by Damon Suede $16.19; Dreamspinner. Press; 334 pages
Bad Idea is full of many bad things—bad-ass sex, clever badinage and several seemingly bad decisions, some of which lead to good things. All set in the two worlds of comics creation and FX makeup creation. Balls and boyfans, man!
Trip Spector is the comics artist and the character whose outcome we care most about. He is an accomplished craftsman, allergic to everything, well-endowed, and reclusive. What a waste! Silas Goolsby is the FX makeup artist, Trip's love interest. A hunk and charming, he gets around. A lot. They meet at a gay Zombie run in New York's Central Park on New Year's Eve. They spark.
The first third of the book provides plenty of specific detail about their sex life. Bad Idea then settles into the story, which is compelling enough. Tired of drawing comics for pre-teens, Trip yearns for an adult subject. Inspired by his new love, Trip sketches Scratch, an incubus with an insatiable sex drive. Scratch fills the bill and Silas convinces him to pitch the character for a graphic novel at a comic con in Chicago. What unfolds brings Trip's struggles with his insecurities to the foreground, where he is forced to deal with them, once and for all.
Suede punches up the book with a circle of slightly off-kilter characters. In Trip's corner are the Stones: Jillian, who is known on occasion for lying prostrate on the floor as though dead; her husband Ben, a secret fan of an obscure comics superhero; and their son Max. In Silas' corner is Kurt, savvy entrepreneur who honchos a video game company and is Silas' best friend. Cliff is Trip's boss, a sleezebag on whom Trip has had a crush for years. Then there's Ziggy, a wheelchair-bound game programmer who has trouble speaking but lots to say.
The last third of Bad Idea serves up some wise nuggets on how to grow up, live a satisfying life, and build a relationship. Because, in the end, that is what makes Bad Idea a satisfying read. We care about Trip and Silas and what happens to them. Some of the author's insights are even wrapped neatly in the world he describes in these pages. "The secret seed of all superheroes: falling apart. Everyone who had survived childhood ended up tattered and terrified. Locked in a kryptonite dungeon, bound with their own magic lassos, mutated and mutilated." A wry observation. But wait, it gets better! Trip tells Jillian's and Ben's son, "Everyone is fictional! We all invent ourselves, shitwit. That's what being alive is."
An entertaining, sweet gay romance that proves monsters aren't necessarily all bad.
Suede's first novel, Hot Head, was number one in the gay-romance genre on Amazon for six months. He has written for DC and Marvel comics, and worked in film for 20 years. He is also publishing a Scratch series of novellas, starting with Horn Gate. Suede is a member of the Romance Writers of America and serves as the 2013 president for the Rainbow Romance Writers.
