One Year Affair


By Byron Preiss & Ralph Reese (Workman Publishing Co.)
ISBN: 978-0-91110-486-8

It seems cruel to point it out if you’re currently unpartnered or between dalliances, but love is in the air at this time of year. It’s also wise to reiterate that even though your grand passion is comics, maybe your current inamorata is more indulgent and understanding than equally addicted to masks, tights or batmobiles…

So, even though we’re going to be talking romantic comics for the next week, why not consider flowers (and not from a garage forecourt), exotic excursions or shopping somewhere other than a comicbook store over the next few days?

Before beginning his own attempts to invent the Graphic Novel, Byron Preiss worked on a number of projects including a comic strip for the American humour magazine National Lampoon. With celebrated cartoonist and illustrator Ralph Reese he produced a wry, charming and oddly engaging examination of the contemporary dating scene, circa 1973.

Steve is just some guy and his casual meeting with the so-with-it, so-sexy Jill over a dropped feminine hygiene product leads to a funny, quirky and thoroughly readable modern romance of the type we’d call a RomCom nowadays.

From one-night stands to open relationships, through engagements to the ending (and I’m not telling you just in case you find a copy of this criminally overlooked and out-of-print item) this little treat shows with crushing warmth and superbly beguiling artwork (like Mort Drucker meeting Jack Davis with Wally Wood and Dick Giordano doing the catering) how human mating rituals have never really changed since men eschewed Big Wooden Clubs and tried to grow “A Good Sense of Humour” instead.

A genuine lost masterpiece of sequential narrative, the strip and this collection was followed up by tragically uncompleted sequel Two Year Affair. Just like true love for most carbon-based lifeforms it was simply destined not to be…

Still you can always console yourself with this book, a big box of tissues and gallons of chocolate ice cream…
© 1973, 1974, 1975, 1976 Byron Preiss Visual Publications, Inc., by arrangement with Ralph Reese & Byron Preiss. All rights reserved.