Strangers In Paradise

A tale of two girls in love, and the guy who loved them too. Also, crime, art, and growing up

By Terry Moore

Strangers In Paradise
Pocket Book 1

Rating: Young adult-adult

Genre / themes: Love, growing up, crime (mafia/drugs/prostitution), relationships, lesbian/bisexual, modern day America.

Art level: Good. Black and white.

Star Rating: 5/5

Number of Books: . Individual comics collated into nineteen graphic novels, also collected into six small pocketbooks.
Check the book order here

Other notes: Self-published. Lots of flashbacks and forwards. Music and poetry a major theme.

Strangers in Paradise: Amazon Blurb
Katchoo is a beautiful young woman living a quiet life with everything going for her. She's smart, independent and very much in love with her best friend, Francine. Then Katchoo meets David, a gentle but persistent young man who is determined to win Katchoo's heart. The resulting love triangle is a touching comedy of romantic errors until Katchoo's former employer comes looking for her and $850,000 in missing mob money. As her idyllic life begins to fall apart, Katchoo discovers no one can be trusted and that the past she thought she left behind now threatens to destroy her and everything she loves, including Francine. This is the first edition in the series - don't miss it! 


My Review

I LOVE this series.

Strangers in Paradise is the love story of Katchoo - a violent, intelligent, artistic blonde, with a troubled past and future, and Francine - the girl she grew up with, who's sweet and kind, has body image issues, and dreams of Mr. Right and the house with the white picket fence. It's also the story of art galleries and mobs, cancer and babies, death, guns, and school plays. Strangers in Paradise is kick ass, and philosophical, tasteful and sexy. The art is brilliant, and Terry Moore's lines are some of the few that make me want to draw cartoons instead of paintings.

The story of Katchoo, Francine and David is a brilliant graphic novel series. The explosiveness and the gentleness that is Katchoo will capture your heart and her story, and the story of her friends and love, interweaves deftly between art gallery, mafia, high school flashbacks, marriage, loss, jealousy, threesomes, death, and trust. This is an epic series. You can also read a bit more about Strangers in Paradise here.

The collected pocketbooks of Strangers In Paradise










The Strangers in Paradise: Treasury Edition is basically an edited version of the entire series in one book, with extra drawngs and cover art. Good for the beginner or collector, but the individual books are better for the entire story.

• For a more in-depth review of the Strangers in Paradise books, the music and the order of the entire nineteen large graphic novels (among other things!) check out this site on SiP.

• Check out the review of Strangers In Paradise at Good Lesbian Books
• Along with more lesbian graphic novels

A Distant Soil

A very pretty black and white series of telepathy and aliens
by Colleen Doran

A Distant Soil: Coda (Book 4)

Rating: Young adult.

Genre / themes: Fantasy, science fiction, some yaoi, rebellion

Art level: Good. Detailed inking - all black and white, Western comics style.

Star Rating: 4/5
Best Other Work in the Gaylactic Spectrum Awards 2001


Number of Books: Four, completed.

Other notes: Being released as a webcomic by the author.


Distant Soil Vol. 1: Amazon Blurb
The story of a young girl who is born the heir to an alien religious dynasty, is one of comics most lavish and romantic sagas, listed as one of the five best books for teenage girls by Sassy Magazine. A never-before-published A Distant Soil short story and the first 11 chapters of the science/fantasy series are collected in this 240 page trade.


My Review
A Distant Soil is the story of two children with telepathic powers who are rescued/recruited by aliens, in a complicated and desperate game of politics. It will probably appeal more to girls initially, unless you are buying it for the art - and the art is very pretty, so if you're artistically inclined I do recommend it. It's a little old-fashioned in style, particularly the way Liana is drawn (and by old-fashioned, I mean '80-90's comics). You can actually check it out here on Colleen Doran's site, as she's uploading it slowly as a webcomic. Of course, like almost all such stories, it's much easier to read in print. Colleen Doran has also illustrated for Marvel and DC.

It starts with two children - Liana and Jason - running away from an institute, who are mysteriously rescued by a pair of aliens (who basically look like humans... ). turns out their father wasn't human, Liana is an Avatar, and the current Avatar is trying desperately to both protect her, and use her to help break the hold of the current selfish, cruel and hedonistic Hiercracy, who intend to kill her - because she's preventing their Avatar using his power by existing. The children (well, young adults) get separated and Jason is enlisted into a rebellion, while Liana and and some hand-picked humans are taken back and snuck into the top level of government. among these humans is a random knight - the Arthurian Sir Galahad, plucked by chance and magic into the modern world.

The people and the backgrounds are beautifully drawn, and the book feels like a real work of love (I say 'book', rather than 'books' because only the first one ever made it into a library in New Zealand near me - there are four volumes. But I think they would all be similar). Recommended for readers of Mercedes Lackey and Marion Zimmer Bradley.

The complete series of A Distant Soil