Grand Slam Romance 2: Main League Hotties

Author: Ollie Hicks
Artist: Emma Oosterhous
Writer: Abrams ComicArts Certainly
Worth: $24.99
Buy the e book: Bookshop.org

Developing with a sequel to the horniest magic softball comedian in existence is a peculiar endeavor. In Grand Slam Romance, Guide 1, Ollie Hicks and Emma Oosterhous went for an all-out Queer sports activities saga that may make anybody’s crotch tingle by the easy act of studying it. There’s a purpose why it made it to The Beat’s Greatest Comedian of 2023 checklist. Its explosive mixture of romance, competitors, and inter-team sexnanigans set it aside from the pack for a e book that fairly merely has no equal. How do you observe that up? Effectively, Hicks and Oosterhous have discovered a manner, and it throws in a number of curb balls alongside the best way to up the sexual pressure that the primary e book already had a complete lot of.

Guide 2 of Grand Slam Romance, subtitled “Main League Hotties,” picks up after principal gamers and sexual powerhouses Mickey and Astra rating a win over their archrivals The Gaity Gals. New magical powers have been found, misplaced, and reworked. Mickey is using on a softball excessive that adopted the reveal of her new abilities and Astra is contemplating her future within the sport. Like rainfall on a nudist seaside day, their nemesis Jasmine Von Schitz steps in to remind the “it’s difficult however with loads of intercourse” couple that magic customers require a magic license to play. The magic DMV is in Switzerland, that means it’s time for an Eurotrip. And everyone knows what goes on in these Eurotrips (trace: it’s intercourse).

Hicks and Oosterhous are fast to determine a raunchier sort of vitality for Guide 2. There are extra intercourse scenes than within the earlier e book and almost every line of dialogue has both a direct or an oblique reference to bodily fluids gushing generously or limbs rubbing off one another in sparkly ecstasy. With a lot of it to go round, I used to be anxious that “Main League Hotties” would find yourself shedding loads of the sensual nuance and soul of the primary e book. However there’s a goal to the design, and it finds a house in worldbuilding and in significant explorations of sexual boundaries (and whether or not they need to be eased for extra real and consensual expressions of emotional and carnal fulfilment).

The European setting is simply the change in surroundings the story wanted to tell apart itself from half one. This isn’t a retread the earlier e book, and the key is within the quantity of element Hicks and Oostehous pack in every web page. Nice care goes into making the European journey its personal kind of magic, with areas and groups and new antagonists which have that basic Euro weirdness so many have poked enjoyable at earlier than. Oosterhous takes the chance so as to add a big dose of fantasy to the visuals right here, taking to lighter coloration palette that enhances the purples, scorching pinks, and neons of half one. New characters appear to be Queer kings and queens of previous if they’d rummaged by Elton John’s wardrobe, and new teammates really feel like softball wizards and witches from far-off lands. It’s just like the Eurovision model of softball, and it’s eyewatering.

Hicks feedback on the whole lot, typically dropping jokes on the smallest of panels. It makes the whole lot on the web page obligatory studying (simply within the recap there’s a bit a couple of horse that’s presently in her slay part after her controversial presence in e book one). The identical goes for every new character, all of which really feel storied and unbiased due to their distinctive personalities (which additionally dictates the sorts of jokes they dish out).

After which there’s what Hicks and Oosterhous do with one among Astra’s and Mickey’s exes. The course they took with this character was spectacular, with a number of twists right here and there that impression the entire trajectory of their journeys.

Grand Slam Romance 2: Main League Hotties pulls off the uncommon feat of being a sequel worthy of the unique. It’s unafraid to take horniness to the worldwide stage to mine much more of it. Hicks and Oosterhous show that the magical sports activities world they created can go the space, leaving the door open for many extra seasons of sex-packed softball.