What’s the point of reading about beautiful people macking on each other when I could be seeing it? Imagination? Sounds like a lot of work. When I want to be visually spoonfed romance from the comfort of my armchair, there’s only one thing that can quell my romantic hankering: the graphic novel. When it comes to love, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. And I don’t know about you, but I’m trying to behold some beautifully illustrated love stories. That’s why I’ve compiled this list of the 10 best romance graphic novels, for when my eyes, and by extension my heart, hunger for the sweet succor of love. Regular, picture-less romance novel readers will never understand.
Blue Is The Warmest Color
Jul Maroh’s Blue Is The Warmest Color is a gold standard tragic romance graphic novel, a tale so heartbreakingly successfully that it was adapted into a big budget film that had audiences sobbing. If you thought that the illustrated version of this star-crossed sapphic love saga would go easy on your achy breaky heart, you’ve got another thing coming. A coming of age romance set in France, the novel begins as all great romances to do, with a longing look. While out at a queer bar with friends, young Clementine lays eyes on a blue-haired girl named Emma, and so begins a sapphic romance for the ages. Em and Clem’s love burns with the fire of a newborn star, and explodes just as violently at the end. Illustrated in a blurry and beautiful watercolor style, the pages of this novel look like you’re seeing them through the eyes of someone on the verge of tears. Halfway through this heartbreaker, that person will be you.
Heartstopper
Before it was adapted into a smash hit Netflix series, Alice Oseman’s Heartstopper was a landmark graphic novel that made tidal waves with queer youth. This is the story of Nick and Charlie, two high school aged opposites who prove that the adage holds true: they attract. Charlie is a quiet and reserved overthinker, an artist who was outed and bullied by his peers. Nick is the quintessential popular kid, a strapping and outspoken rugby player beloved by his classmates, who is struggling with his sexuality on the inside. After Nick and Charlie form an unlikely but tender friendship, they begin to slowly come to terms with the fact that they mean more to one another than either of them previously thought they ever would. It’s a slowburn love story that doubles as a queer coming of age saga – a romantic two for one special that you simply can’t afford to miss.
Blankets
Blankets by Craig Thompson is another crusher, a devastatingly beautiful first love memoir detailing the author’s doomed church camp romance. Young Craig is a devout Christian, Raina is a fundamentalist questioning her faith. Over the course of a midwestern winter, the pair begin to slowly fall for one another – a fragile rose of love grows before being cruelly stomped by realties of life. Strained by a combination of family pressure and religious questioning, Raina and Craig’s romance collapses under the weight. It’s an exploration of a lesson that we all learn at that tender age – there’s nothing quite as sweet as first love, and nothing as brutally bitter as first heartbreak. Blankets will have you sobbing into yours.
5 Centimeters Per Second
Makoto Shinkai’s 5 Centimenters Per Second is… oh boy… I’m gonna need a second. Sorry, just thinking about this one gets me crying into my keyboard. Adapted from an acclaimed tearjerker film of the same name, this is three part story of Takaki Tōno and Akari Shinohara, two childhood friends that slowly become something more… and then less. After a whirlwind middle school romance involving snowstorms, missed trains, and lost love letters, Akari and Takaki decide to continue to writing to each after the latter moves away. As the story follows the pair through their teen and young adult years, the letters become less frequent. They still love one another ardently, but life just keeps getting in the way. It’s an achingly painful reverse slow burn – a slow burnout as their love fades with the passing years. What’s the title a reference to? It’s the speed at which cherry blossoms petals fall – the flowers that they promised that they would go see together when they were all grown up, but they never got to and – oop – there it goes – I’m crying again.
