The world’s on fire yet somehow comics persist. It’s really quite beautiful. I’ve kept up with as many new graphic novels and trades as possible, and have ranked my 2025 favorites in descending order below!
The list rules: I’m keeping the mid-year picks to my favorite 30 completed graphic novels and trades released in 2025. This means all of DC’s Absolute Universe is not yet eligible as those books have only been released in single issues (Look to my picks for the best graphic novels of August 2025 to see what changes!). As always, the list is also limited to works that have been written or translated into English, and somehow found their way into my hands.
My actual 2025 favorites are shared (at least) 10 at a time monthly, which of course means there are quite a few more than 50 books on the ol’ 2025 Power Rankings. You can find them all in my custom bookshop list!
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Without further ado… the best comics of 2025!
The Dissident Club: Chronicle of a Pakistani Journalist in Exile
Out now from Arsenal Pulp Press, The Dissident Club is the autobiography of award-winning Pakistani journalist Taha Siddiqui. The work begins with the attempted kidnapping and assassination of Siddiqui by the Pakistani military in response to his critiques and investigative journalism. This forces Siddiqui to flee Pakistan for France, where he’s lived with his family in exile since 2018. Alongside Hubert Maury’s expressive character work (he reminds me of a less abstract Filipe Andrade), Siddiqui spends a good chunk of the work exploring his childhood in Pakistan and Saudi Arabia to highlight his life arc from a strict Islamic household to a skeptical exiled journalist.
Autobiography is always shrouded in layers of perspective, but through Elise Follin and Ariane Borra’s swirling warm colors and David Homel’s translation, it feels like an honest representation of Siddiqui’s experience through modern Pakistani history. I appreciate Siddiqui’s unflinching portrayal of his increasingly fundamentalist father, taken and transformed wholly by a fiercely dogmatic interpretation of Islam, and a childhood understanding of Osama Bin Laden as a hero of his people. Siddiqui also turns the knife on himself with some venom, clearly showing how his own perceived bravery could also be interpreted as an arrogance that puts his family in danger repeatedly (I’d argue this is not his fault, nor even a reason to stop his critiques, but he is willing to show how his headstrong stubbornness refuses his wife’s advice to be more careful and strategic in his approach).
First published in France in 2023, the English translation of The Dissident Club is a great graphic representation of Siddiqui’s unique challenges, but also the near-universal challenges of modern journalism and speaking truth-to-power. Admittedly, I was hoping for more focus on Siddiqui’s work as a journalist, but the first-half focus on a childhood under the shroud of Islamic jihad and Pakistani political history was a needed eye-opening for a western devil like myself.
Precious Metal
In many ways, Darcy Van Poelgeest and Ian Bertram’s Little Bird universe is everything I want out of dystopian comic book sci-fi. Uncompromising vision, futuristic spectacle, thematic prescience, and a many-headed monster oozing with blood and spikes. As John Galati wrote of 2019’s Little Bird on CBH’s year-end best-of list, “The book itself feels like a classic story out of Heavy Metal or Metal Hurlant. It is beautiful even when it’s incredibly bloody. Its characters, outfits, and buildings feel like a cross between Moebius and Katsuhiro Otomo, while its story feels wild and unpredictable.”
Reunited with Matt Hollingsworth, Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou and Ben Didier, Precious Metal returns to this Eisner-award winning world with a 35-years earlier prequel. It’s a calculated, enormous gamble that speaks to both the confidence of the creative team, and the refusal to take part in anything resembling marketing. It has been 5 years since I read Little Bird, which in contemporary attention cycle terms roughly translates to 5 trillion years. The sensible play would be Little Bird Volume 2, continuing both the naming and story of the celebrated first work.
Precious Metal doesn’t give a damn about sensible.
So yes, it’s ironic that a book this centered on the power of memory is operating in a world where the memories of most of its 2025 readers won’t hold up (mine sure doesn’t!). And truth be told, I don’t know that Precious Metal holds up without its Little Bird tethers; it certainly doesn’t resonate as deeply as the first volume. Perhaps this a personal problem (and one that won’t mean a thing in the long game where readers pick up these trades consecutively). I needed a little expository hand holding, and instead Poelgeest and Bertram chopped off my arm and replaced it with infinite pink eels.
Ultimately, though, if I didn’t have any Little Bird expectations, I’d be sitting here raving about the best looking, most fascinatingly constructed sci-fi world I’ve read in comics in 2025. Ian Bertram is mind-bogglingly good, uniquely gifted at hyper-detailed alien designs and ludicrously visceral action sequencing. Most comic artists would sketch out a monster-hunter wearing a suit entirely composed of pouches and Laffy Taffy and call it a very tiring day; Bertram spreads the spectacle across every one of the 60+ page 6 issues. There’s such a rich depth to everything Bertram builds here with Poelgeest, it’s impossible to imagine getting to November 2025 without thinking, “Damn, I should probably reread Little Bird and Precious Metal.”
Holler
One of the finer examples of comics as journalism, and an effective call-to-arms for acts of resistance in seemingly hopeless situations. Denali Sai Nalamalapu’s Holler (not to be understandably confused with Jeremy Massie’s work of the same name released via Dark Horse late last year) digs into the ongoing activism opposing the Mountain Valley Pipeline project (300 miles of controversial gas pipe laid across West Virginia and Virginia). Through six interviews with individuals resisting the ‘MVP,’ Nalamalapu covers a full array of approaches to climate justice, but even more than that, showcases the power of people refusing to cede to intimidating forces moving against them.
Holler is drawn simply and cleanly, generally settling on no more than 3 colors per page, emphasizing the conversations and acts of protest. Regardless of your investment in this particular project, Nalamalapu proves skilled at highlighting the humanity of each of these characters, and the destructive impact these profit-obsessed corporations and government agents have on their lives. Educational, inspiring, and all-around impressive.
Plastic Man No More!
For fleeting glimpses, Christopher Cantwell and Alex Lins’ four-issue Black Label Plastic Man could fool you for the spiritual successor to King and Gerad’s Mister Miracle. Cantwell and Lins strike a remarkable tonal dissonance between Eel O’Brien’s body irreversibly disintegrating on him and the Superfriends era JLA only interested in paying Plastic Man any mind as their comic relief. The point is clear – nobody takes Plastic Man seriously – but the style is gloriously infuriating. I’m not sure I’ve even been angrier at Wonder Woman and Superman, and that includes their pseudo-fashy stint was Injustice dictators. Plus, Lins’ graphic body horror slams headfirst into Jacob Edgar’s Silver Age inspired halcyon League cutaways to create a perfectly strange and dark atmosphere.
In true O’Brien fashion, Woozy and Eel’s plans to prevent Plastic Man’s son from succumbing to his own impending fate go badly awry (you’ll never look at the Metal Men the same). And while the plot threads are pure been-there-done-that comics, Cantwell’s irreverent sense of humor and willingness to sneer at sacred cows (not to mention detective chimps) lifts the affair well beyond your dime-a-dozen superhero mini. If the work never quite ascends to greatness, that’s ok; at a minimum it makes the case for more damn non-Batman Black Label!
