Rockstar & Softboy Review – Fun AF !

Feisty witches, transfiguring cats, talking zombies, party-ravaging animals, space-travelling gay BFFS…. the one-shot comic ‘Rockstar & Softboy’ by Sina Grace is a heady cocktail of all things fun. There’s no way you will not finish reading this in one sitting, if you don’t, maybe you have problems. So you are forgiven.

The comic’s about two gay BFFs, something we rarely see in pop-culture, the gay guy/girl is almost always best-friends with someone from the opposite gender, because otherwise two gay people in constant proximity will eventually just fall in love with each other right? Except that’s now how it works in real life. Some people meet up on dating sites to hook-up first, but instead become life-long friends. Anyway…

So Rockstar & Softboy are flatmates-cum-BFFs and the story follows Rocktar’s attempt to throw an extravagant party to get his friend laid. But things get out of hand when a wild party-animal decides to crash their place. The author’s intent was to write a nonsensical colorful comic and he achieves just that. The artwork is delightfully bright, with all shades of the rainbow and some more, although violet tones tend to dominate most panels. What makes it all visually more appealing is how Grace plays with the colors, like throwing in a bright-red outfit on a character who is in an all-yellow panel. A lot of pages are wallpaper material.

I absolutely love the fact that Rockstar is clearly balding, but that doesn’t dent his confidence in any way. He is flamboyant, reckless, selfish, slutty and rocks crop tops & deep-necked tees like a star. It made me realize how I’ve probably NEVER seen a protagonist with thinning hair in a comic. This is the kind of representation all men deserve, set aside the fact that everything else about Sina Grace’s comic-book is otherwise outlandish as hell. The friendship between the two men is precious, and their banter is so relatable and funny, it’s the kind of conversations you have with close friends. Softboy is the saner, more responsible one, the one who chooses work over a hot Grindr date for months in a row.

The comic is about 65 pages long and thing get batshit crazy page 41 onward, with characters displaying superpowers that get hilariously insane. One page looks like it’s out of a Bollywood song, complete with colorful costumes and lines resembling lyrics. And everything ends in what looks like a happy hook step. Just pick this up if you want to read a ridiculously entertaining LGBTQ+ themed comic okay.

It’s a 4/5 from me.