Preview – ‘Roxy: Romance Reborn’ Brings Back The Romance To Comics With Gorgeous Style

Back in 2024, Rebellion launched its first crowdfunder for a new collection of romance tales. Well, now Roxy: Romance Reborn is here and it’s to die for:

There’s a hell of a lot of exquisitely done romance comics in the vast archive of the Treasury of British Comics, owned and maintained by Rebellion. One of those was Roxy, running from 1958 until 1963.

Well, now we have the finished, rejuvenated, brought bang up to date for lovers of today, new 100-page volume of Roxy: Romance Reborn, with four brand-new tales of love and romance from some incredible creators — Alex De Campi, Erica Henderson, Nadia Shammas, Jaws Stone, Magdalene Visaggio, Sterric, and Sarah Gordon, plus a classic b&w strip from Roxy — with Jesus Blasco’s perfect b&w romance art just perfection indeed. Additionally, there’s some absolutely gorgeous pin-ups and behind the scenes material.

In the grand spirit of romance, not only are copies of the now 100-page book on their way to backers, but there’s also copies available from Valentine’s Day for anyone who missed out on Roxy now on the Treasury of British Comics website.

We’ve got a full preview below, but here’s just a few thoughts on what you’ll find inside. And it’s, quite frankly, gorgeous…

THE GETAWAY GIRLS – BY ALEX DE CAMPI AND ERICA HENDERSON – ‘The queer supermodel heist adventure you never knew you needed!’

Oh yes, it’s bright and it’s bold and its queer and it’s just the perfect lead-off for this romance book that’s all about being very now. De Campi and Henderson have previously worked together on the quite magnificent bit of horror, Dracula Motherf**ker, and this is every bit the equal to that one.

You’ve got Melanie, the new girl on the catwalk, feeling all out of her depth here in Paris. Although frankly, all she wants to be now is part of the incredibly glamorous Getaway Girls, a model agency with a secret line in rescuing stolen artworks.

It’s fast-paced and gorgeously written by de Campi, it’s beautifully drawn with such fabulous style by Henderson, and it’s the most exquisite opener for Roxy. Frankly, this alone should sell you on whether or not you get this book.

FLOWERS FOR AGATHA – BY SARAH GORDON – ‘A spirited walk through the undead woods!’

I have absolutely loved Sarah Gordon‘s comics work for so many years, equal parts beautiful and terrifying, so it’s no surprise to me that Flowers for Agatha is everything I could have wanted, a slightly dark supernatural tale of lost loves and magic.

We see poor Agatha off for a walk in the woods, nearly a decade since the love of her life went into the same woods and never came back. One fall into a hole later and all is explained, as she finds herself face-to-face with his corpse…

Well, what’s a witch girl to do? I mean, obviously, you bring your once lost love back, using bones and dirt and green. But when you recreate the love of your life, when you bring that once perfect boy back to life (of sorts), will things work out?

It’s an absolutely perfect little tale, the shortest in here (but then again, if you can do it this well in just 10 pages, who needs more), mixing good old-fashioned rekindling of a love story with just enough slightly creepy things to make this a great Sarah Gordon comic. Loved it, loved it, loved it.

BANMOOR BY MAGDALENE VISAGGIO AND STENNIC – ‘A trip back in time to the regency era!’

Where as Sarah Gordon’s short gives us a romance and beauty with a dash of potential disquiet, Visaggio and Stennic’s work here is something that’s doing the same romance with more than a dash of simmering lust, some hideous characters, and a real-life horror, all mixed up in a time-travelling tale paying tribute to both bodice rippers and the social mores of the Regency period featured in plenty of costume dramas over the years.

It’s dark and it’s nasty, all starting with American Becky finding out her long-gone father (running away is what Banmoors do) has left her a rather large country pad in England. Her and her partner Vik travel to view the old place, only for them to discover a secret room, sending Becky back in time, where she’s just the maid, Liddy, serving Lord Banmoor.

Worse than that, her and Lord Banmoor are involved, behind his wife’s back as she recuperates from a stillbirth. It’s steamy for sure, Becky giving up her love in the present for someone dangerously handsome in the past…..

But once the steamy stops, there’s consequences to face up to – consequences where Liddy/Becky just isn’t ready for her Lordship’s coldness and is dealing with her guilt over betraying Vik and her own hang-ups over children and family.

This is all very, very good, full of emotion, full of jealousies and desires, just a hint of madness, rage, and such sadness. It’s a really excellently done piece, leaving us with unanswered questions, as we’ve watched lives get torn apart due to love.

WHAT I WAS MADE FOR – by NADIA SHAMMAS AND JAWS STONE – ‘a futuristic flirtation between soldier and mech!’

The fourth and final strip is, again, something different from all that’s gone before. This time it’s a future love story, all about isolation, loneliness, and a newfound, unusual companionship for Captain Alix. They’re too old, too damaged for frontline combat, so they’re now reporting for duty as a the symbiotically linked driver of a mech unit.

But the mech’s AI system seems far more… well, seductive is what I’m getting here, although perhaps it’s just a little too welcoming to a lonely soldier beaten down by war?

They sync, and it’s immediate, a connection across the boundaries of the physical and into the mental, into the emotions, taking in a need for comfort, a desire, a togetherness that both need.

All the way through, we have Stone’s stylised black, white, and grey-toned art with a dash of seduction pink. The stark contrast between the black/white/grey and that pink brings out the seductive nature of it all, the way both creatures here are falling way too deep into something that way never intended.

There’s a real gentle, delicate, intoxicating sense to What I Was Made For, as Shammas’s tale visits the pair at moments in this relationship, letting us in to something secretive yet desired, illicit yet completely natural. There’s a sexiness to the slow burn of it all, but more than that there’s a deep emotional connection where you’ll find that the fantastical concept talks to our own needs and desires for connection.

And that makes it a perfect four out of four — well, five out of five with that five-page look at Roxy romance of the past and Jesus Blanco’s stunning artwork.

This is an absolute triumph of a book – taking the ideas of a great romance comic, the style of a great romance comic and then bringing it bang up to date. Full of love, full of desire, steamy when it needs to be, sad when it needs to be, happy endings and heartbreaks haven’t looked so good in a long, long time.

Across the Kickstarter and press for Roxy: Romance Reborn, was a desire to re-invent romance comics, creating a ‘new obsession’, ‘a contemporary romance anthology packed with stories to get your heart racing,’ with each story in Roxy promising ‘unexpected and dynamic love and lust across four fun and flirty stories.’

Well, it’s done all that and so much more. Absolutely perfectly done. Definitely one to get your hearts-a-racing.

ROXY: ROMANCE REBORN – Published by the Treasury of British Comics on 12 February 2025.

Contains the stories…

The Getaway Girls by Alex de Campi and Erica Henderson, letters by Alex de Campi
Banmoor by Magdalene Visaggio and Sterric
Flowers for Agatha by Sarah Gordon
What I Was Made For by Nadia Shammas and Jaws Stone, letters by Petitcreme
Change Of Heart, art by Jesus Blasco (first published in Roxy, 2 December 1961)

Now… preview time! The four brand-new tales of modern love and romance, reviving the spirit of classic British romance comics for the 21st century…