Ultimate Spider-Man Vol. 2
Volume two of Ultimate Spider-Man is really the make or break point for getting past the Hickman-induced expectations of grandeur that come from the writer behind House of X and Secret Wars 2015. Issues 7 to 12 reveal that Hickman and artist Marco Checchetto are fully committed to a straight-up Spider-Man ongoing; there’s no multiversal twist, no rugs torn out from under our feet. This is Peter, MJ, their children, Uncle Ben, and the most likeable J. Jonah Jameson in the history of triple J’s. At times, this means the pacing and plotting is more akin to Amazing Spider-Man of decades gone, where we can spend time ordering sandwiches in a bakery with J. Jonah for the sake of getting to know this supporting cast in full. The second volume is almost pure scene setting and familiarizing ourselves with the players, as Harry Osborn and Peter Parker familiarize themselves (with the help of Oscorp’s lead scientist, Otto Octavius) with the miracle suits bestowed upon them by teen Tony. The big picture finds Kingpin assembling his sinister six to hunt and capture the heroes, but really, those are volume three concerns.
It’s a deliberately patient work, confident in the seeds its planting with Venom-esque pico-tech and the roots of simmering conflict in their approaches between Green Goblin and Spider-Man. It’s also Marvel’s tightest collaboration, with Hickman and Checchetto synchronizing their gifts in ways that highlight the best superhero comics have to offer. I was highly skeptical of a run from this duo beyond 18 issues, but given the approach, a lengthy 20+ issue run now feels inevitable. Given this is the most I’ve enjoyed an ongoing Spider-Man comic in my lifetime, hallelujah.
Trial+Error
At this point, I’m not sure what a Choose-Your-Own-Path comic would have to do to be kept off my favorite comics lists. It’s absolutely a cheat code key to my heart, right up there with peanut butter and my 3-year-old telling me out of the blue, “Hey Dad, you’re pretty good at basketball” (unprompted!). Nonetheless, when you combine my affinity for flipping pages with the post-eco-apocalypse anthropomorphic animal cartooning of Matt Emmons, you have the recipe for one of the best comics of 2025.
Trial+Error (via Emmons Second at Best press, with title and layout credits to Kyle Murdough) is one of 2 new 2025 graphic novellas released via Emmons latest Kickstarter success. Its companion, Daystar, follows the nature (heh) of my other favorite Emmons’ comics (Council of Frogs, y’all!), following a sentient rat navigating a supernaturally horror-infused post-human ecological ruin. Trial+Error isn’t entirely dissimilar (you’re a robot-monkey born into a laboratory full of deceased human remains and mysterious creatures – I’m starting to get the sense Emmons doesn’t have great hope for the climate crisis), with the great exception that you get to choose your own path. Like a GOD.
Emmons is one of my favorite do-it-all cartoonists, marching completely to the beat of his own drum (the drum is, of course, being stomped on by wolves). Where many anthropomorphic forest animal narratives lean to whimsy or comedy, Emmons leans towards the strange, foreboding and at times grotesque, an eagle with its innards exposed, or a racoon-priest wearing its own pelt as a cloak (wtf?!). Yet there’s always a heart at the center of these works, and in Trial+Error it’s our own wide-eyed naivety channeled through the freshly-created E.L.M. On a purely structural level, Trial+Error never approaches the snaking-turns of Jason Shiga’s choose-your-own comics mastery, but I’m deeply smitten with the inclusion of optional mini-pamphlets scattered throughout the journey, like the material addendums of JJ Abrams and Doug Dorst novel S. Ultimately, the test of a work like this is do you want to start at the beginning and try as many paths as you can? For Trial+Error, I choose “Hell yes!”
Life Drawing
I’ll be honest, when I picked up Jaime Hernandez’s Life Drawing, I assumed it would be an art book highlighting the hall-of-famer’s Love and Rockets work throughout the years. Who better to learn how to draw life than one of Los Bros Hernandez? Even better, Life Drawing is a decade-in-the-making collection of Jaime’s most recent Love and Rockets comics, collecting stories from Love and Rockets Vol. III #7 and #8, and Love and Rockets Vol. IV #1-#2, and #6 to #15.
I was particularly struck reading these issues how playfully Hernandez riffs on Charles Schulz’s Peanuts, in the endless charm of the minute Lothario “Go Home, Frank Lopez!” or repeatedly in Tonta’s misadventures. Admittedly, it’s been a few years since I’ve read any Love and Rockets, but damn if it doesn’t wash over easily, regardless of how caught up I feel on Maggie and Ray. I think Life Drawing works well on its own, as an unlikely bonding between Tonta and Maggie forms over Maggie’s fear of the ocean, but it’s also an effective reminder that I should probably stop messing around with all these other comics and just read more Love and Rockets.
Hernandez can sell sexuality with fewer lines than should be possible, and oscillates between comedy and humanity with an ease that few other cartoonists have ever mastered. The master’s current rate of output – a new issue of Love and Rockets comes about every 6 months via Fantagraphics – ensures their status as living legend never quite dissipates, but also never quite catches a groundswell of modern attention.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to catch up on what Gilbert’s been doing in those issues!
Akogun: Brutalizer of Gods
Sometimes the pompous-pretentious part of my brain overrides one of the more crucial rules of comics: they’re supposed to be cool. Obviously there are exceptions – I’m not sure I could consciously describe any part of a Chris Ware story as cool – but if you’re playing with superheroes, fantasy or mythology, listen, get as smart and crafty as you damn well please, just don’t forget to also kick some ass.
Murewa Ayodele and Dotun Akande’s three issue graphic novel from Oni Press is as cool as they come. This is African fantasy where gods fight at a level befitting their station, tricksters craft decades in the making plots involving “Brutalizers of Gods”, and Rhinos rampage forth with golden horns and tusks. Akande’s beasts, gods and worlds are designed to evoke all the most thrilling high-fantasy tales of Thor or Wakanda, and Ayodele writes with a confidence and patience befitting a creator selected to take on Marvel’s most well-known goddess: Storm.
Ayodele and Akande work beautifully together, alternating between narrated fables, erotic intimacy, and, yes, cool-as-hell fights to the death. The only limitation is a creative unit so confident and ambitious that the shared-tethers of the plot edge and fray with each scene-cut and time jump, losing clarity around all those pesky who-what-wheres. Put more directly: Akogun‘s kind of confusing! My hope would be that should a Season 2 come to fruition – and sign me up – the puzzle pieces slide together a little more neatly. After all, we already know they look the part.
Lebanon is Burning: And Other Dispatches
One of the more common refrains about the Middle East (at least from my vantage in the American Midwest) is that understanding is simply too complicated. I have grown up surrounded by a prevailing assumption that the cultures, and regimes, and decades of conflict were really only navigable to the most seasoned political and foreign affairs experts. But like most big issues of our time, ignorance only persists if you avoid, bury, or disenfranchise education. I am not an expert on Lebanon, Yemen and Palestine; but I am reading, and I am trying. It’s less impossible when you try.
Lebanon is Burning is a high quality aid in this effort, a series of 14 essays and works of graphic journalism that tackle modern acts of resistance in Palestine, Yemen, Syria, Bahrain, Egypt and the surrounding regions. The introductory essays and comics are written by Syrian-Canadian Yazan Al-Saadi, with a variety of artists from across the discussed Middle Eastern regions (Tracy Chahwan, Ganzeer, Ghadi Ghosn, Omar Khouri, Sirene Moukheiber, Hicham Rahma, Enas Satir), offering an important grounding in the authenticity of these histories. In the spirit of Joe Sacco’s Palestine, Al-Saadi isn’t faking at an overly polite objectivity that will avoid ruffling feathers. He has opinions and they are clear, and supported in a heavily researched and sourced work published by Penn State University Press. It’s vital, cutting journalism exploring and explaining so many topics we’ve been told are out of intellectual reach.
