At this week’s New York Comic Con, Image Comics announced plans to publish Bingo Love, an original graphic novel by Tee Franklin, Jenn St-Onge and Joy San that was successfully Kickstarted earlier this year. The story centers on the love between two black women and explores how coming out at an older age can affect their families’ lives.
“As a woman who was married once upon a time, I understand how it is to come out as a Queer woman to my family,” said Franklin. “Bingo Love was important for me to create for the youth, the LGBTQ youth needs to understand that happily-ever-after’s aren’t only for straight people. If Disney’s Carl and Ellie can grow old together, so can Mari and Hazel.”
Here’s how Image describes the story: “Hazel Johnson and Mari McCray are two young, Black girls who meet at church bingo in 1963 and eventually fall in love…but in this time period, their love was not accepted. Hazel and Mari are broken up by their families’ “shame” and go on to marry and have families of their own. Almost fifty years later—in the fever pitch of church bingo—Mari and Hazel are reunited and rediscover the love they have for each other, even though they both are still married.”
Franklin won the 2017 Queer Press Grant for Bingo Love and has raised almost $60,000 via Kickstarter to bring it to life. Bingo Love will hit stores just in time for Valentine’s Day, February 2018.