As @imagecomics IMAGE+ hits stands today, with the big feature on our Twisted Romance book, I thought I’d write a little more on how it came about and how we picked who would be in it. It’s quite long, so more under cut!

the tl:dr is: big two comics is a trashfire but it’s OK, because all the cool girls, guys and nonbinary folks are off in indieville hiring each other and making awesome stuff.

I’ve really gotten into reading fanfic. I love a nice romantic story, and strong emotional arcs are something mainstream comics doesn’t do well. I say “mainstream comics” but really I mean mainstream comics now – romance anthologies were a huge part of the comics market back when comics were sold on newsstands. Back when publishers had to keep it to a tight dozen comic titles total a month to remain cool with their newsstand distributors. Jack Kirby wrote ‘em. So did Joe Simon, and Stan Lee. John Romita Sr drew some of the best ones you’ve ever seen. Yep, all your big masc faves wrote kissy books!

But, as comics moved to specialty stores, they became narrower in subject matter even as they ballooned in volume (over 50+ titles a month at each of DC and Marvel). The romance market went elsewhere. It’s still adjacent (hi, AO3!), but mainstream comics publishers seem happy to just walk by all that free money on the street.

(@ironcircuscomics is doing a great job publishing diverse romance and smut. Check ‘em out! And the Fresh Romance series that Janelle Asselin founded is carried by most comics stores. So we’re not claiming to be original or first or anything.)

That’s the background. The reality is I was up in Maine going quietly mad for the summer, had too much sugar one night, and emailed Eric Stephenson at Image the following “Hope you’re well! I’ve been chatting to friends about doing a 6-issue mini of romance one-shots, each collaborating with a different artist. Katie Skelly, Alejandra Gutierrez and Carla Speed McNeil all interested / down, and I’d need to line up three more artists. Is this the sort of thing Image would be interested in?”

Folks, I hate to make you weep, but that was the entirety of my pitch. Eric emailed back after talking to their sales manager and suggested due to retailer reticence about anthologies that we instead do a four-issue run and make it weekly in February.

Gulp.

It was early August. Solicits for Feb are due in early October. That is not a lot of time to make up a series from whole cloth. But I was like *grins, flashes peace sign* sure I can do that. I mean, weekly! Cool, right? Great idea, right? *screams internally*

Then: to the DMs, Girl Wonder, where I lined up @artoftrungles (he and I had been talking about another project that hadn’t worked out). Then I thought more about old comics formats and was like hey I want backup stories! Backup stories are awesome.

More DMs. I approached creators that I loved to write and draw eight page romance shorts. Katie Skelly and @mercurialblonde were old friends (and I’ve loved Sarah’s work since forever) so she was an easy choice. Likewise, Peggy Trauth and @swinsea, both of whom have been on my radar since forever. And @meredithmcclaren, for similar reasons.

I also spoke to @prom-knight, who ended up not being able to do a backup because of her schedule, but will be doing the trade cover. In retrospect there are a ton of people I would have loved to get involved, if they had the time and inclination, but we were so rushed to pull this together (in order to give my artists and creators a reasonable, human amount of time to do the work) that I barely had time to breathe.

Then we started organising. Everyone was extremely patient with my slightly OCD group emails. I suggested that the backup creators also draw a back cover (because we can do that at Image). Peggy in return suggested we run the stories as a flip book, so the back covers can be racked like front covers. I checked with Image to make sure we could run different versions for print (flipped) and digital (unflipped), and they were good for that. We made it so.

Then I started thinking, oh, if we flip it, how do we end up not spoiling the end of the other-direction story when you finish reading whichever comics story you choose to read first? So this brought us to adding a 5,000-word prose story to the centre of each issue, bringing our total up to a 48-page weekly book. I mostly asked more close friends I wanted to work with, including a couple well-known fanfic writers from two different fandoms. Again, Magen and Vita and @naomisalman and @squid-bits were all people whose work I loved and respected and I’ve wanted to work with for ages.

Then I wrote four 28-page scripts over a fortnight, each specifically in the style/interests of four radically different artists, almost had a nervous breakdown, and passed out.

Now the book is almost done. It’s been a whirlwind. A great whirlwind. I can’t wait for you all to see what we have in store for you. Those fat 48pg issues out weekly in February! Trade not out until June. If you don’t have a local comics store, @escapepodcomics in the US and Page45 in the UK will happily do mail order. And you can always buy digitally anywhere on @comixology!