Purely on the level of comics experiment, it’s invigorating to find such a well assembled anthology of differing art styles, all glued together by Al-Saadi’s narration and the purpose of the work. You’ll find loose Comix inspired cartooning among more textbook historical depictions amid abstract confluences of data, infographic and human suffering. Even if much of these histories and stories are better known to you, it’s compelling to watch all these artists bring them to life for the ignorant like myself.
Parable of the Talents
The most – perhaps only – sensible argument against reading the Abrams ComicsArt adaptation of Octavia E. Butler’s Parable of the Talents is that you should really just read the original book. Yes. Sure. Agreed! Ok, with that out of the way, we can continue to celebrate Damian Duffy and John Jennings’ work adapting the works of Butler, starting with Kindred and Parable of the Sower before returning in 2025 with the sequel, Parable of the Talents. They’re perfect introductions to Butler’s devastatingly prescient literary sci-fi, particularly for those of us more likely to pick up a new graphic novel than a novel from the 90s (sheepishly raises hand/dodges tomato).
For those entirely unfamiliar, yes, you need to read Parable of the Sower before Parable of the Talents. This will not make a lick of sense if you don’t. Talents picks up shortly after Sower, continuing to tell the journey of Lauren Olamina and her Earthseed religion, centered on the philosophy that God is Change, and the destiny of humanity lies in the stars. Butler’s Parables are dystopian, near post-apocalyptic, and strikingly reminiscent of contemporary American politics. Talents is full of a Christian-Nationalist Fascist elected president of America while using the slogan “Make America Great Again.” Have I used the word prescient yet? It’s insufficient.
Butler’s Parables make for extremely difficult worlds, full of horrendous suffering, violence and trauma. Perhaps I’m just shielding myself but Talents felt even harsher than Sower, with an extended period of the work focused on Lauren’s Earthseed commune of Acorn forced into slavehood via control-collars by the most vile “Christian” enforcers possible. Duffy and Jennings tackle these challenges with appropriate care, and a clear reverence for the source material. The adaptation team is particularly adept at pacing out poems and scripture from Earthseed, and the proclamations from the future of Lauren’s daughter Larkin, to break up the narrative and assure readers that there is indeed a future of any kind waiting.
Whether it’s the novels or these graphic novels, the only important detail is that you read Octavia E. Butler.
The Murder Next Door
Hugh D’Andrade’s debut graphic novel from Street Noise Books is a striking testament to the lasting tendrils of an act of violence. As a child, Hugh goes inside his neighbor’s home and discovers his friends mother murdered, bled out on the living room floor. D’Andrade details the memory of the experience through the lens of his ongoing therapy sessions working out the lasting impact of this moment, and how it shattered notions of safety. Told through confident monochromatic autobiographic reflections, The Murder Next Door is sad, haunting, thoughtful, charming and reflective. On the surface it seems like the subject matter will run out of runway, but D’Andrade finds intriguing angles throughout, such as how the witnessed violence shapes his own views and fears surrounding masculinity, and the direction of his angry protests as he grew up. It’s an earnest, effective entry in the great history of autobiographic graphic novels.
Kaiju No. 8 Vol. 12
One of the problems with Chainsaw Man becoming one of my first mangas I’m caught up on is it spoiled me rotten for expectations from Shonen Jump. Turns out Tatsuki Fujimoto’s sensibilities and skill (and most importantly: uncompromising vision!) are hard to match. A lot of Shonen Jump has felt quite tame by comparison, leaving me gravitating towards works outside that realm (books like Hirayasumi, The Guy She Was Interested In Wasn’t a Guy At All, The Summer Hikaru Died, and Tokyo These Days).
Kaiju No. 8 is the hardest I’ve fallen for a Viz Shonen Jump title since Chainsaw Man. In a lot of ways, Naoya Matsumoto’s monster-hunting action-adventure is the Blockbuster Movie cousin to Chainsaw Man, full of demonic Kaiju designs and incredible kinetic violence, but with the strangeness of Fujimoto sanded down for consumption. Matsumoto can hang with the best of them on pure monster design, pacing and action, but the secret sauce of Kaiju No. 8 is how remarkably funny and compelling Matsumoto makes the cast.
Volume 12 is spiraling towards a genuinely epic 100th chapter, with impossibly high stakes growing even higher by book’s end. The pedal is practically scraping the asphalt its pushed down so hard; I can’t wait to read the next volume!
Hourglass
Barbara Mazzi’s Hourglass opens with a splash page of a young woman navigating the gear-laced halls of this fable’s almighty ‘hourglass,’ a technology that effectively grants immortality to the wealthy. This single image is rich with golden churning cogs, snaking pipes, and a perspective that seems to indicate machinery that goes on forever. Mazzi displays a gifted ability to snake between youthful wide-eyed wonder, the opulence of this world’s de-aged upper class, and the grime of the cutthroat workers ensuring the longevity of their rich overlords. It’s a compelling commentary on class through a storybook romance that feels like it’s always been lodged in the subconscious just waiting for someone to pull it out.
Hourglass is the kind of YA graphic novel that trusts a readership with layered themes and complex decisions, reminding me of the First Second graphic novels of Jen Wang. I won’t spoil it, but the work’s explosive conclusion is impossible to put down, and Sopranos-esque in its enigmatic meaning. At a sprite 100+ pages, the work sacrifices the emotional resonance of supporting players (there’s a bug-eyed laborer with some WILD thoughts about the religion of the Hourglass that we could unpack!), but I’ll always favor immediacy over sprawl. Another win for Silver Sprocket, and a work that launches Mazzi onto my radar for all future works.
Helen of Wyndhorn
Bilques Evely and Matheus Lopes are among the absolute top tier of artist and colorist combinations capable of reaching the heights of wonder offered by fantasy comics. The legend of their cosmic sunrise in Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow only continues to grow, and the duo returns with writer Tom King and letterer Clayton Cowles in Helen of Wyndhorn from Dark Horse Comics. Where Supergirl roamed the far reaches of DC Universe space, in Wyndhorn, Evely and Lopes get to create a Conan-meets-Narnia fantasy realm full of monsters, glowing gods, and barbarous tribes as far as the imagination can see. Evely’s work is hyper-detailed, expressive and purposeful, finding as much meaning in the reveal of Grandfather Barnabas feeding a small strange animal in a garden as the more “big-budget” grandeur of angel-eagles slashing through the sky-panels with a jagged sword gripped firmly in her talons. Lopes is perfectly suited to accentuate the moods and textures of these worlds, and together the duo wields impressive patience, knowing not every 3 pages can be a splash page spectacle or the moments lose meaning.
King is a rare tier of superstar writer in modern comics – as I write this, his Love Everlasting with Elsa Charretier was just announced as an optioned movie via Sony, and King is increasingly wandering the writer’s room’s of Hollywood. Though his DC work will forever be the most discussed (rumor has it the man is 20 issues into a run on Wonder Woman, but there’s simply no way to know if this is true), I’ve most enjoyed King’s break into creator-owned works this decade, and Helen of Wyndhorn is his tightest and most easily recommendable book yet. Whereas Love Everlasting is an admittedly intriguing gimmick that just won’t quit, Helen of Wyndhorn, much like gruff stoic Barnabas, is mostly to the damn point.
