My thanks to writer Dale Lazarov for letting me see an advance copy of his new comic, Fast Friends. Despite writing about gay art often enough I don’t see many gay comics but this one had the immediate attraction of being a 62-page wordless story, wordless comics being a minor tradition that I’ve always enjoyed. When description and dialogue are removed, the artist needs to take greater care over the storytelling, even in an uncomplicated story such as this chance meeting between two spurned lovers. That’s not to say wordless comics aren’t still written at the outset: someone has to imagine the characters, create the story, describe the action, and so on. Michael Broderick is responsible for the artwork, and he proves himself adept at dealing with the technical challenges; he’s equally adept at making the erotic encounter into a stimulating, sexy read. Fast Friends is a touching story, and, in the recurring comic books that act as a commentary on the action, not unaware of the romance comic tradition.
Elsewhere on { feuilleton }
• The gay artists archive