PUBLISHER Abstract Studios
WRITER Terry Moore
ARTIST Terry Moore
COVER ARTIST Terry Moore
PAGES 24 pages
B&W
FORMAT Comic Book

America's favorite couple is back! To celebrate its 25th-Anniversary, the Eisner Award-winning series is back with an all-new story beginning with this #1 issue! Francine and Katchoo are living the dream until they learn a former Parker Girl is in hiding and writing a tell-all book about the wicked empire Darcy Parker built with Katchoo at her side. Determined to stop her, Katchoo enlists the aid of her mercenary sister Tambi and the hunt is on!

Terry Moore returns to his wildly popular comic-book series with Strangers In Paradise XXV. Celebrating twenty-five years since the first issue of the original series was published, SIPXXV gives us an all-new story about Katrina Choovanski and Helen Francine Peters-Silver (Katchoo and Francine to their friends. And everyone else who knows what’s good for them), their attempts to live a normal life, and the dark past that just won’t leave them alone. Click the jump for a review, a few preview pages from the first issue, and a little retrospective about the original series.

Checking my inbox and finding the first issue of a full Strangers in Paradise story in over ten years absolutely made my day. SIP was my addiction, my reason to obsessively check the release schedule for new comic books, and to haunt the forums where fellow fans picked over the nuances in every frame of every issue. Sure, the story was like a soap opera. Yes, the characters regularly drove me nuts with their temper tantrums and their heartbreaks and their infuriatingly bad decisions. And I loved every bit of it, every character, every storyline, every stroke of Terry Moore’s beautifully expressive black-and-white art.

So it’s odd that I feel just a little bit of trepidation that the series is starting up again.

Or maybe not so odd. You see, endings are tricky. Moore’s other series – Rachel Rising, Echo, Motor Girl – were all excellent stories with perfectly good endings that somehow still felt like the rug was getting yanked out from under me. It’s hard to let a story go, especially when you’re left with the feeling of “What? That’s it? But we were just getting started!”

Strangers In Paradise stands out as having one of the best endings to a comic book series that I’ve ever read. It was bittersweet, and romantic, and a little comical, but mostly just perfectly finished. In the final page Francine smiles at us from the middle of the life she’s always wanted (she just had to get a few of the details right) and then gently but firmly closes the door on their story.

Well, the door’s back open now.

The first issue jumps right into the action with a cell phone theft, leading a woman to walk away from her own perfect life without a backward glance. We quickly realize that the woman is a Parker Girl, one of the last surviving ones. If you’re not clear on the whole history (and sometimes Moore’s storylines could take a long time to get to the point, so a little fuzziness on the details is understandable) the Parker Girls were part of a crime syndicate run by Katchoo’s former lover, Darcy Parker. The syndicate would spy on wealthy and/or high-ranking men by having women infiltrate their lives as lovers, or even wives, for years. And when the job is done or their cover is blown, they’re gone. Moore does his usual excellent job with nailing expressions with just a few lines; there’s just one frame where the Parker Girl realizes the jig is up …shit… and then she’s outta there.

The problem is that Katchoo used to be a Parker Girl as well, and she and her friends have to find this woman quickly, before she can destroy all of their lives.

So yes, I’m worried that a happily-ever-after is going to get derailed here. And I’m still going to read every issue the moment I get my hands on it. I want to know what Katchoo and Francine’s lives have been like. I want to see how things progressed between Katchoo’s half-sister Tambi and perpetual party-girl Casey. Heck, I even want to see Mr. His Own Worst Enemy Freddie Femur, who believe it or not may have a heart of gold. (It’s about an inch across, buried under a half-ton of slime.)

And a new series will be a good way to prepare for the next incarnation of the series: a Strangers In Paradise movie. My nervousness about the new comic book is nothing compared to what I feel about a movie adaptation.

‘Strangers in Paradise’ Movie in Works From ‘Professor Marston’ Filmmaker

“Strangers in Paradise” follows Katchoo, a beautiful young woman living a quiet life with everything going for her. She’s smart, independent, and very much in love with her best friend, Francine. Then Katchoo meets David, a gentle but persistent young man who is determined to win Katchoo’s heart. The resulting love triangle is a touching comedy of romantic errors until Katchoo’s former employer comes looking for her and $850,000 in missing mob money.

“I’ve been wanting to adapt ‘Strangers in Paradise’ for over a decade, since the first time I read it and couldn’t put it down,” Robinson said. “Terry Moore writes real female characters with such breathtaking sensitivity. With ‘Strangers in Paradise,’ he pulls off the nearly impossible — a sexy, stylish crime story with tons of heart. I look forward to our collaboration!”

Moore’s series “Rachel Rising” was nominated for a 2012 Bram Stoker Award in the superior achievement in a graphic novel category by the Horror Writers Association. Robinson and Moore are both represented by WME.

Terry Moore Gives Update on the 'Strangers in Paradise' Movie

It has been almost a year since Angela Robinson was tapped to direct the movie based on Terry Moore's acclaimed Strangers in Paradise, and little has been revealed yet about the status of the project -- but Moore revealed a bit during a recent interview with SYFY Wire.

The long-running comic, which is currently in the midst of a year-long revival to celebrate its 25th anniversary, centers on three characters: Katchoo, Francine, and David. The three are living a quiet life in Texas when dark forces from Katchoo's past track her down, hoping to take everything from her, including Francine and David.

"Because Strangers in Paradise is the work from my heart, I guess maybe the book of my life, I turned down offers where I was just going to hand it to somebody for $20," Moore said. "That just seemed like not a good idea. And I used to talk to people and they'd say 'Oh, that lesbian story,' And I'd say 'nope.' If you said that you didn't read it. There's so much more to it, and nobody likes labels, right? So now we're going to do the movie and the deal was, I have to write the first script, just to at least get the story going in the right direction. because I'm working with friends, with Angela and all that, I think it's going to work. Angela is a great writer; she did this movie called Professor Marston and the Wonder Women. She wrote that, so she's really really good and I trust her to take my first script — and when I write a script it's not like it's going to say cut to black or anything. It's more like an actor's script, like a stage play. It's not like a shooting script. Angela will turn it into what she needs it to be, but I feel really good about trusting her with my baby."

Moore's approach, of course, could be said to mirror that of Todd McFarlane, the Spawn creator who eventually came to the conclusion that if he was going to get a movie made that he could be proud of, he would have to have a hand in it himself. McFarlane will direct Spawn later this year for Blumhouse, with Jamie Foxx in the lead role.

In the twenty-five years that he has been working in mainstream comics, Moore has earned a reputation for writing and drawing women well; when asked, he tends to deflect, saying that he simply writes them like people, and chooses to make his characters female because that is what he prefers to draw.

"I've been wanting to adapt Strangers In Paradise for over a decade, since the first time I read it and couldn't put it down. Terry Moore writes real female characters with such breathtaking sensitivity," Robinson said at the time of the announcement. "With Strangers In Paradise he pulls off the nearly impossible — a sexy, stylish crime story with tons of heart. I look forward to our collaboration."

Strangers in Paradise, along with Silver & Black (the planned Silver Sable/Black Cat movie set in Sony's Spider-Man universe) and DC's New Gods, will be the first comic book movies directed by women of color.

Moore, a best-selling and award-winning indie writer/artist, has seen his share of film and TV options over the years, but neither Strangers in Paradise nor Rachel Rising, his recent horror series, made it past the screenplay stage.