Structurally, Helen of Wyndhorn follows the Supergirl playbook, with King alternating between the journal of Helen’s Governess, the story of Helen, a young woman who recently lost her father (C.K. Cole the alcoholic, suicidal writer of a thinly veiled Conan the Barbarian analog), and is falling into the bottle as she’s transported to her grandfather’s (magical) estate of Wyndhorn. The work follows fairly predictably with Helen discovering her father’s fantasy was far more real than he’d let on, and finding her purpose in training for wondrous, magical, violent adventures with Grandpa Barny. Again, much like Supergirl, King is a studied and gifted scripter who understands when he’s working with visual dynamite, and he knows when to pass the ball and let Evely and Lopes deliver a slinking sea serpent bursting out of a swamp.
There’s a temptation to collapse into reflections on The King and I every time Tommy ballgame writes a new comic (don’t let me get lost in the King-ism of the non-sequitur scenes through the present-day nerd collector scene). It’s a byproduct of his unique CIA-crafted persona and some BELOVED comics like Mister Miracle that I’m as fascinated by the work as I am. But, in doing that, I’d be committing exactly the sin I’ve railed against in the James Gunn fueled love of Supergirl, which is overshadowing how heavily Evely and Lopes carry that work from mediocre to excellent. Helen of Wyndhorn is a better collaboration – the journals, for example, are far less tedious, far more full of character – and although I suppose it lacks some of the highs Evely and Lopes achieved, it’s simply a better full story. I greatly look forward to what this full team creates for us next.
Baby Blue
I’ve been on a Smashing Pumpkins kick lately, obsessed with compiling a playlist of Siamese Dream-esque songs (if you have recs, send ’em my way!). As they’re among the bands most firmly rooted in my junior high/high school nostalgia (I think the top of the list is Linkin Park, Sum 41, Tenacious D, Green Day and Styx (thanks, Dad!)), certain Pumpkins songs have a unique ability to transport me. This happened as “Today” hit my headphones in the midst of a basketball warmup, and suddenly I was 13 years old, riddled with anxiety about an upcoming game and either ready to jump through the roof or curl into a ball and rock on the floor.
Imagine police were looking for that mental distress on my face, and able to confiscate my emotional music, and you’ve grasped the foundation for Bim Eriksson’s Baby Blue, a new graphic novel out now from Fantagraphics. The work begins with our lead character, Betty, obtaining an iPod full of banned music (after all, no mentally healthy person is listening to Morissey!) from a suicidal contact. Betty’s emotional stability wavers on a paper-thin edge, and she’s instantly approached by police and placed on a watchlist when this event brings her to (fairly reasonable!) tears in public. This is a Sweden where happiness or at least contentedness is demanded at all times, and the mentally unfit are taken to clinics for medical course correction. It’s satirical commentary on how societies treat those who march to a different drum, but it’s also resonant predictive text. The best satires always carry just enough reality.
Eriksson’s cartooning is surreal yet consistent, with hollow eyes, elongated limbs (every character’s legs go ALL the way down to the floor), and disproportionately square shoulders. It’s a realistic dystopian future, but with elements of absurdity melded to its core. What’s fairly remarkable is that Eriksson is regularly able to convey subtle emotional shifts via facial tics and character interactions, even when animal masks and alien body types are involved. Your mileage will undoubtedly vary on the stylistic approach, but the idiosyncrasies never impede narrative. For my money, they give it life.
Bowling With Corpses
The post-Hellboy comics career of Mike Mignola has been hard to define, probably because even after the “conclusion” of Hellboy in Hell, Mignola’s still been attached to the Hellboy Universe through various spin-offs, one-shots, or Mignola-verse standalones that simply feel like they belong in the Hellboy Universe through sheer force of Mignola’s idiosyncrasies. As a casual fan, I was largely under the impression that Mignola was in the outsourcing phase of his career, drawing the cover and writing Falconspeare with the wonderful Warwick Johnson-Cadwell, but not doing it all, the way Mignola did on Hellboy for 20-some years. Last year’s Miss Truesdale and the Fall of Hyperborea seemed to cement the limitations of this phase, as Mignola’s collaboration with Jesse Lonergan managed to stifle the boundless visual acuity of Lonergan, resulting in a completely passable work.
I was pleased to see this year that Mignola’s thick shadowy inks weren’t yet content with their corner of a well-earned tomb, and Mignola’s back in full with Dave Stewart colors and Clem Robbins letters on Bowling With Corpses and Other Strange Tales From Lands Unknown. As promised, Bowling With Corpses is 90-some pages of Mignola’s patented horror, adventure, mythology and riffs on obscure folklore. Initially, I’ll admit I carried a lot of skepticism towards Bowling With Corpses, at least towards the stated mission of Mignola building new worlds. It’s impossible for a Mignola written-and-drawn comic to escape the shadow of Hellboy, and as the artist admits in the graphic novel’s epilogue essay, exploring these unknown lands comes from a line and idea in Hellboy.
Ultimately, most of these short stories of immortal wizards using the dark arts and hapless adventurers destroying skeletons and vampire brides with an ancient corpse’s arm would fit right into any Hellboy story, sans titular pancake-loving demon. So I won’t sit here and pretend Mignola has entered into some new and surprising phase. But when one of the greatest living comics creators fully gives himself to doing what he does best, who cares how much it reminds you of past glories?! It’s still a blast! Mike Mignola arguably has the highest approval rating of any creator in comics, straddling that ever-challenging line between critically-acclaimed and commercially successful. Bowling With Corpses is a reminder of exactly why that is, and the idea of Mignola, at 64, saying “Hey, let’s build something new,” is something to be celebrated. Especially considering he’s barely lost a step drawing those haunting, muppety, pupil-less witches, crocodiles and all things gothic and great.
At the end of the day, Bowling with Corpses is Mignola through and through, right down to an irreverent sense of humor and love of the strange that compels him to end chapters with talking narrator ducks (no ducks were otherwise found in the making of these comics!). It’s the kind of work that can dazzle you with spectacle, tease you with world-building potential, and make you laugh out loud at a panel of a strangely plot-significant miniature cow. Do I think Mignola’s on his way to his next Hellboy? Hell, no! But I don’t need that, and neither do you. Let the legend cook!
Kaya Vol. 4
Wes Craig’s all-ages fantasy is firmly entrenched among the Image all-timers; at this point the only real question about Kaya is how far do Craig’s plans stretch? Approaching 30 issues, Kaya is one of the sturdiest long-running series in the direct market, all the more impressive considering Craig’s succeeding in a highly saturated fantasy market on the power of design, expert craftsmanship, and completely non-cynical heart. Like Jeff Smith’s Bone, Craig fully gives himself to the journey of Kaya and her brother Jin, navigating an endlessly engaging fantasy landscapes of robots, wizards, alligator-men, trickster-gods, and magical boys with the powers of animal transformation. Alongside Jason Wordie and Tom Napolitano, Craig has crafted one of my favorite worlds in comic books.
