Crema is a Comixology Original OGN written by Johnnie Christmas, art by Dante Luiz, and Ryan Ferrier lettering. I picked it up having heard an interview with Christmas about the book last year and that it was available for no cost as part of Comixology Unlimited didn’t hurt.
This was a bit of a weird reading experience. The aforementioned interview with Christmas is what first led me to add the book to my TBR list. I came out of the interview under the impression Crema was a contemporary romance. It is a contemporary romance, but it’s also a ghost story. It may have been a matter of expectations going in, but it felt like the book was a bit at war with itself about what it wanted to be.
My favorite parts of the book were, indeed, the bits of romance between a barista and young woman that owns the cafe where she works. The two meet for the first time and hit it off immediately. Crema works it’s way towards a climax that is a pretty run-of-the-mill supernatural story taking place in Brazil. I could have done with 120 pages of the romance and none of the ghost story.
Dante Luiz’ art was great and a really good fit for the material. I’d never seen anything drawn by Luiz before, but hope to see more romance comics from him in the future. The backmatter references that Luiz has primarily worked as an illustrator of “adult romance comics” and it was interesting to see the way he adeptly drew some of the spicier pages as he and Christmas worked off the Marvel method.
This was solid and, if you are a CU subscriber, isn’t going to cost you much of anything to read. I think I’d recommend it if you’re a fan of romance. Maybe you’ll like it more than I did if you know going in to expect a dose of ghost story, as well!
kylereads.com 
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