Love is in the air for comics fans this Valentines Day as Sequential, the iPad app for digital graphic novels, have announced the release of an exclusive enhanced edition of Posy Simmonds’ True Love. Arriving on our screens in April True Love is regarded by many as the first ever British graphic novel and is a bonafide classic from the writer/artist best known for Gemma Bovery and Tamara Drewe.

Posy Simmonds’ True Love, first published 1981, is a sharp satire on the idealised romantic love promised in British romance comics, and tells the story of plain and single office worker Janice Brady who dreams of being swept off her feet by her lecherous boss Stanhope Wright. It was followed in the early 1980s by other graphic novels that would become classics of the genre, including When the Wind Blows by Raymond Briggs and the collected version of Bryan Talbot’s The Adventures of Luther Arkwright, as the nascent British graphic novel scene started to take off.

Over 30 years later, True Love is now getting a new lease of life on Sequential’s acclaimed digital graphic novel platform, where the original pages will be presented in glorious high-definition and supplemented with a host of extras including audio from Posy Simmonds, sketches and artwork, and more materials from the original conception and creation process.

Posy Simmonds said, “I’m so glad that True Love is going to have new digital life on Sequential ” She is currently collecting together materials for the enhanced extras, including the original cover artwork, sketches, and the notebook in which True Love was written.

Russell Willis, the founder of SEQUENTIAL, said, “I’m personally delighted to announce the release of True Love by Posy Simmonds, one of the world’s most important cartoonists. In the 80s it was Posy’s True Love graphic novel that helped spark my interest in comics as a medium for adults. I’ve been a huge fan of her work ever since. Posy has become a national treasure and it’s a real honour to publish this expanded digital version of her work.”