The most recent volume of Kaya, collecting issues #19 to #24, reaffirms the book among comics’ best, as Craig’s imagination is freed in the haunted city, allowing for kaleidoscope dream-state layouts and chase sequences involving rabid dinosaurs for the honorary reason that this is comics and they can, dammit! Kaya and Jin’s quest is under constant duress – let these kids catch a break! – and the regular addition here of Razel the Loki-like (ex?) god of tricksters is a more than welcome wrinkle. At some point, I suspect I’ll grow tired of the “Jin gets captured and Kaya must save him” structural cycles, but Craig seems to even notice that here, more likely to move along the rescues as they recur, and seeking to avoid stasis. I can’t wait to see where we’re going next.
El Fuego
I was not familiar with this part of David Rubin’s game. I knew the Spanish cartoonist as the incredible visualist behind collaborations with Matt Kindt and Jeff Lemire (Cosmic Detective, Ether, Black Hammer spinoffs), but not as his own fully formed voice. It’s a trite concern, but the leap from full-time artist to fully-in-control writer/artist leaves many a sure hand collapsed in a pit of bodies who’ve tried and failed. Queue up the standard reviewer’s lament: “It looks great BUT…”
Well, El Fuego, originally released in Spanish in 2022 and now translated to English via Oni Press, looks great AND I quite enjoy Rubin’s apocalypse sci-fi and cultural commentary! Think Armageddon in a post climate collapse world, all through the lens of a rock-star Architect tasked with saving mankind by building a lunar evacuation colony. There aren’t many beats here that truly surprise, but there’s an eccentricity and confidence to Rubin’s storytelling that overpowers fears of been-there-done-that. An example: Of course the moment our protagonist finishes a call from Moon to Earth with his doting wife and daughter, he turns around and cuts up lines of coke for himself and his mistress. I just call this Thursday (nobody send these reviews to my wife, please)! BUT Rubin introduces “kryptocoke,” so that the duo’s eyes turn green, and their bodies emanate emerald auras as they engage in the erotic festivities. And THEN, I won’t spoil it, but Rubin twists the grotesque up a notch, channeling Frank Quitely’s All-Star Superman as written by The Boys era Garth Ennis. It works! (not to mention convinces me there’s a Black Label Superman project just waiting for David Rubin’s pen.)
Over the course of ~250 pages, Rubin plays with a wide variety of craft and ideas, and as you’d expect, some moments work far better than others. There’s a sequence of the kryptocoke leaving our now ruined protag wandering the city streets with his green Doctor Strange astral self lurching out of a husk, as they make their way to a synthetic sex shop from the mind of Syd Mead and Geoff Darrow. For my money, it’s the scene that most effectively captures the fall of the grand hero of mankind, a memorable mixture of seedy, pathetic, gross and sad. On the opposite end of the spectrum, there’s a lengthy mid-work sequence where two characters wander a now desolate Rome and their looooong conversation is spread entirely across double page spreads. The dialog lacks the emotional heft or propulsive force to justify the length, but it’s still fascinating to see how Rubin conveys an extended walk-and-talk without panel borders. I’d argue you need the space to try both scenes, even if I’m admittedly skimming dialog during the latter.
Again, it would be too easy to toss this in the pile of “Great art BUT” comics, and I just don’t think that does it justice. Much like an addict wandering the burning waste of the Earth-that-was, Rubin’s more than capable of surviving on his own, and I look forward to seeing what tricks are up his sleeve next.
Simplicity
Imagine an unapologetically trans/genderqueer Futurama and you’re about a third of the way to the dystopian future satire of Mattie Lubchansky. Hot off 2023’s Boys Weekend, Lubchansky’s next Pantheon Graphic Library addition is an even bigger swing, a concerningly believable depiction of what’s left of America in 2081, following a New York scholar, Lucius, attempting to understand the off-the-grid city of Simplicity. In Simplicity, Lucius finds a society well outside the norms of the city-territories, with seemingly cultlike rituals of nightly violence and orgy, and a collectivist approach to their unlikely survival. As Lucius begins to fall for Simplicity’s lifestyle (as well as the charismatic Amity), his fact-finding research is revealed to be a ruse for developers to destroy Simplicity. And that’s when the monsters arrive.
Lubchansky’s an excellent cartoonist, crafting instantly compelling world design with an economy of line, and able to sell a character’s look of desire with tremendous ease (whereas when I try to sell this look irl, I just look like I’m about to sneeze). As the work develops, Lubchansky also gets to show off their monster designs, with translucent nightmares made entirely of eyes, mouths, zippers and Mysterio fish-bowls. It’s an eye-opening balancing act as Lubchansky alternates between erotica, supernatural thriller, and laugh-or-you’ll-cry satire.
Without spoiling anything, the third act very effectively seals Simplicity’s “point,” in intensely recognizable ways. It’s an emotional and powerful conclusion to another stellar work from Lubchansky.
I Hated You In High School
In the supreme parallel universe where queer relationships are accepted and celebrated for all that they are, I Hated You In High School would make perfect romcom material, like an A24-elevated Hallmark movie. Kathleen Gros is exceptionally gifted at selling the expressions and body language of the 20-somethings in this narrative, filling every conversation with heart, humor and authenticity. The graphic novel about a struggling cartoonist visiting home and confronting her high school nemesis is so lived-in that I just assumed we were dealing with autobiography until it occurred to me to actually check (unlike Queen’s Gambit, this did not turn my world upside down when I realized it was (mostly) fiction!).
Even some of my comics pet peeves – the dreaded extended flashback sequence! – are buoyed with smart interjections that keep the work light on its feet (Tessa’s bestie hitting her up with a “BUDDY” after a particularly revealing high school diary story). It only takes one look at the cover of Tessa and Olive standing next to each other blushing (comic’s universal signifier for CRUSHING) to know where this is going, which honestly leaves me more in awe of Gros’ execution. The journey of Olive and Tessa coming to terms with their feelings, and with teenage bullying is engrossing all the way through, setting the stage for an incredibly sweet romance. Somehow Gros even finds time to bake in a subplot about Toronto’s creeping gentrification. Excellent work all around.
The Power Fantasy Vol. 1
I have five angles I considered for the opening to a review of The Power Fantasy, which means I have thought about approaches to discussing this book approximately 5x as much as any other comic. The Power Fantasy is a book that invites – perhaps demands – *takes*. From creators Kieron Gillen, Caspar Wijngaard, and Clayton Cowles, this is Gillen’s attempted apotheosis on superheroes, after over 15 years in the trenches, and fresh off best-in-franchise work on Marvel’s Eternals and saved-the-franchise-from-heat-death work on Immortal X-Men. There are six superpowered individuals, each posing the weight of a nuclear arsenal, and this is Gillen’s post- post-Watchmen commentary on the ways the global-political landscape would be upended in a world where an all-powerful telepath could wipe out the U.S. government with a thought.
Hey, you don’t invoke the name of Dr. Manhattan if you don’t think you have something big to say.
I’m a post-Marvel Round 1 Kieron Gillen convert, as high on his stretch from 2018 to present as anyone. Personally, I think the run from Peter Canon: Thunderbolt, Die, Once and Future, Eternals, and Immortal X-Men is among the best Direct Market comics of the last 7 years (that caveat isn’t really a slight; I just don’t want to sink into the quagmire of considering pure graphic novel book market work from the likes of Emily Carrol or Chris Ware!). So, while I am primed to follow a work that is Gillen’s reaction to writing X-Men without the restrictions of corporate-ownership, familiarity and praise also breeds expectation. I *want* The Power Fantasy to be my new favorite comic, which is a dangerous bar to place.
