Passion & Propriety: Should You Be Reading ‘Miss Abbott and the Doctor’? [Love & Sex Week]

With Should I Be Reading… ?, ComicsAlliance hopes to offer you a guide to some of the best original ongoing comics being published today. For the week of Valentine’s Day, we’re celebrating some of the best romance and erotica comics.

Imagine Pride and Prejudice, only Darcy is a handsome young doctor, and Elizabeth Bennett is the daughter of anthropologists who grew up in the rainforest, only just now returning to “civilization.” Fighting with propriety and their own feelings, the protagonists of Miss Abbott And The Doctor must learn that maybe the other isn’t so bad. Maybe they’re actually kind of cute.

WHAT’S IT ABOUT?

Doctor Andreas Marino is a quiet, simple man. He has his medical practice, he has his books, he has a comfortable life. When Cati Abbott comes to town, her wild ways annoy him at first. Her manners are awful, and some kind of trouble always occurs when she’s around. But he can’t help but notice her expressive eyes and kind heart…

Miss Abbott and the Doctor is a Victorian-era rom-com, with Harvest Festivals and balls, pirates and caves, proposals and promises. Romantic moments galore.

WHO’S IT BY?

Miss Abbott and the Doctor is written and illustrated by Maripaz Villar, a cartoonist from Spain. She’s worked in animation and illustration, and has some comic books published in France: Élinor et Jack and Princesse Capucine.

WHAT MAKES IT SPECIAL?

It’s so sweet. Cati and the Doctor are charming and awkward; their romance is a slow burn but you know it’ll pay off. It follows the familiar tropes of hate-to-love romances (think Pride and Prejudice, or Beatrice and Benedick in Much Ado About Nothing), but it does it very well.

Cati’s also more interesting than your average Victorian lady. Her time in the Amazon, and her rejection of what a “proper” lady is supposed to be, makes her interactions with Andreas and the other villagers much more entertaining.

The art style is very simple, just loose sketches, but Villar focuses on faces: Cati’s astonished eyes when Andreas accidentally says something nice; Andreas’ tortured brow when he regrets his improper behavior; and Rebecca’s smirks when the couple can’t control their emotions. It’s just so cute.

WHO SHOULD READ IT?

Anyone who enjoys feeling their heart race when they think about someone they like. Anyone who reads Jane Austen novels. Anyone who could use a good swoon.

WHERE CAN I READ IT?

Miss Abbott and the Doctor is a featured comic on Line Webtoon, you can read it there with new chapters coming out every Saturday.