Webcomic Weekly – all about the wealth of great comics you can find online – short, long, any genre, doesn’t matter, just as long as they’re wonderful. And Aria Villafranca‘s Hopeless is quite wonderful!
Now, I know it’s called Webcomic Weekly and I know how dumb that is when these come out anything but weekly, but hey, Webcomic not really Weekly doesn’t have the same ring to it! The important thing, as with everything I show you, is that they’re all webcomics and they’re wonderful. Hmmm, Webcomic Wonderful but not quite Weekly, maybe that’s a new title?
Okay, back to the webcomic bit and stop worrying about the weekly bit… Aria Villafranca’s Hopeless is a very short but very good webcomic at her Twitter, that she describes thus:
I made a short romance comic with a trans lead, because I’ve been reading a lot of josei romance and wanted to make something inspired by that, but reflective of my own identity as well.
In Hopeless, Penny Plath’s a horror fiction writer, with her second book nearly out. But chasing her dream of writing has left her a little lacking in romance in her life… something that’s possibly about to change in a moment and a chance meeting after a little trip…
Thing is, Penny’s a trans woman and she knows dating as a trans woman has its particular problems, not the least of which is having to come out to any date at some point. And that, as you can understand, is a scary, scary thing, something she’s constantly imagining…
It doesn’t help that she’s not exactly the best at flirting wither, something that’s hilariously obvious when she’s out on a lunch date with her sister…
But remember, this is a romance comic, and in romance comics there’s always the unexpected twist around the corner when you least expect it.
In Penny’s case, that happens when the waitress turns out to be the girl Penny bumped into earlier…
Yes, it is a Romcom and yes, she is the star!
The stars align, even when – maybe even because – Penny forgot her book and needs to go back into the cafe to get it.
That wonderful moment when Nicole asks Penny out on a thank you date… so sweet, but so funny, all because of Penny’s sister and the great way Aria has of showing us…
As for the rest of it, we have poor Peny overthinking things, anxiety coming out as she gets ready for her date, her sister doing her best to help, just as all good allies should.
And then there’s the date and…
I’ll not give you any more than that because, well, you should read it for yourself, because it’s just a wonderfully sweet, wonderfully hopeful thing that has a message that, even though the world is a horrible place for trans people right now, there’s always hope that there are people in the world who aren’t horrible.
And as Penny says in that final panel… not a spoiler either, we already agreed this is a Romcom and, in Romcoms, the girl always gets the girl and the happy ending…
Frankly, Hopeless is just a perfect little comic, 21 pages long, but so full of talent and joy and love and humour and lots of hope.
So, you can find Aria Villafranca’s Hopeless at her Twitter. She’s also online at Instagram and her website, where there’s more of this great artist’s work and short comics.
Here’s the first few pages of Hopeless for your delectation…
Webcomic Weekly – all about the wealth of great comics you can find online – short, long, any genre, doesn’tCOMICONRead More