Let’s start here: This book is HIGHLY ambitious, eminently critiquable, and I did not want to put it down! After Peter Canon, Wijngaard’s no stranger to superhero commentary, but it was on Homesick Pilots where I saw the artist’s ability to blend character acting and stylized chromatically surreal backgrounds in a way that felt genuinely fresh (you can pretty quickly recognize a Wijngaard page by an analogous palette of pink-purple-blues popping off every building and background). Over the course of 5 issues, Wijngaard is tasked with bringing these Superpowers (the Atomics as they’re known) and their supporting pals to life as if we’ve lived in this world where it’s impossible to have missed them. In his way, he’s successful, if not as instantly defined as Jamie McKelvie’s Lucifer or Baal from Wicked+Divine (there are entire critical companions to be written about Wic+Div vs. the Power Fantasy). It takes all five issues to clearly define the players, which is no small wonder considering the way we open en media res and are asked to puzzle out the contours of the Atomics ourselves. The cut and paste effect of characters that look like they were chopped out of magazines and glued over Wijngaard’s backgrounds can be offputting, although I’d argue this faux-collaging is an effective part of the book’s DNA as it progresses. Chapter four’s focus on Masumi’s Void-esque darkzilla highlights Wijngaard’s full potential, with gorgeous teases of an ultimate world-shattering monster lurking beneath this young depressed artist, and assures with conviction that Wijngaard is *the* artist to pull this off.
The weight, then, falls on Gillen, and through a single volume it’s less clear if he can lift it. On one hand, The Power Fantasy Vol. 1 does the work of pulling me in for what comes next. I’ll eagerly be reading where Etienne Lux’s “ethical” telepathic murder gets him (if you want a clue that Gillen’s working out some leftover X-Men feelings, look no further than the “oh golly, sure wish I didn’t have to use my mind powers this way!” focus on Lux). I want to know more about the all-powerful, perhaps literally angelic might of Valentina, or the weaponized right-wing militant magic of Jacky Magus. But on the other hand, I remain unconvinced that a work so geo-politically concentrated can dig any deeper than through the topsoil. Valentina is born at the exact moment of the first atomic blast in 1945, and the history of the Atomics is all *very* directly tied to historical moments. (When I was in college, I wrote a novella, clearly ripping off Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children, that began with a junior high author stand-in hooking up behind the bleachers for the first time and orgasming at the exact moment of 9/11. Superpowers followed. It makes me wince to share that with anyone, but it’s also a massive red flag that I’m seeing parallels!)
Ironically, for a work that seeks to upend the tropes of cape comics (we solve issues with words, or at least fistless violence!), it still generally functions best within those parameters. As a creator who has thought deeply about the possibilities, limits and potential of the genre, this is where Gillen excels. And realistically, I’m ready and willing to cruise alongside “Heavy” as a Magneto stand-in, floating in his island for Atomics, without Marvel editorial breathing down Gillen’s neck. The Power Fantasy is still best sold – to my mind – as Gillen’s post-IP reaction to how we make superhero comics. But with a work wearing its ambitions so nakedly, and during such a decidedly political *moment*, with a world screaming on fire, I simply hope for something more insightful, or at least more precise. I don’t buy-in to Sean Dillon’s visceral critique on The Beat (although I LOVE that there’s room for them to make it!) that The Power Fantasy is all shine no substance, particularly through the vaguery of Lux’s issue 1 government wipeout (Sean seems particularly fixated on Bill Clinton getting his, and for me, that wouldn’t have moved the needle one way or the other). But I do agree that there’s a lack of specificity to the present day, to the post-1989 transformation revealed in these pages, generally in favor of world-building mystery. We are talking here about the dangers of world superpowers without affiliation to the nation-state – how much world history do you keep, and how much do you completely rewrite in such an environment? The answers are still unclear, and are essential to the work succeeding as alt-history.
Listen, these are the thoughts and questions of someone five issues into a run built for the long haul. I was skeptical, frankly dismissive of Wic+Div until I read it as an integrated whole as well. I’m also confident this first volume doesn’t accidentally cap at 1999. There’s a LOT more story to be told, a LOT more world to build, a LOT more to say. I’m excited about creators that want to try and say it, despite, well, *gestures at the 2000s*. That’s the kind of ambition I want from all my favorite comics.
The Fables of Erlking Woods
Juni Ba is one of my favorite comics creators of the 2020s, so it didn’t take much convincing when I saw he was Kickstarting a new comic with Aditya Bidikar (who lettered all your favorite comics that Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou didn’t). I am of two minds with comics Kickstarters. On one hand, I don’t want to do any work to keep up with them (release your books to the masses you tyrants!), and I’ve mostly resisted the cycles of Kickstarter PR that demand you interview subjects about a work that… doesn’t exist yet! On the other hand, this inevitably means the moment I find out I missed a Kickstarter Comic, I get overwhelming FOMO (fear of maternal ostriches… I’ve been bitten before. Never again.) So naturally, I wasn’t going to let The Fables of Erlking Woods slip through my fingers. Between Djeliya, Mobilis, Monkey Meat, and The Boy Wonder, Juni’s pretty much a lock for best-of-the-year consideration.
Fables is no exception, and perhaps a needed reminder that the world is full of comic book storytellers fascinated by exploring the nature and power of stories. The book is broken into “branches” of separate yet converging fables, allowing Ba’s Mignola by way of cartoonist growing up on Samurai Jack style to effervescently float out of anthropomorphic and human tales from medieval times to World War Two. Bidikar proves endlessly versatile, shifting lettering to match tone and temporal jumps, most notably to me during a surprising black-and-white 80s diary turn in the book’s back half. The emotional core of Fables is reminiscent of threads in Ba’s other works (particularly Mobilis, or The Unlikely Story of Felix and Macabber), exploring how past traumas drive isolation and festering jealousy-laced anger. It’s the confidence and immediately recognizable style that pulls in new readers, but Ba’s writing is increasingly therapeutic, navigating a rare willingness to look inward and bare fears of self-loathing most would prefer to keep bottled up. The Fables of Erlking Woods doesn’t pass Mobilis as my favorite of Ba’s work, but it doesn’t need to enter into a rapidly expanding bibliography of essential reads.
Toxic Summer
What a delight. I wasn’t quite sure what to expect from Derek Charm’s three-issue teen-comedy, but Charm puts those Jughead and Unbeatable Squirrel Girl lessons together to form one of the funniest, sweetest YA graphic novels of the year. Toxic Summer is the story of two queer teen friends who plot for a summer lifeguarding horny beach hunks (a kid can dream!), but wind up embroiled in a small coastal town overwhelmed with mysterious, supernatural toxic sludge. It’s a classic teen-summer misadventure with a good ol’ Comics^TM twist.
Charm’s characters are shockingly well developed given the space, clearly building genuine laugh-out-loud moments and budding romance in the span of a mere 100+ pages. Honestly, the slice-of-life portrayal of 6 teens stranded in this dead, beachless town is compelling enough that Charm doesn’t really need the Black Lagoon meets Clayface monsters that drive an overly familiar plot. Charm’s swirling dark neon greens are a thrill to look at, but the moments Toxic Summer lost me are some needless and trope-y moments of exposition (although even here, Charm sneaks in humor from his, well, charming cast). All of which is to say, I’d love to just hang with these characters for a summer. Bring on volume two, perverted hunks, and “some” sharks!
