It’s Valentine’s Day, and I have to be honest: I am not feeling the love this year. Spare me the sappy romcoms with couples who maybe experience mildly entertaining trials but end up happily ever after. Keep your overpriced, gimmicky flowers and candy—wait, no. Forget I said that. You can hand over the candy; just leave me alone to eat heart-shaped chocolate and wallow in the fact that love is messy, complicated, and sometimes just isn’t enough to give us a happily ever after.
The romcoms are a lie, people, and so, here are four comics couples to read about when you need a reminder that it’s okay if love hasn’t always worked out the way you want it to. (Along with some recommended listening, because who doesn’t love a playlist?)
Megg and Mogg (Megahex, Simon Hanselmann)
(image: Fantagraphics)
Megg and Mogg creator Simon Hanselmann is actually married to comics (true story!), so I think maybe he’s a bit of a romantic at heart, but for all its charm, Megahex is no romcom. For one thing, Megg is a witch, and Mogg is a cat. All of the questions you have are valid, and I cannot answer them—nor will the books; you just have to go with it.
Sometimes Megg and Mogg are really sweet to each other, and other times you get the sense that they’re together because inertia prevents them from moving on. The couple is depressed, poor, immature, stoned all the time, and generally kind of aimless. The surreal absurdity of their sex life, for example, or their continual torment of their housemate Owl, is so over the top it somehow underscores the raw, real emotion in these characters. “Megg’s Depression” and “Megg’s Good Mood” always really get to me.
Recommended listening: “Nine Million Rainy Days” by The Jesus and Mary Chain
Maggie and Hopey (Love and Rockets, Jaime Hernandez)
(image: Fantagraphics)
There’s a lot of nuance to the long-running relationship of Maggie and Hopey. The best friends and sometimes-lovers never really declare themselves. Labels, it seems, are not their thing. Maybe that’s why they resonate with so many people.
Maggie and Hopey aren’t a clearly defined couple, but their connection is no less valid and no less important for its lack of labels. Playing out amidst the real-life magic of punk rock and wrestling, and the real-life struggles of identity, adulthood, family, and love, Maggie and Hopey may never DTR, but they’re without question an OTP.
Recommended listening: “Lovesong” by The Cure
Jon and Suzie (Sex Criminals by Matt Fraction & Chip Zdarsky)
(image: Image Comics)
So, you know how, sometimes, you meet someone, and the next thing you know it’s been like three days, but you can’t seem to tear yourselves away from each other? For the first time, maybe ever, someone really gets you, and it goes on like that for a while, like you’re in your own special little world, just the two of you.
But then, for reasons that may or may not involve magical time-stopping orgasms and bank robbing and the sex police, your little world of two is unceremoniously invaded by real-life consequences, and it ruins everything and kind of breaks your heart? Yeah, me too. Let’s cry and read Sex Criminals.
Recommended listening: “The Ship Song” by Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds
Baal and Inanna (The Wicked + the Divine, Kieron Gillen, Jamie McKelvie, Matt Wilson, with Kris Anka)
(image: Image Comics)
Oh, the agony of loving someone who doesn’t believe in the same kind of love as you. In a story where gods are incandescent pop stars doomed to burn out in certain death, all of the feelings are ramped up to eleven, including and perhaps especially the agony of thwarted love.
Baal and Inanna are technically already broken up by the time we’re introduced to them in The Wicked + the Divine, but that doesn’t make them any less of a fan-favorite couple. (Ship name: Baananna.) We got a bit of a spicy sneak peek at the beginning of their relationship in the Kris Anka illustrated short from the Christmas Annual in 2017, but in the main series, it mostly comes in passing references.
Basically, it’s like that one ex you always remember with bittersweet fondness and think about how things probably could have worked out if it weren’t for their complete rejection of commitment and that pesky “being a god for two years and then dying” thing. Or whatever it was that kept you apart. I’m sure it was just as dramatic, or at least felt that way at the time.
Recommended listening: “Big God” by Florence + The Machine
(featured image: Fantagraphics)
Tia Vasiliou is a senior digital editor and content specialist at comiXology. Check out her essay on why she always wears high heels at cons in the upcoming Dark Horse anthology Pros and (Comic) Cons, and find her on Twitter @PortraitofMmeX. Recommended listening: “Double Dare” by Bauhaus.
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