Online Love
About a year ago, I read about a Website called www.myromancestory.com which the site proclaims to be "Romance stories in a graphic novel format" and "All online in vibrant color pulsing to the beat of today's music. Escape into a fantasy experience that will excite your senses." They were being released by Arrow Publications, which you can read about here in their own words. I had never heard of them before, and there was nobody comic-book related associated with the company (that I could find), but I was, to say the least, interested. So I checked out a couple of their stories about 6 months ago -- they have 2 that are free, and you can either subscribe for a monthly fee ($4.99) and read all you want or purchase them individually for $1.99.
After reading the two free ones half a year ago (and another today), I've decided against taking the plunge into actually buying them.
You see, they're just not good. They are extremely wordy and the art is subpar, and save for Ron Randall (who I recognize as being a DC and Star Wars artist from years past), I've heard of nobody. Not that it's that important that these are name people -- everyone was an unknown at one time -- but these guys are unknown because... well... they're just not very good.
As bad as it is visually, it's even worse story-wise. The writers are nobody I've heard of (again, not that it's a big deal), but it doesn't seem like they're comic book writers. They're romance fiction writers. Gail Hamilton (one of the more prolific authors on the site) has written numerous romance novels. Cynthia Starr as well.
And I'm not saying that writers from one genre can't be good in another. It's just that the writer should actually make it seem like they're writing for that different style. These stories read like someone just plopped their prose story into comic book form, without real understanding of what comics are about. You don't shoot a movie from a comic book script. You don't draw a comic book from a novel.
The biggest problem, however, is how much they read like the worst romance comics of the past -- namely the sappy Charlton comics of old. They are filled with these silly whirlwind trips to all these exotic places, muscle-bound gents, and the escape from normal life. You can only read that so much. While much of the romance comics of the 50s had similar plotlines, the stories were actually much more down-to-earth and, while not exactly realistic, plausible.
My take is that if you're going to bring the romance comics genre back, you're going to have to do something new with it. Unfortunately, myromancestory.com falls well short.
posted by Raphe at Wednesday, July 19, 2006
1 Comments:
Raphe, thanks for taking the time to investigate MyRomanceStory.com (www.myromancestory.com) and for your detailed feedback. The site has changed since you first viewed it. While you can still subscribe to read our latest releases and purchase stories from our Library, you can also read two different novellas a day for free. We also offer romance stories from Dorchester Media on our site (www.myromancestory.com/tlc/). Dorchester is the publisher of such magazines as “True Love,” “True Romance,” “Black Confessions,” and “Jive”.
MyRomanceStory.com’s stories or novellas are a cross between a romance novel and a graphic novel. Hence it has more text and more story than a typical comic. You are correct that the writers are primarily from the romance fiction field and not the comic field, but our editors have experience in both. Our writers do include those experienced in writing for comic book. Unfortunately none of them is named Stan Lee.
Many of our stories are Cinderella-type stories with rich heroes, beautiful heroines and exotic locales. This is a very popular theme/subgenre in contemporary romance fiction. For many readers these types of stories offer pure escapism. That’s why the tagline for MyRomanceStory.com is “lose yourself in romance.” Since you thought our stories were sappy, it begs the question, do you think other contemporary romance fiction is sappy?
Still if you’re looking for something that breaks the Cinderella mold, I’d recommend “The Hunted,” by Jennifer Savage; “Sweet Seduction,” by Kay Keppler; and “Wild Fire” by Judy Leaver and C.L. Young. All of these can be read on MyRomanceStory.com.
We are glad that you liked Ron Randall’s artwork. Ron’s a great artist who works with us and other comic publishers. We also work with artists from all over the world. The majority of them have been working in the comic, graphic novel, and humor publishing industries for years. Some reader favorites among our international artists are Italo Ahumada from Chile, Enzo Pertile from Paraguay, and the Sharp Brothers from Australia. We were lucky to get Don Sherwood, a legend in the U.S. comic and graphic novel field, to illustrate one of our stories. Don’s classic style really complements “Nightmare in the Park,” a murder mystery set in Toronto, Canada.
There are several reasons for the exotic locales in our stories. We are trying to show more than just a head shot in a panel. This is a visual media so why not show something interesting? “Summer Love,” written by Liana Metal (a Greek writer) with pencils and inks by Ronn Sutton (a Canadian artist) takes place on a small Greek Isle. Overall this is a sweet story with a visually appealing setting. “Slow Boat to Love,” written by T.E. Valentine with pencils and inks by Gonzalo Martinez also has some great visuals. Gonzalo’s illustrations of Portofino are great. And I still love the ruined cathedral in “Mountain Treasure,” written by the Gail Hamilton with pencils by David Hillman. As we write in our guidelines for writers, “action taking place in a one-room apartment might be rich in drama, but will be visually boring.”
Another reason for the international settings is that romance fiction is popular worldwide and this is certainly true of the visitors to our site. It would be the height of jingoism for us to limit our settings only to middle America. Don’t get me wrong—some of our stories do take place in New York, Los Angeles, Phoenix, Kansas City, Washington, DC and small town America. They are also set in Scotland, England, Mexico, Australia and Italy.
MyRomanceStory.com might not be for everyone. But many do come again and again. We appreciate that you took the time to visit the site not once but twice to determine if it was right for you. We only ask that others do the same. As you mentioned, a subscription to MyRomanceStory.com doesn’t cost a lot. Additionally the majority of the site can be navigated without spending a dime. We hope others will take a look at MyRomanceStory.com and let us know what they like and don’t like about the site. All feedback, whether good or bad, is welcome.
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