it can find a home. Nothing more or less than that,” Allor said. “We’ll see what happens.”
Continued belowBut is the reason a book like this finds trouble getting a home related to the content, or the audience? “I’m not really sure,” Allor says, “but I do think it’s part of a larger trend in comics, of getting away from reality-based, slice-of-life stories. With the exception of crime comics, you just don’t see a lot of that anymore. It’s not just romance, but westerns, war comics, quotidian literary stories. They’re certainly still there, but not to the same extent. That’s nothing new, though. Just Wertham’s Ghost continuing to haunt our industry, decades after the fact.”
“But the demographics of comics’ readership is changing now, and creator-owned comics are doing gangbusters, and I have real faith and optimism that those things will lead to greater success for a greater and greater number of genres. It seems like we’re already seeing things like sci-fi and fantasy comics do better than they often have in the past. My hope is that those are leading indicators of greater success for other genres, as well.”
“I also (shameless plug) have a comic called “Tet” coming out from IDW next year with artist Paul Tucker, which we’re billing as a crime/war/romance story.”
So with all that out of the way, I’ll admit that I enjoyed the pitch quite a bit myself and, with Allor’s permission, we’re presenting it to you now in full. Take a look below for the six pages, the last of which is a bit not safe for work, and enjoy:
