Here's a small bit of Lovefool trivia that we may or may not have discussed before but is totally relevant to this week's column: I have some pretty serious travel anxieties. Bad enough to keep me fairly local, actually, which is good and bad. Good because I have a fairly serious network that hooks me up with cool stuff that's local to them, but bad because I haven't met a lot of this network. Things have a way of working out, though. Take the time a friend came back from Wondercon, San Francisco's annual collecting of the nerd herd, with a bag full of Lush bath bombs, Good Vibrations temporary tattoos and three issues of Ed Luce's Wuvable Oaf, a gift from a teddy bear of a friend based on the left coast. The bath bombs were sakura and something with glitter, maybe? The temporary tattoos are still floating around my desk. The comic books are delightful and I've been meaning to write about them almost the entire time I've been writing Lovefool.

 

Oaf, the character, is a big contradiction. Big for real, though. He's huge, doesn't hesitate to fuck with some kids who are harassing him on the street, has 27 cats, and is a huge Smiths fan, warning potential beaus that “if you don't like the Smiths, we probably aren't going to get along” on his Facebook page. I could go on – he only eats pink foods, causing his eyes and teeth to turn frightening shades of pink sometimes, and his day job is...well, it's a little unexpected. It requires a lot of gym time and it's on his way home from the gym, sadly lacking a shower and attracting a hoard of stray kittens, that he spies the man for him, the wee and cranky Eiffel. Eiffel and his bandmates are heading out hanging posters for their band's next show and Oaf is taking his new friend to his Li'l Papa's “home for wayward kitties who are really cute & need lotsa love.” He manages to drop the cats off, get a spray from the bad kitty hose, and borrow some of his decidedly smaller father's old clothes to get home in.

 

Because Ed Luce is clearly the sort of romantic I could have a hell of a movie night with, Oaf steps outside to spy Eiffel atop one of his bandmate's shoulders, stapling a poster to a telephone pole. The cops show up and Eiffel takes off, but Oaf figures out that he's in a band and that bands have records, and Oaf pops along to his local record shop to purchase some vinyl featuring his crushlet and, lo and behold, said crushlet stops in to drop off some show flyers. Well. I mean. It can't get much easier than that, could it? There are only about a thousand chances for them to meet cute.

 

Yeah, actually, it could be a little easier, as it turns out. But the course of true love never runs smooth and so it doesn't for Oafy and Eiffel, the lovable giant and the wee crankypants. And so Oafy and Eiffel go about their business in a variety of fetching punk rock shirts, maybe being in love and having epic shows and hanging out with their friends, who are worth the price of admission alone, despite the fact that sometimes there are some sad moments that are just part of their daily existence. The moment where Smusherrrr challenges a poser street dance clique to show off their chops only to bust out some epic moves and be met with “So you're gay, right?” is truly tragic, but Smusherrrr's moves are pretty impressive. Watching Oafy navigate the gym is also fairly enlightening. I don't blame him for going home kind of early and smelly, either. Oafy's very special needs cat, Pavel, lives in a very strange place, but it's fun to watch his kitty brothers and sisters hanging out. And I'd like to borrow his friend Bufu's sweaters. It can be a loving but complicated world that Oafy and Company live in.

 

Ed Luce draws it adorably across many media (Scratch and sniff cards! Records! FOR REALS! Doodles in special editions! Cute t-shirts!) and, despite the wait between issues, it's always worth it. We understand that Mr. Luce does have at least one furry mouth to feed and are sympathetic. Cats can really get some volume going. Besides, I could wait quite a while for some more Worst Dates Ever. You'd be surprised how much we can all relate when we're talking about lame dates. You might have to seek this one out on the internets, nerdlings, but it's well worth your time. | Erin Jameson

 

(Your Lovefool apologizes – we had a delay of column due to Weezer. As one does, you know.)