Review of "Young Bottoms in Love"

"Power of Love" (story and art by Fish) finds a superhero seducing his former sidekick in order to combat an alien who can only be destroyed by "the unique energy created from sexual tension." And "The Twouble With Twinkies" (story by Muse, art by Fish, colors by Lynx Delirium.) revisits a classic Star Trek episode, with a space ship overrun by rapidly multiplying club boys looking for cocktails and house music.

As entertaining as these comic stories are, the anthology includes many more realistic treatments of gay love. Taking a cue from the series title, the emphasis in several is on "young bottoms" and the kinds of extreme, naive emotions often associated with first-time love: the dizzy exhilaration and paralyzing fear of first falling for another boy; the schoolboy crushes on straight guys; the crushes on guys who claim to be straight even when their actions prove otherwise.

But the anthology also knowingly charts more mature phases in the emotional life of a typical gay man: the loneliness of being the only single guy surrounded by couples; the unrequited longing for that handsome man at a favorite café; the awkwardness of running into a former one-night stand; the neediness and insecurity that can sabotage the most promising of relationships.

Several stories are pure slice-of-gay-life realism, capturing snapshots of gay relationships with vivid specificity and emotional honesty. In "Party" (by Tim Piotrowski), an actor brings his illustrator boyfriend to a cast party and leaves him to fend for himself among the narcissistic show people. The cocktail party chatter sounds so accurate, it's easy to believe Piotrowski simply transcribed an actual party he attended. The story ends with the couple talking about the difficulties of accommodating their different social circles — a realistic handling of an issue that is rarely portrayed but common to many relationships.

"The Coupling" (story by Fabian Alvarez Lopez, art by Melody Shickley) is about a sociology assignment that forces a homophobic jock and a Goth gay boy to work together. The strip merges the real with the soap operatic in a manner that's pure Real World. And reading the opening of "Higher Education" (story by noted comic erotica author Decker, art by Fish, colors by Laird), set in a crowded college hangout, feels like eavesdropping on actual club talk and the hookups that follow.

"Higher Education" also boasts the most stunning art in the collection: heavy black-ink sketches set against neon-bright blues, purples, oranges and aquamarines that are the visual equivalent of pulsating club music. But this striking, nonrealistic use of color is just one of many ways in which YBIL contributors play with imagery to achieve different moods and effects. Just as diverse as YBIL's content, the artwork runs the gamut from the cartoonish to the surreal, from the naturalistic to the expressionistic.

These different qualities are particularly highlighted in four stories about "The CupCakes," a band whose introduction of a new drummer, Wade, creates romantic tensions for the original band members. Although all four are written by Tim Fish, the art is by Nate and Mike K., David Kelly, Brett Hopkins, and Fish. ). It's fascinating to see how their individual, contrasting styles affect tone and characterization. In one story, Wade can appear like a harmless flirt, only to be revealed as a sinister homme fatale in another.

A formal experiment of another kind unfolds in the longer piece "The Gardener" (story by Francois Peneaud, art by Roger Zanni). It deals with the relationship between three very different people: a gay father, his teenage son and the gardener who cleans their pool. Each of them takes over the story and offers his point of view, revealing surprising dimensions to their histories and desires. Combining a subtle use of color with a heartfelt final narration, the story achieves something I would have thought impossible in a comic book — an elegiac mood more associated with character-driven movies and novels.

The final story, "My Hypnotist," is by legendary gay comics cartoonist Howard Cruse, who wrote the award-winning graphic novel Stuck Rubber Baby. A light but amusing story about a schoolboy who willingly lets himself be hypnotized by a popular classmate he has a crush on, it's got a clever surprise ending, as well as the most explicit artwork in the entire anthology. Sadly, this was YBIL's final strip to run on the web. But Cruse's contribution to the series is a testament to the huge following it picked up in its four-year run, and the greater visibility and acceptance of gay comics it helped indoctrinate.

So, Young Bottoms in Love, I have to say it: I am hopelessly, deeply, madly in love with you!!! (Wiping away a tear …) Won't you please come back with more?