Love Everlasting, Actually
(Hugh Grant voice over here.)
You Read These With Your Eyes (Feb 8th, 2023)
A quick feature about selling stories featuring the week’s newest reads.
There’s a lot that I want to cover with this week’s book, but time is not on my side. The one thing that will always remain true about the comic book business is that it is absolutely relentless and will pause for no one.1 These words are being typed after the usual whirlwind of Tuesday processing and our store’s regular weekly stream for new comics and graphic novels. I had to run the show solo this week, because my partner caught a case of “living while over 35” just like I did about a month ago, waking up with bad neck pain because sometimes that’s just a thing that happens now.
Actually, since I’m talking about it, I’m just gonna post the video up here, instead of at the end, like usual:
Look at that boy. Just sad and alone. Won’t somebody think of poor Brandon?
Anyway. I said I was short on time, right?
GRAPHIC NOVEL | Love Everlasting Volume 1
by Tom King, Elsa Charretier, Matt Hollingsworth & Clayton Cowles w/ design and editorial support by Emma Price and Marla Eizik
A couple years ago now, we decided to change the name of our store. Most wouldn’t clock the change, but for us, it was quite important. Variant Edition Comics + Graphic Novels became Variant Edition Graphic Novels + Comics. Again, a small change, but something we felt we needed to do.
We, are a graphic novel store. Folks who walk in can clock it in an instant. The bulk of our shop is filled with graphic novels, with a relatively small section devoted to new single issues. We don’t mess around with back issues, and we don’t dabble in games or figures - we are stories. This is an important thing.
So. Roughly a year ago, Tom King and Elsa Charretier decided to dip their toes into the buzzy SubStack comics pool with a new creation: Love Everlasting. Designed to function as both an experiment in how serialized comics are released, and to re-engage with old romance tropes, the book was released alongside a bevy of process material from both creators - all to be monetized with a subscription model.2
As a person who is endlessly fascinated by this medium both in terms of artistic creation and monetization, I kept my eye on this project. I’d read the issues as they’d come out and relish in the behind the scenes bits that travelled through different projects from the pair of creators behind this endeavour. I wanted to see if this was a potential path forward for serialization. The answer, after a year, was uncertain.
While the early issues of Love Everlasting were made available for free, many of the people coming into the shop hadn’t even heard of the project. We have a solid base of readers for both creators, and a hallmark of creator-customers tends to be a diligence that your “give me everything Spider-Man” customers just don’t have. They have found a connection and are actively seeking out more content. And yet, we’ve found those customers largely didn’t care about, or were largely unaware of the project until it came into print.
Now some of this has to do with the type of person who is going to walk through our doors. These are folks who want something tangible in their hands as a baseline. Part of their experience is tactile - so even when some of their favourite creators were turning out something new and exciting, they were more than happy to wait and experience the comic when it went into their hands.
This is something that I feel like many retailers forget when they are complaining about the industry. Folks tend to think that digital availability is harming sales, but I often find that digital only enhances sales. Folks who are fine with a digital experience, largely speaking, were never going to be customers. But. Sometimes there’s that project that changes things. Sometimes there’s that project that lights something inside of them. When that happens, they need a physical copy. They will seek it out, however they can. This, in the end, is additive to the folks who see the tactile experience as an important part of this medium.
All of this is a very long winded way of saying, Love Everlasting was a book many retailers were ready to discard because of the way it was originally serialized. I think they were silly for this. It’s a title by two creators at the current height of their game, though they still seem to be climbing. It explores the romance genre in such a way that single issues just don’t do anymore to great effect. It was bold, it was brilliant, it was everything that shops should be trying to put into people’s hands. I don’t care how something is released. If there’s quality there, the question shouldn’t be “why aren’t I getting the exclusive chance to get this book in front of eyes?” The question should be “how do I get this book in front of as many eyes as I possibly can?”
The Pitch | Love Everlasting is classic romance comics running straight into the puzzle box genre. The narration, cadence, and presentation tips a cap to the history of this medium without giving a new reader homework to enjoy the book. This is an important thing.
While the main character navigates their way through what amounts to be a variety of old romance comics tropes while death nips at her heels, the story lives in today, and gives the proceedings something fresh to bite into.
This is a book for your puzzlers. For your dark romantics. For your old-heads who talk to you about the history of comics, and for folks seeking something fresh and new. Turns out, it can be done.
That’s it for today. On Friday, I have a blast from the past prepped and already scheduled. On Monday, we’re going to explore some of the modern connotations surrounding that. And then on Tuesday, I’m back at The Beat, taking about how to become a bigger part of this industry by staying small.
Talk with you soon,
-B.
The one exception being when Diamond nearly took the whole thing down during the early days of the pandemic. Hey! It’s almost been three years since that happened! And we’re still in a pandemic! Excuse me while I go cry for a bit.
Also, yes, some form of a grant was involved for a year long commitment, ensuring a certain level of income and content.