Real Love comic books issue 1

Add to cart Near Mint $13.99

Volume 1 - 1st Printing. Written by Rikito Nakamura. Art and Cover by Yukiko Nozawa. Translated by M. Fulcrum. Aijo Rentaro has asked a hundred girls out and struck out every time. In desperation, he prays for guidance, only to be told by a god that his rejections were due to a cosmic mishap! Now this god will set things right by making sure Aijo gets one hundred dates. Except, as things often go with gods, theres a catch: each of his one hundred dates is Aijos destined soulmate! Worse, if he doesnt return their feelings, theyll all die in horrible—and hilarious—accidents! Softcover, 5-in. x 7-in., 204 pages, B&W. Older Teen (15+) Cover price $13.99.

Add to cart Near Mint $14.00

1st printing.

Story and art by Liv Stromquist.

The internationally acclaimed activist follows up her satirical work of graphic medicine with this collection of humorous comics essays about how historical and societal shifts have altered - and perhaps destroyed - "romantic love."

The deceptively simple through-line for Swedish media personality and activist Liv Strömquist's The Reddest Rose is the question: Why does Leonardo DiCaprio date an endless string of twentysomething models? Her answer - in the form of this collection of well-researched, humorous comics essays - tracks how philosophers and artists, from the Ancient Greeks to Beyoncé, conceptualized romantic love. Strömquist's signature interlocutor characters, drawn in a zine-y, flat, blocky style, ask each other questions and offer sharp commentary as they guide readers throughout history and the change in societies' values, from showing love/loving to getting love/being loved. (Poet Hilda "H.D." Doolittle - who was so love-stricken by a man taking off his glasses that she believed they viewed dolphins together in another dimension - lends the book its title.) Lord Byron, Socrates, Byung-Chul Han, Ezra Pound, Slavoj Žižek, Lou Andreas-Salomé, Ariadne, and many others make cameos.

For the first time in English, in The Reddest Rose, Strömquist wonders: in a rationalist, consumerist world, can romantic love survive?

Softcover, 7-in. x 9-in., 184 pages, B&W.

Cover price $24.99.