Project: Romantic (AdHouse) is one of the most exuberant books I’ve read this year. Beneath its sleek, Good-&-Plenty-colored cover lies an appealing riot of colors, styles, and narrative tones.
I admit that I anticipated the book with some stereotypes in mind. The prospect of a group of alternative cartoonists telling romantic stories suggested the potential for glumness to me. That’s certainly part of the emotional palette here, but it doesn’t come close to pervading. If anything, the book could just as easily have been called Project: Comedic, given the general light-heartedness and good nature of the stories.
Creators who are familiar to me (Debbie Huey, Hope Larson, Junko Mizuno, Aaron Renier) deliver appealing work, as expected. (Mizuno’s “Lovers on a Flying Bed” is especially stunning, an intense, dreamlike fable in her adorably disgusting style.) But the overall quality of the work is very high. There are a lot of delightful discoveries here.
I’m particularly crazy about the “Sweetie ‘n’ Me” shorts by Joel Priddy. The four pieces take a sunny, funny look at the domestic life of two mad scientists. I could have happily read an entire collection of these stories; my favorite would have to be the meditation on the pros and cons of their “starter island.”
Kelly Alder effectively heads for the darker end of the romantic spectrum with his gruesomely metaphorical “In & Out,” one of the few black-and-white pieces. Evan Larson’s “Cupid’s Day Off” seems to owe a lot visually to James Kochalka, but I like the story’s combination of wit and coarseness.
The book is primarily short narratives, four to eight pages in length, but there are also one-page strips and evocative pin-ups. The visual styles of the creators range wildly from cartoon-cute to stylish and elegant, with just about everything in between.
The variety, to me, is the greatest strength of the book. It’s like going to a tapas restaurant, with a whole lot of small plates of intense flavors on offer. Not all of them are precisely to my taste, but there’s always something to cleanse the palate coming up next. Even the ones I don’t especially like feel like they belong in the book.
Project: Romantic is just plain fun. It’s packed with appealing, diverse work, and it’s well worth a look.
(This review is based on a complimentary copy provided by the publisher.)
