Love Is...

Love is...
Love Is... comic strip from May 25, 2007
Author(s)	Kim Casali/Bill Asprey
Website	Official website
Current status / schedule	Running/Daily
Launch date	January 5, 1970
Syndicate(s)	Tribune Media Services
Genre(s)	Comedy/Romance

Love Is... is the name of a comic strip created by New Zealand cartoonist Kim Casali (née Grove) in the 1960s. The cartoons originated from a series of love notes that Grove drew for her future husband, Roberto Casali. They were published in booklets in the late 1960s before appearing in strip form in a newspaper in 1970, under the pen name "Kim". They were syndicated soon after and the strip is syndicated worldwide today by Tribune Media Services. One of her most famous drawings, "Love Is...being able to say you are sorry", published on February 9, 1972, was marketed internationally for many years in print, on cards and on souvenirs. The beginning of the strip coincided closely with the 1970 film Love Story. The film's signature line is "Love means never having to say you're sorry." At the height of their popularity in the 1970s the cartoons were earning Casali £4-5 million annually.

Roberto Casali was diagnosed with terminal cancer in 1975 and Kim stopped working on the cartoon to spend more time with him. Casali commissioned London-based British cartoonist Bill Asprey to take over the writing and drawing of the daily cartoons for her, under her pen name. Asprey has produced the cartoon continuously since 1975. Upon her death in 1997, Casali's son Stefano took over Minikim, the company which handles the intellectual rights.

The strip appears daily except Sunday.

Love Is... is a single-frame strip. The upper left-hand corner starts with a simple phrase which always begins with "Love Is...", the drawing appears in the middle and the remainder of the phrase at the bottom (along with the legal jargon). Each strip is independent of the others; there are no "series" of strips running for a period of time covering the same topic.

The main characters are a man and woman depicted unclothed, with no primary or secondary sexual features shown other than the woman having nipples. It is clear which character is male and which is female due to tertiary features. The male has dark black, short hair while the female has light, waist-length hair. The characters have been featured in various stages of romance: just meeting, as boyfriend and girlfriend, and as a married couple. Sometimes, the male is shown in a military uniform. A 1974 strip has the male naming the female as "Kim", while a 1971 panel has the female writing the letter 'R' in the beach sand. Both of these are consistent with original cartoonist Kim Casali and her husband Roberto.