Book-A-Day 2014 #29: Menage a 3, Vol. 1 by Lagace and Lumsdon

So, yesterday I think I managed to cobble together a half-decent review of a book I really liked, despite my Creeping Crud. And, for a while today, I thought I was enough better that I'd have plenty of energy tonight to continue in that vein, and not toss off something quick just to get it over with. (Note: foreshadowing!)

But the Creeping Crud is sneaky and mysterious; it can seem to be gone in early afternoon and then come roaring back by dinnertime. And so I'm now hunched under a blanket and a sweater, with a space heater pointed right at me, in my blogger's basement which isn't actually all that cold these days.

Menage a 3 is a free webcomic that's been running since mid-2008; it's co-written and drawn by Gisele Lagace and co-written by David Lumsdon and concerns a growing cast of mostly young people in Montreal and their amusing love and/or sex lives.

There have been five collections of the strip so far, all published and sold pretty much by the artists themselves, and I've got three of them so far. My plan was to read all three and do a single post on all of them, but that plan has failed first contact with the enemy.

So: this is the first book: collecting strips from May 17, 2008 through May 14, 2008. It starts off with our central character, 29-year-old nerdy virgin Gary, discovering that his two male roommates are gay and that they're moving out together. But they'll help him find new roommates, and, in best sex-comedy fashion, he's soon living with punkette Zii and buxom innocent DiDi.

Lagace and Lumsdon, though, are modern and polysexual enough -- the cast is full of gay, bi, and less hung-up-on-labels folks -- that it all seems fresh and exciting and just naughty enough. (Because a comic about sex has to be a bit naughty, or else what's the point?) It also, being primarily created by a woman, makes men and women equally sexy -- and many different characters sexy to each other in different ways.

It also doesn't hurt that Lagace's line was sumptuous and elegant from the beginning of this strip, and quickly settled into a very appropriate and appealing Dan DeCarlo-esque style -- by the end of this book, actually, Zii's eyes stopped doing that chibi thing quite so often.

If you're particularly sheltered, Menage a 3 may introduce you to some sexy things you didn't know about before -- tastefully, with no on-panel genital nudity but lots of tastefully composed scenes. Go read it -- and, if you like it, buy a few of the books.

Book-A-Day 2014 Introduction and Index