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A review by njh_books
Liebestrasse by Will Dennis, Greg Lockard
3.0
I really wanted to get into this, but it always seemed to hold the reader at arm's length away. Never really learned why Sam and Philip liked each other so much--needed a bit more of the one-on-one intimacy. Did enjoy the scenes with Philip's sister.
The artwork for the scenes in the countryside, Alps, and at the lake were gorgeous.
Philip's arrest and disappearance left a lot to be desired. We just lose him from the story, then Sam leaves Berlin, and then it's the frame narrative again in 1952. While people were taken and vanished during this time period, in some way it feels a disservice to their story to not even say if they found anything out about what happened. All we get is Hilde saying, "But I am grateful that if he died among all the terrible deaths...he died knowing love." Also RIP Bernhard getting shot and then never mentioned again.
In the back, in the "Creating Liebestrasse" section, Greg Lockard states "We knew we wanted to tell a love story set in that unimaginably horrible time of Hitler's rise to power. Previous representations of gay/queer life in Berlin have been somewhat chaste in their presentations--we wanted a love story that showed two men truly in love." While I do think there are some scenes that do provide a glimpse of the love and intimacy between the two in a way I haven't seen as often in comics (Philip sitting on the couch and comforting Sam who sits on the floor between his legs), I don't think it completely reaches its goal. But perhaps that is also because we all have different understandings of what love is, how it is expressed, and what it means... </spoilerer>