The annual exercise of keeping up with all the best new graphic novels and comics collections is perhaps one of humanity’s greatest feats, impossible for all but the most dedicated and classically handsome, but have no fear, I’m still here! As I’ve done every year of the decade, I’ll be updating Comic Book Herald’s best graphic novels of 2026 every month throughout the year, culminating in a final unimpeachable year-end version of the best comics have to offer this year.
I cut off last year’s list at my 50 favorite comics, and will target that same number here as the year progresses. Picks are confined to completed graphic novels or full trade comics collections. This means good runs that have only been released in single issues are not yet eligible until they are collected, unless I turn into one wild and crazy guy and break my own rules. 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. And yes, they’re ranked in descending order ending with my very favorite favorite #1 best comic at the end!
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Previous Best Comics of the Year Lists:
- Best Comics of 2020
- Best Comics of 2021
- Best Comics of 2022
- Best Comics of 2023
- Best Comics of 2024
- Best Comics of 2025
Without further ado… the best comics of 2026!
Nights Vol. 3
In basketball analysis, they talk a lot about players ‘making a leap,’ aka a clearly talented individual taking their game to the next level and elevating from star to superstar. As a Bulls fan, this usually happens once our players leave the team (Go and get it Coby and Ayo!), but it’s thrilling to see potential achieved. This is more of a rarity in independent comics, where market forces tend to put an undue amount of weight on how a series *begins*. I’m certainly guilty of this as well, although I make an effort to consider ongoing comics with some longevity as seriously as I consider shiny new opening arcs (on CBH’s best of 2025, I included 5 new volume ones and 6 stale old ongoings in the middle of their runs!).
The first volume of Nights was among my favorite comics of 2024, but I felt the second volume didn’t measure up. Reading volume three – aka Season Two, Part One – was a bit of a revelation, as creators Wyatt Kennedy and Luigi Formisano completely reset the setting, tone and focus of the book, and once again achieve comics excellence. Swinging a relatively successful Image book back to an arc completely set in the past is a huge risk, but Kennedy and Formisano prove it’s exactly what Nights needed. We’re pulled out of the modern day YA supernatural angst to the ancient days of the 1970s, with a focus on CHIMERA, the superspy network deadset on wiping out or controlling the supernatural – which of course puts them on a crash course with a younger vampire Gray.
The prequel-gambit suggests a longevity and depths to Nights that I wasn’t sure we’d see, and I’m so excited about that! Nights has made the leap, and it’s one of the best ongoing runs of 2026!
Armaveni
There are too many graphic novels about genocide. This is of course less the fault of the artists than the history, where one would be too many. But as awareness increases globally, and squashed histories become harder than ever to keep from rising like the phoenix, I’m finding a comics landscape suddenly full of familial legacies that make me question what I ever saw in humanity.
Armaveni is Nadine Takvorian’s personal history of the Armenian Genocide of the mid 1910s via Levine Querido books. Takvorian is a gifted cartoonist, with a natural ability to weave memoir, flashback and family histories into one informative, emotionally gripping work. At one notable point, Armaveni contains one of the most searingly memorable depictions of genocide in action that I’ve read. Educational with a heart, Armaveni is well worth a read.
Punk’N Heads
“Teenage angst has paid off well; Now I’m bored and old.” Dave Baker and Nicole Goux have made a habit of capturing the messy transition into adulthood (F*** Off Squad, Forest Hills Bootleg Society), and for my money, Punk’N Heads is their most effective collaboration yet. I thought this would be because I’m a sucker for bad/emerging rockers. Spinal Tap, Tenacious D, Flight of the Conchords, and of course, last year’s Beat It, Rufus from Noah Van Sciver. While Punk N’ Heads is very much about a subslice of the punk rock scene in LA, I did have to recalibrate my expectations for Baker and Goux’s aims. In short, it’s not a rock comedy, it’s a character drama, where yes, sometimes there’s great comedy when a queer punk rock band wearing pumpkin heads gets booked for a children’s birthday party.
Once I made this shift in my reading, the inner riches of Punk’N Heads hit my system with the right force. Baker and Goux are modern masters at illustrating the mess, confusion, and potential of finding direction and community in your 20s. As the work progresses, that focus hones in on some soul-stirringly profound reflections on creativity and the lifelong artistic goal of truly capturing *your* voice. Goux is perfectly suited to render these emotive considerations visually – as you know, if you’ve read This Place Kills Me with Mariko Tamaki – putting a truly remarkable amount of detail into everything from a painter’s trailer to the more obviously spectacle-laced full-page rock-out spreads.
It’s a longer work with relatively concentrated heavy character beats, so Baker and Goux wisely separate chapters both with Silver Age romance comics scene-setting, and manga-outtake esque mini asides between chapters. It might seem like a small thing too, but Goux’s book design features one of my favorite additions of the year – pumpkin head fold outs on the front and back covers! These can be used as bookmarks, they look fun, AND that’s what the band wears. YES. Book design!
Fantastic Four Vol. 1
For me, the health of superhero comics is understood through how many runs have a legitimate chance to go down as all time greats, or contenders for the franchise’s best. When I think of the times I most enjoyed Big 2 comics, it’s usually because the year or era has multiple contenders at a time. Whether or not something actually surpasses the impossibly high bars of Kirby/Lee Fantastic Four or Claremont and friends on X-Men isn’t really important. The point is that something’s making me think it has a chance. That’s the thrill.
