LSBN

Ignatz winner Jayne (Trans Girls Hit the Town) and colorist Sloane Leong (A Map to the Sun) team up for a fast-paced sapphic space adventure rom-com. Commander Sugimoto and her chief engineer Mischa Polyakov have toiled for years in a military task force called LSBN (Land-Based Subterranean Beast Neutralizer). The team has been constructing a huge female robot fighter called Unit Saffron, intended to combat a race of giant monsters called Colossi that have been terrorizing Earth. But plans change when a mutual peace is suddenly negotiated between Earth and the Colossi, threatening the shutdown of LSBN altogether. (Sugimoto asks disgustedly, “How does a thirty-story-tall monster sign a peace treaty anyway?”) After Sugimoto and Polyakov, realizing they’ll no longer be working together, confess their mutual attraction, things heat up rapidly—though with some bumps in the road. Eventually, the two women take Unit Saffron out for what will be her first and only jaunt, a scene that offers some nifty explosions before evolving into a hot and heavy tryst. Jayne’s sly sense of humor pairs well with her imaginatively rendered sci-fi hardware and Leong’s bold palette. It’s a slim but spicy read that’s sure to tickle the fancy of queer sci-fi and romance fans. (June)