The Ardent
Fieldmouse Press got my attention early in 2025 as one of the first publishers to publicly discuss the impending, disastrous impact of the Trump Tariffs on their comics publishing plans. Through some combination of Trump’s chaos and paper prices remaining consistent, the emergency was temporarily subdued, but fortunately all the hubbub made me aware of the publisher fundraising their 2025 Winter catalog (they also publish SOLRAD, the very good online literary journal for comics). Thus began my descent into crowdfunding 98% of cool comics projects announced in 2025.
Carl Antonowicz’s The Ardent is among the 5 Fieldmouse offerings, and the hardcover latidunal story of a mute monk’s journey towing the bones of a Saint from one monastery to another is worth the price of admission alone. The monk’s journey is effectively broken into three encounters with a warrior reduced in station, a rambunctious child abandoned by his mother and father, and an older woman who purports to know the true history of this monk’s “saint.” The underlying theme of each chapter is a total rejection of fairytale endings in favor of the cold pragmatism of this earth. Each meeting threads the fine line of endless failures with a dark humor, that escalates with each human connection until the work’s final explosive conclusion.
In short, Antonowicz has crafted a riveting fable, confidently sketched and toned through sky-blue water colors and nostalgic reds for the various flashbacks. It should come as no surprise in a work with a mute lead that much of the narrative rests on a clearly communicated variety of facial expressions, and Antonowicz proves up to the task. I loved reading this work, but I’m most impressed by the way Antonowicz flirts with some really dark moments – I’ll never forgive that sweet boy’s parents, and the saint’s true backstory is brutally violent – but then balances a comedic whimsy in a way that doesn’t feel like tonal whiplash. Like many journeys in life, the monk’s final confrontation is both funny, sad, and fruitless! So it goes.
The Ultimates Vol. 1: Fix the World
Deniz Camp and Juan Frigeri’s Ultimates shows a desire to elevate superhero fiction with political and social commentary ingrained in every fiber. I was already an Ultimate 2niverse convert through Hickman/Checchetto’s Ultimate Spider-Man and Momoko/Davvison’s Ultimate X-Men, but it’s Ultimates that lifts the new universe to heights where, were it not for Ryan North’s excellent 616 Fantastic Four, the original Marvel Universe would be completely obsolete.
In the vein of Victor LaValle’s work on Sabretooth, Camp combines Hickman’s House of X data page insertions with historical lessons melding real history with Marvel Comics. Much like a pill mashed into dog food, Camp tricks us into learning about Pacific Island colonialism, the dark history of American atomic testing, and mistreatments of indigenous peoples, all while seamlessly integrating these histories into the introductions of the universe’s new She-Hulk and Hawkeye. It’s not a surprise that the writer of 20th Century Men would have a clear point-of-view on an Ultimates unit that has been branded “terrorist” by the Maker’s controlling council, but the sheer confidence of mashing message and Marvel makes it look almost too easy. This Ultimates – my favorite Ultimates in Marvel’s history, for the record (with shouts to Al Ewing’s great 616 work!) – raises the stakes for anyone writing superhero comics, and makes the bulk of the field look factory-produced and uninspired by comparison. The mainstays have to be lying awake at night cursing Camp’s name.
All of this overshadows the other secret ingredient of The Ultimates: It knows how to lean into what makes Marvel Comics great. Which is another way of saying: Uh, The Hulk has the power of Iron Fist and the Immortal Weapons by his side!
I’ll predict that The Ultimates will have missteps, but even so, this level of ambition and skill is everything you could ask of a new flagship superhero team book. The only limitation – which is exacerbated by Nick Dragotta’s performance on Absolute Batman and Hayden Sherman’s on Absolute Wonder Woman – is that Frigeri and Federico Blee have not yet coalesced into a standout visual storytelling unit. Indeed, the most memorable visuals from the run to date are Phil Noto’s guest pages in The Ultimates #4, the story of Ultimate 2niverse Reed Richards, turned into a Doom by The Maker (in a story told entirely through 4-panel pages running on different timelines! Comics! Hell yeah!). Nonetheless, this Ultimate Universe is quite clearly in Camp’s more than capable hands, which is a big reason why it’s my favorite thing happening in superhero comics in 2025.
Beat It, Rufus
I’d never read the work of Noah Van Sciver before, admittedly due to the poisonous association of his brother Ethan (it’d be like finding out Van Jones was the brother of Alex Jones… ok, that’d be *slightly* more surprising and toxic). As far as I can tell, though, Noah is very much his own person, with an Ignatz award winning resume of R. Crumb inspired Comix, and the enthusiastic backing of the Fantagraphics cartoonist machine. And whatever he thinks of his monstrous bro, Beat It, Rufus is among the best graphic novels of 2025.
Aging dirtbag rockers are catnip for me (what’s up School of Rock), and Van Sciver’s Rufus ranks among the sleeziest of them. Better yet, Rufus is an also-ran, still clinging to an almost-made-it moment from decades ago that ended when his two bandmates (apparently) died on the tour jet (that they paid for themselves!). What follows is an immaculate journey into the descent of this oddly charming loser, barely a guitar to his name, and what happens when he finally starts to reconnect from the players who saw the worst of him in that past life. It’s an extremely funny imagining of a particular type of glory-days-dude, with Van Sciver happy to lean into the nastiness of both visual and attitude (Rufus discovering he just might be allergic to cats is a particularly humorous gross-out sequence). If you find yourself thinking “I haven’t watched Spinal Tap in a while” a few times a year, Beat It, Rufus is a must.
Holy Lacrimony
I don’t yet have any Michael Deforge comics listed among my 500 favorites of all time, and it’s not for lack of trying (I’m sure he sleeps just fine!). The critically-acclaimed cartoonist has been an indie darling for well over a decade now, but frustratingly, I couldn’t find my road in. It’s been a bit like like listening to praise for Black Midi, appreciating where it’s coming from, but knowing that their math-rock signatures lack the pop sensibilities my brain requires to hit the dopamine receptors. I get why you snobbish intelligentsia enjoy these comics; but for Odin’s sake, where’s the story!
This changes with Holy Lacrimony, Deforge’s latest graphic novel out now from Drawn & Quarterly. The first half of Holy Lacrimony is an alien abduction of the “saddest person on Earth,” a reasonably well known musician named Julie, taken to space for a study of sadness. The premise and execution are reminiscent of Kurt Vonnegut’s Tralfamadore, delivered through Deforge’s patented abstractions and supremely confident pacing, a perfect blend to make an alien race feel well and truly alien. We meet an alien who simply wants to learn – or at least learn how to mimic – Julie’s deep depression, despite a life that is empirically just below average. The “abduction” is strange yet incisive, darkly humorous and sexual amid Deforge’s captivating, twisting, form-shifting visuals.
The back half finds Julie suddenly returned to Earth, seeking confirmation of alien experiences among an occasionally dubious support group. While still fully Deforge’s, the work here shifts more into something tonally resembling Nick Drnaso’s Sabrina, albeit with far less interest in excising the nature of conspiracy. There’s no obvious epiphany for Julie, and the work ends as suddenly as the abduction took place. Deforge’s focus is clear throughout, but he still naturally gravitates to the enigmatic.
