With a wave of TV series cancellations and removals in recent years, it feels like LGBTQ+ representation in our media diet has started to shrink. That’s on the screen at least. In terms of comics, queer stories, and queer characters, are enjoying a pretty healthy showing. Now, Titan Comics is adding two more books to the rainbow mix in the near future.
Launching 13 December is Life is Strange: Forget-Me-Not, which continues the story of Deck Nine and Square Enix’s supernaturally-touched 2021 narrative game Life is Strange: True Colors. Well, at least if you chose the ending where main character Alex Chen leaves Haven Springs with DJ and musician Steph Gingrich.
Here’s the official synopsis for Life is Strange: Forget-Me-Not –
Psychic empath guitarist Alex Chen and drummer, DJ, and super-nerd Steph Gingrich are now touring their band across smalltown America; a tour of crusty venues, distracted audiences, and cold nights huddled in their camper van. As the days blur together, Alex and Steph begin to doubt their choices – until they find another lost soul on the side of the road, a mysterious teenager named Lily.
Alex and Steph take Lily under their wing, to uncover the truth of what she’s running from. But there’s more to Lily than meets the eye, as she struggles under the weight of heartache and memories from lives she hasn’t lived. An all-too-familiar story for Alex, who’s lived her life buffeted by the emotions of others. Is there time to save Lily from a similar lonely fate?
Life is Strange: Forget-Me-Not is the first LiS comic to shift the focus away from Max and Chloe, the young leads from the original 2015 game. Their adventures, post the catastrophe at Arcadia Bay, have been chronicled in six volumes, spanning 2018 to 2022. That collection’s artist Claudia Leonardi, and colourist Andrea Izzo, are back for Forget-Me-Not, although there’s a new creator in the writer’s seat. One of the comic industry’s rising young stars, Eisner Award-winning Zoe Thorogood (It’s Lonely At The Centre Of The Earth), steps in for long-time series scribe Emma Vieceli.
Thorogood says, “Personally, Life is Strange has always been a series about misfits trying to find themselves and their crowd, with the superpowers being stand-ins for real life divergences we may have. Tonally, it has the perfect balance of whimsical and dark what-the-heck-ery that I adore in stories. I’m hoping Life is Strange: Forget-Me-Not will appeal to new and old fans alike, and have all the charm and heartbreak as the rest of the series.”
While it’s only out in December, Forget-Me-Not #1 becomes available for order from 22 September via the October edition of Diamond Previews. As with previous Life is Strange comics, apart from picking up physical editions from comic shops on launch day, you’ll also be able to buy digital issues through Amazon comiXology, Google Play Books, and Omnibus.
Like Life is Strange, Titan Comics releases a range of tie-in reads. There are other video game adaptations (like Sea of Thieves, and Dead by Daylight), as well as narrative follow-ons to various hit movies (Blade Runner) and series (Doctor Who). Titan Comics also publishes original stories detached from any franchise – which is where The Cold Ever After comes in.
Releasing as a 176-page graphic novel on 27 February next year, The Cold Ever After is a hard-edged epic fantasy that has been described as “blend of Arthurian romance and detective noir, a unique fantasy story in the vein of Game of Thrones meets Chinatown.” If that doesn’t have your attention already, it’s also pretty gay.
From Princeless and The Unstoppable Wasp’s Jeremy Whitley, and artist Megan Huang (Star Wars: Hyperspace Stories), The Cold Ever After centres on disgraced Royal Champion Sir Noelani Mahi’ai, who made the mistake of falling in love with her queen. Ten years after her exile, which has been passed mostly at the bottom of a bottle, Noelani is summoned by her former monarch to find the latter’s daughter, who has disappeared the night before her wedding. It’s bad enough that things aren’t as they seem. Our hero has one week to solve the mystery, and save the kingdom, or lose her head.
Come February, The Cold Ever After will be available through comic shops, bookstores and in digital format. You can pre-order the title now from Amazon, as well as Forbidden Planet in the UK.