Monsters in Love-Review
- Ben Crane
- 1 hour ago
- 3 min read
Title: Monsters in Love
Publisher: Dark Horse Comics
Creators
Writer: James Tynion IV · Tate Brombal · Vita Ayala · Sina Grace · Jadzia Axelrod · Zoe Tunnell · Josh Trujillo · Lilah Sturges · Lee Knox Ostertag · Kenny Wroten · Jacoby Salcedo
Artist: Isaac Goodhart · Claudia Aguirre · Tench · Sina Grace · Lee Knox Ostertag · Kenny Wroten · Jacoby Salcedo · Vash Taylor
Colorist: Miquel Muerto · Claudia Aguirre · Tench
Letterer: Aditya Bidikar
Cover artist: V. Gagnon
Publication date: June 10, 2026
Format: FC 80 pages; 6 5/8" x 10 3/16"
Price: $9.99
Age range: 16+
UPC: 76156801593500111
Reviewed by Ben Crane
Monsters in Love is a pride anthology from Dark Horse and Tiny Onion about, well, monsters in love. It collects 10 short comics and one framing story from a stacked creator list about monsters—from vampires to witches to formless flesh blobs—finding themselves, finding each other, and finding community (disclosure: I count several of those creators as friends). The stories ranges from the joyfully celebratory to the melancholically hopeful, and, at a time when our most mainstream queer-metaphor comic is actively embracing an unapologetic transphobe, Monsters in Love is open, out, and proud.
It dispatches with subtext immediately, declaring directly on page three that the enduring power of comics is that they “were the first place I saw someone like me. Comics have always been where I felt safest.” The stories that follow are just as direct with a mix of narratives about uniquely queer experiences (the anxiety of coming out to a new person, a genderfluid person experimenting with different identities, a bi man trying to tell his wife he’s attracted to another man) and more universal stories where the characters just happen to be queer (a couple who have grown apart learning to let go, lying about who we are to impress on a first date, someone who has always taken care of others learning to accept kindness for themselves). Regardless, queerness—in all it’s many shapes, colors, and forms—is front and center throughout.
In the variety of that tapestry is beauty. Monsters in Love is an anthology that asserts throughout that every letter in the LGBTQIA+ alphabet soup is valid and critical. Everyone deserves to see themselves in these pages and in all pages, and everyone deserves to learn about experiences that differ from their own.
I hope that straight readers will pick up this book for exactly that reason. The queer experience is no singular thing. The power of comics is not just that here we can see ourselves, but that here we can learn to empathize with others. Narrative is both mirror and window, so do not do yourself the disservice of thinking this book is not for you.
A few of the stories stray close to the saccharine, but I don’t think they ever fall over the line to cloying (though I’ll admit a higher tolerance for sap than many). The book is a celebration, after all. There’s enough hostility in the world; we don’t need to be reminded of it all the time. For now, let us be who we are. We are outsiders. We are monsters, occasionally celebrated and frequently maligned. Each of us is different, but we are joined by that common experience. When society doesn’t understand us, we strive to understand each other and ourselves and build our own community. As the book itself puts it, again throwing subtext to the wind, “This is why we tell stories, and why we love comics. To get lost, but also to be found.”
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