On A Sunbeam
On A Sunbeam by Tillie Walden is a soft sci-fi about a young space traveler who takes to the stars to find a lost love. The newest crew member of the Aktis is quiet and reserved, but her outwardly cool demeanor hides an incendiary passion beneath. As a teenager, Mia fell in love with a classmate at an all girls boarding school, but lost touch after her high school sweetheart was called back to the furthest reaches of the cosmos to be with her family. Unable to let go of her lost love, Mia takes a job on a galaxy-traversing ship that restores buildings that are scheduled for recycling. It’s a quiet and poetic story about a young woman looking for intimate connection in the vast distances between the stars – who will travel them forever until she finds it.
Laura Dean Keeps Breaking Up With Me
As the title suggests, Mariko Tamaki’s Laura Dean Keeps Breaking Up With Me is about an on again off again relationship with a heartbreaker named Laura. Freddy was thrilled when she and Laura started dating – things were going so well! Sure, Laura could be a little mean sometimes, but nobody’s perfect! And then the breakup happened, and then the makeup happened, rinse and repeat. The never-ending cycle of love and loss is doing a number on poor Freddy’s heart! After consulting with a psychic, Freddy gets some tough advice: she needs to be the breaker-upper this time. This queer coming of age novel is a look into toxic relationships, why we keep choosing people who are wrong for us, and how to break the cycle for good.
Saga
While the space opera trappings of Brian K. Vaughn’s Saga might cause some to categorize it as a sci-fi adventure, romance is ever-burning at the series’ heart. The plot revolves around Alana and Marko, two extraterrestrial lovers on opposite sides of an interplanetary war, who desert with their newborn baby in tow. On the run from former governments that want them dead, the pair have to navigate a hostile universe while attempting to keep themselves and their baby safe. Personally, I think the average romance novel often does love a disservice – it focuses on how the relationship began, but not what happens after. Saga proves that when it comes to matters of the heart, there is no happily ever after, relationships take work. It can be hard to sustain the spark, particularly when half the galaxy is trying to kill you, but against all odds, Alana and Marko do. What’s more romantic, igniting love’s fire or tending the flame? Only one will warm your heart for the long haul.
Bloom
Bloom by Kevin Panetta is a story about bread and feelings rising. Ari is a burned out baker – if he never saw another lump of sourdough again it would be too soon. His replacement? Hector loves bread as much as the Earl of Sandwich himself. As Ari begins training Hector to take over his job, Hector’s love for baking begins to reignite feelings in Ari – a passion that he thought had gone stale long ago. As the pair grow closer together while on the job, their professional relationship soon becomes an intensely, beautifully personal one. What HR doesn’t know won’t hurt ’em. Do bakeries even have HR?
The Girl From The Sea
The Girl From The Sea by Molly Knox Ostertag is essentially the sapphic version of The Little Mermaid, but so much better. 15 year old Morgan is sick of her island life, stuck on a rock in the middle of the sea with a bunch of heterosexuals. I can imagine no greater horror. Morgan doesn’t think her friends and family will understand her budding attraction towards girls, but that’s okay, there’s one person that does. After Morgan nearly drowned in the sea, she was saved by a water-dweller that keeps her spirits afloat. As their friendship flows towards something more, Morgan is unable to quell the flood tide of love that’s pouring into her heart. Her feelings will have to come to the surface at some point, and when they do, they’ll make some serious waves.
Ruined
Sarah Vaughn’s Ruined is the Bridgerton graphic novel equivalent that we didn’t know we needed. A steamy Regency romance, the plot revolves around Catherine Benson – a woman whose reputation was *title drop* ruined by rumors that she’d been involved with a man before marriage. As a result, no one will have her – no one except Andrew Davener, a broke noble that’s only after Catherine for her dowry. While the pair’s relationship begins as a loveless marriage of convenience, the ice thaws as the pair slowly begin to develop a genuine friendship. As the days pass, that friendship serves as the kindling for a love-fire of passion that gets genuinely hot. Yes, this story is explicit. If you were a fan of the raw sexuality of Saga, you’ll be pleased to know that Ruined really puts the graphic in graphic novel.
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