Love is Love, Various
On June 12, 2016, a lone gunman entered the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida and killed 49 people, injuring 53. This terrorist attack targeted the LGBT community; the gunman had talked of being disgusted by seeing gay men kissing, but it was learned that he himself was struggling with his own homosexuality and sense of social isolation.
This month, IDW Publishing (along with DC Entertainment) released Love is Love, a publication where the comic book community grapples with their response to the Pulse shooting, and with the continuing attacks on those who chose to love unconventionally. Dozens of comic book writers and artists across the entire spectrum of the genre banded together to contribute small, personal, heartfelt vignettes rejecting hate and championing love.
Some of the panels feature superheroes. Some of them are memorials to those who fell. Many of them are defiant. Many stress acceptance, both within the individual and throughout society. All of them illustrate the beauty of love, no matter how it is expressed. The one that touched me the most deeply was written by Matthew Rosenberg (colored by Tyler Boss, lettered by Ryan Ferrier, lined by Amancay Nahuelpan) that depicted his struggle, as a straight white man, to express his pain and outrage in the aftermath of the shooting. After starting and stopping many times, what he was left with in the end was a simple white page with the words “Panel 9. A white screen. CAPTION BOX: I love you.”
Love is Love is a book that you don’t buy to read from front to back and then put aside. It was written not merely to be read, but to express, to exist, to push back against hatred. It is full of pain, and heartbreak, and longing, but always pulls us in the direction of hope and of love.
Proceeds of the sale of Love is Love will go to benefit the survivors of the Pulse Orlando shooting, and in support of Equity Florida, the largest civil rights organization dedicated to securing full equality for Florida’s LGBT community. In buying this book, you have an opportunity to do something positive in the face of the unthinkable. In reading these small stories, you help reinforce that what we all have in common is far stronger than that which sets us apart, and that in the end, love – all love – is at its heart, love.
—Sharon Browning