It’s a great read, full of potential to revisit and explore.
Paul Auster’s New York Trilogy
It’s a mild challenge to “rank” the full New York Trilogy, a new Abrams collection of 3 graphic novels adapted from the works of the incredible novelist Paul Auster, based on his 3 novellas released sequentially from 1985 to 1987. For starters, the opening salvo, City of Glass, is among my 50 favorite comics of all time, and Paul Karasik and David Mazzucchelli’s adaptation has been considered an all-timer since publication in 1994. What we’re really considering, then, with the New York Trilogy is the two freshly released adaptations of Ghosts by Lorenzo Mattotti (art directed by Karasik), and The Locked Room by Karasik. If you simply need a hardcover collection of City of Glass, or an excuse to read more by Paul Auster, what are you waiting for?!
Auster’s New York Trilogy is summarized as literary detective-noir fiction, with connective tissue of three protagonists who become completely consumed by the cases they’re tasked with solving. To be a leading man in Auster’s New York Trilogy is to lose yourself entirely to insular fixations at the expense of everything and everyone around you. Structurally, Ghosts is the least of-a-piece with the Trilogy, and Karasik and Mattotti match Auster’s near-storybook framing (the characters are all a Mr. Blue, Mr. Green, Mrs. Blue, etc) with a single illustration per page standing above the novella’s text. There are pointed exceptions, when text is framed in a different font on a typewriter, but generally we sink deeper and deeper into Blue’s P.I. insulation (he goes on a stakeout that lasts seemingly forever) with Mattotti’s gray-black pencil-shading either matching the text directly or in abstract. There are some particularly excellent translations, such as Mattotti’s depiction of Mr. White in his garish Halloween mask. Matching Auster’s own deconstruction of genre-expectation, Mattotti and Karasik increasingly depart from the initial structure, alternating between pure-text, traditional 3-or-4-panel grids, and finally splash pages full of word balloon dialog. Ghosts is unquestionably the least striking of the trilogy, but I’d also read it again in a heartbeat.
The Locked Room is the true marvel here, most reminiscent of Karasik’s incredible contributions to City of Glass, albeit sans Mazzuchelli. It’s hardly surprising that the comics canon has lost view of Karasik in the shadow of Mazzuchelli (this will happen when you make Batman Year One and Daredevil: Born Again with Frank Miller), but his comics resume is fascinating. Karasik was an associate editor of the esteemed RAW magazine with Art Spiegelman and Francoise Mouly, of course adapted City of Glass, and wrote the famous essay, “How to Read Nancy” (second only in esteem, of course, to Tiffany Babb’s recent Comics Courier essay, “How to Read ‘How to Read Nancy'”)! The Locked Room and this full Pantheon collection of Karasik’s Auster adaptations should cement the cartoonist as his own force for a new generation. Karasik shows tremendous respect for Auster’s writing, with an innate understanding of when to depict events literally and when to operate in the abstract. Like Ghosts, Karasik’s Locked Room begins mostly via familiar modes of comics, with clean gray-washed pencils refusing any overly showy tricks in favor of immersive storytelling. As the author’s journey to find his missing, thought-dead friend, Fanshawe, escalates and consumes him, Karasik opens the bag of tricks. A particular favorite occurs while our narrator is swept up in the seductive, drunken praise of Fanshawe’s mother, and the character is literally lifted out of his seat by the swelling rising speech bubbles. I’ve seen cartoonists play with interactive dialog before, but never quite so literally as balloons! To say the work’s conclusion is a page-turner is an understatement, and for my money, it’s every bit as memorable as City of Glass.
All in all, the full New York Trilogy is quickly one of my favorite collections on my bookshelf. If the rest of the talented cartoonists of the world could promptly adapt the remainder of Auster’s works, that would be greatly appreciated.
Bring Me the Head of Susan Lomond
Silver Sprocket stays winning with this delightful riff on high school rivalries (and the thin line between rivalry and relationship!) from debut graphic novelist Connor B. It’s Wednesday meets Dexter’s Laboratory, as teen genius/mad scientist Monroe Poole looks to exact her revenge on high school Prom Queen/star of the football team Susan Lomond. Sure, the thing starts with Monroe trying to blow up Susan in the end zone, and may or may not include plans to send a flying lumberjack’s ax at Susan’s head during Prom, but you won’t find many cuter, sweeter or more wholesome stories of blooming queer love in the entire YA market!
Connor B’s cartooning is clear, focused, and quite good at emphasizing how slight movement of the eye or flushing of the cheeks can convey entire volumes of character-building. It’s a familiar trope that two teen “enemies” might actually have the hots for each other, but Connor B approaches the work with such an enthusiastic love of Monroe’s family of mad scientists (big shouts to Nero) that by work’s end it’s a wonder this wasn’t already a beloved Saturday morning cartoon. I would read an entire shelf’s worth of a “Bring Me the Head of…” series with this precise blend of absurdist dark humor and budding supervillain romance.
Tongues
Anders Nilsen’s Tongues wants to rise to the level of the greats, and it has all the tools to get there. Ostensibly, Tongues is a reimagining of the myth of Prometheus, the prisoner of the gods chained to a mountaintop for eternity due to his overeager infatuation with the disease of humankind (or so his family of jailors would tell you). The story of Prometheus on the mountain and the viability of the human experiment is only one of three core narratives, though, as the work spans near-present-day Central Asia with a cast of children, soldiers, monkeys and god-chickens. The scope is astonishing; it’s a challenge not to get lost in superlative. It’s the kind of work with a pull quote referencing Maus, Fun Home, Persepolis, and Jimmy Corrigan in a single breathless name-check. Nilsen’s modern mythology possesses Moebius’ soft touch and Art Spiegelman’s experimental ambition, with the world-weary design of Frank Quitely and the panel-defying layouts of P. Craig Russell.
Whether it’s my thumb catching an unexpected fold on a page that reveals an explosion of mysterious floral biology, or the way a page of comics might consist of 11 teardrops, creeping with the verdant flora of Prometheus’ hillside, there are repeated moments of ecstasy revealing modes of storytelling I haven’t experienced before. Structurally and visually, Tongues is simply one of the coolest graphic novels I’ve ever held. This, plus an enigmatic core shrouding quests and connective tissue in layered secrecy makes for comics offering the rarest of promises: rewarding, near-necessary rereads.
It wasn’t until I was about 2/3rds of the way through Tongues that I noticed the “Vol. 1” indicia on its spine. This is both thrilling and deflating. It’s exciting that Nilsen would want to return to this world, that there’s the promise of a volume 2 on the horizon; it’s deflating in the sense that for most of its duration this feels like the sort of masterwork that deserves a satisfactory conclusion (and without the eternity of the gods, I am naturally impatient). I came into Nilsen’s work cold, but have since learned that Tongues has been in-progress for years, and that this Pantheon collection assembles the last 7+ years of six issues. Hopefully the second volume won’t take as long, but frankly, given the attention to detail and bursting creativity on every page, it’s almost a relief to learn no one crafted something so gorgeous in any shorter amount of time. I don’t need to actually discover I’ve been eating from the liver of gods myself.
Tongues is the front-runner for graphic novel of the year. I promise you’ll enjoy it in print more, too.
Catch up on all CBH’s favorite graphic novels of 2025 right here!
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