Festering Romance by Renee Lott

by Chriss Cornish published: March 10, 2010 No Comments

This Book Is About

Janet dreams of a quiet, drama-free college life with her best friend, Paul. Unfortunately, Paul’s dead, and Janet’s only living friends are first-class busybodies Hanging out with a ghost might seem exciting, but Janet and her ghost-pal Paul make hermits look social.

When Janet’s meddling friend Freya forces her out on yet another blind date, Janet’s running for the hills…until romance blossoms. However, instead of love bringing the fledgling couple together, it’s all the things they have in common that keep them apart. Whether it’s ghosts of the past or ghosts of the present, will the young couple let their pasts haunt them forever, or will they find a way to heal their festering romance?

My Thoughts On This Book

Festering Romance is an entertaining graphic novel; I rather enjoyed it. I’d seen the book on the Oni Press table at the 2009 Comic-Con and had thought, “blech, romance; who cares.” But then I went to the Oni Press panel and FR was one of the new releases they talked about. When the author, Renee Lott, said the book was about a couple literally haunted by the ghosts of their past my opinion changed from “whatever” to “hey, that’s different”. I put Festering Romance on my wish list (since I was saving my Con cash for non-ISBN items) and John got it for me for my birthday.

The plot of this romantic comedy is interesting and surprised me, even though I knew, loosely, what it was about. The characters were realistic and entertaining. I love how, when Derek brings Chinese food over and mentions crab rangoons, Janet drools and day dreams smiling little rangoons dancing down a rainbow.

The art is also interesting, being a cartoony style with heavy manga influence. It’s fun and playful but still effective at communicating the dramatic emotion in the story.

I found Festering Romance a pleasant surprise and would definitely check out other work by Renee Lott in the future.

A key example of not judging things until you’ve actually looked at them.

Shadetastic or Blank-city: How Well Was This Black&White Comic Colored

Renee Lott does an excellent job with her inking and shading. Not only can the reader easily differentiate objects and follow the action, but she actually gets great mood lighting in.

I also like that she puts patterns on the furniture but that it never competes with the characters.

The reader also gets a sense of depth, all action is followable, and the backgrounds don’t ‘mush’ into the characters; all problems that I often find with B&W artwork. But that is in no way an issue Festering Romance has and I never really felt the absence of color when I was reading. So, two big thumbs up for Renee Lott as an inker.