Sometimes you just want to read an adorable non-spicy romantic graphic novel. Lindsay Ishihiro’s Motherlover is the sweet early middle-age lesbian romance I needed to read this year. The book is the first print collection from Ishihiro’s popular webcomic series.
Motherlover is not designed to be a simple coming out story. When we first meet Imogen and Alex, they are both moms doing their best to get through the day-to-day. After an accidentally disastrous meeting of moms at school drop-off, Alex worries that coming back to her hometown to raise her daughter in her parent’s old house might have been a mistake. Alex is a city girl, a former musical prodigy known for going viral online. When her parents get sick, Alex takes care of them in their final days and then decides to give her daughter, Nolan, a suburban life. Imogen is a curvy mom with four children and a seemingly endless well of patience and love. While Imogen’s husband insists that he handle the bills, Imogen finds herself more involved in being a mother and a housewife, even if she also longs to go back to school. I cannot emphasize enough that this is not a work that promotes the “predatory lesbian” myth. Imogen’s life is turned upside down by her husband’s bad choices, and Alex helps step in as a good friend to help pick up the pieces of flaming wreckage.
Lindsay Ishihiro’s art is bright and expressive, capturing every subtle emotion in this story. Motherlover is wonderful as it starts with Alex and Imogen as simply good friends. It lets the reader get to see their individual personalities and how they encourage and protect one another. We get deep cuts of Alex and Imogen’s lives behind closed doors, and their eventual romance ends up being one of those things that makes you want to twirl your hair and kick your heels with how cute it is.
Motherlover is the much-needed hit of dopamine we need in this world. It is available from Iron Circus Publishing May 6, 2025.
