Bizarre Romance

January 22, 2018
A magical-realist kaleidoscope, this volume of romance comics and prose stories, from husband-and-wife team Campbell and Niffenegger veers wildly between whimsy, horror, and the utterly banal. A girl becomes queen of a fantasy realm, only to lose it all in an instant. A man’s attic becomes infested with angels. Fairies levitate ocelots. At its strongest, the book has much to say about the beauty and devastation of seeking companionship in any given human life—the grace and alienation of photography, for example, is memorably captured in a portrait of a 19th-century model’s morning, as she reminisces about a lover while waiting between poses. At its weakest, it relies too much upon cleverness rather than content. Fairies encountered at a bar is charming on its own, and their subsequent manipulation of a patron has potential—but Campbell and Niffenegger end what might have been an intriguing exploration of codependency before it has a chance to go anywhere. Still, taken as a whole, their collaboration is winningly strange, especially in its use of collage; Campbell smashes photography, purposefully sloppy abstraction, and even characters like Popeye and Nancy together to unique off-kilter effect. Love is a many-splendored thing within these pages—but it is also mightily odd.

February 1, 2018

Niffenegger (The Time Traveler's Wife; The Night Bookmobile) writes tales of wistful unease, normality morphing gently into the weird. Campbell (From Hell; Bacchus), Niffenegger's husband, has illustrated numerous genres, including memoir and horror. For these 13 selections, many previously published, his color storybookish drawings "grow on the lattice each story provides." Some appear as comics, some as illustrated text, and some as mostly text. A man with angels in his attic calls an exterminator but then adopts one as a pet. A woman on a cruise wishes her life had been different--and it happens. Two pieces imagine backstory for real events: a young model photographed getting out of bed by Eadweard Muybridge, and Charles Altamont Doyle painting fairies. In a clever take on postromance blues, a woman ruminates about former boyfriends, concluding: "Next time he will be perfect. Next time." Campbell illustrates this with a simplified naked male paper doll, surrounded by various clothes, accessories, and body parts. VERDICT This unsettling collection touches on many facets of relationships and how intentions fall short. Niffenegger and Campbell's delicate not-quite-horror will appeal to readers preferring shivers to screams.--MC

Copyright 2018 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

March 15, 2018
Niffenegger (The Time Traveler's Wife, 2003) has written and illustrated graphic novels on her own (e.g., The Night Bookmobile, 2010) but this time collaborates with Campbell (Bacchus, v.1, 2015), who's also her husband. Bizarre is an overall more fitting descriptor than romantic for this collection of her stories paired with his illustrations, but it all adds up to delightful reading. Several stories were published elsewhere, unillustrated, over the last decade; they vary greatly in length, amount of illustration (some have almost none), and illustration styles. Niffenegger intrigues with secret portals, fairies, noisy attic angels, and questions better left unanswered. And, in two of the most memorable stories, there are cats! In one, a woman is surprised to inherit her coworker's home and even more surprised, not in a good way, by what she finds beneath it. Campbell's creative, full-color art is chameleonic and always apt, featuring images that are part collage, sketch-like, digital-leaning, photographic, or classical in appearance?all perfectly match the story. Here's hoping for more joint outings from this pair.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2018, American Library Association.)