I was nervous to jump back into the Ryan North written Fantastic Four, which doesn’t make much sense (FF plus One World Under Doom were among my 2025 favorites) but Marvel made the predictable-yet-obnoxious decision to relaunch the 30+ issue run with a new #1 issue (while simultaneously tying into One World Under Doom), and just… like, bad vibes, ya know? That North and new FF collab Humberto Ramos are able to muscle their way past those barriers to entry is just another reason to believe this run is something of a miracle.
I’m pleased to report that North’s time on the first family remains a legitimate contender, and among my favorite Fantastic Four runs of all time. North continues the approach of placing the family in short-burst impossible sci-fi scenarios, and then scientifically familying (a word! shut up spellcheck!) their way out. Here, the challenge is first escaping from Doctor Doom scattering the 4 through different points in time, and *then* outthinking Doom’s Sorcerer Supreme infused ability to “savepoint” and rewind every battle/interaction like it’s a video game.
I’m not willing to solidify and rankings, but I will say I’d rather read this run a second time than read Hickman’s Fantastic Four a fourth time. Does that mean *anything*? Who’s to say! It’s a run in contention with the greats, though, and we (see also: Marvel) need more of those!
The Shadower
You’re excited to read The Shadower by Peter and Maria Hoey. Their graphic novel In Perpetuity was one of your favorite graphic novels of 2024. You pick up your tablet to read The Shadower. It’s a water-marked review copy not fit for horizontal reading on a tablet. One strike. You forge ahead because the wait time at your local library is too long. You begin to read The Shadower.
You observe the Hoey’s working in their patented style, an emotionless, descriptive form of mathematical world-building that effectively evokes sinister dread lurking underneath. The Shadower focuses on a young actress pulled into a world of espionage as her role takes over more and more of her reality. You think of comparing the work to John Le Carré by way of Chris Ware constructing a biography of Nathan Fielder, but realize this may be a function of a limited referential palate. You consider reading a wider range of spy fiction but acknowledge this is unlikely.
You occasionally find yourself growing tired of the narrative – yes, yes, this role is consuming her – but are a devoted reader, and the Hoeys always pull you out of the doldrums just in time. Good thing. You read the ending. It’s the best ending of a graphic novel you’ve read this year. You sit down to review The Shadower by Peter and Maria Hoey.
The Voice Said Kill
One of the first comics review gigs I landed (for a now long-defunct site!) led me to an editor who pushed me to personalize my reviews. “Anyone can describe a comic, but only you can describe what *you* felt,” I imagine he said. “You’re so smart and cool. You’re destined for great – possibly the greatest – things,” I imagine he continued. The advice stuck with me, as did the comic where I first applied those lessons: The Empty Man #1 by Cullen Bunn and Vanesa Del Rey. Apart from a legacy as one of the wildest comics-to-movie trivia blurbs in history (The film version was one of the first to hit pandemic theaters in October 2020… you’re not gonna believe this, but it performed horribly!), The Empty Man introduced me to the gorgeously idiosyncratic visual stylings of Del Rey. I identified an artist due for superstardom, and while that hasn’t quite played out (if only the world at large could catch up!), Del Rey’s continued achieving critical adoration via 2018’s Eisner-winning Redlands, a cult-favorite Scarlet Witch run with James Robinson, and now one of my early favorite comics of 2026, The Voice Said Kill with Si Spurrier via Image Comics.
Spurrier’s post X-Men comics career has elevated the writer to another tier. For my money, this is effectively through Spurrier’s ability to work against type. If I’d had to describe Spurrier previously, I’d point to his work writing John Constantine or Dr. Nemesis, verbose-literary characters who never pass by an opportunity to bludgeon you over the head as the smartest guy in the room. Yet, in Step by Bloody Step with Matías Bergara, Spurrier ceded a silent work to Bergara’s visualizations, and in the most notable example of growth yet, In The Voice Said Kill, Spurrier channels Elmore Leonard with a perfectly cast Del Rey to bring the sweltering Flordia swamps to life.
Spurrier nailing a work that sidesteps Justified, Ozark and southern-broiled crime fiction felt about as likely as Taylor Swift’s Screamo-era, but here we are! The work centers around a pregnant not-technically-a-cop wildlife protection officer, as she’s embroiled deeper and deeper in webs of competing criminal plots. Told less abstractly, the work might feel too familiar – with a centerpiece you may well see coming – but fortunately Del Rey won’t allow that. You feel the dark of the marsh, the menacing shadow of the crocs, and the impossible challenge of escape with your life. Tight, beautiful, and just strange enough to keep you guessing, The Voice Said Kill is one of the year’s best.
Kaya Vol. 5
We were conversating in the My Marvelous Year Slack recently about the realities of attempting an ongoing indie comic in today’s market (prompted by Spike Stonehand’s very good Divining Comics newsletter). The focus was on Kieron Gillen’s reveal that The Power Fantasy might end with issue #16 and that the series (which in my head, I imagined running for years and years!) was financially doing “fine” but hardly great. I quite like The Power Fantasy (it was on CBH’s 2025 favorite books), and the idea that a well-known writer coming off X-MEN would have a hard time sustaining a superhero riff… it does not at all bode well for the traditional ongoing indie comics market!
Which is all a long-winded way of celebrating what Wes Craig is achieving on Kaya, now collected through 30 issues, and one of the longest-running Image Comics to begin in the 2020s (Kaya #1 came out in late 2022). Jeff Smith’s Bone is obviously the gold standard in all ages fantasy adventure comics, and Craig’s Kaya strives for those heights in a world of anthropomorphic creatures, transformative magic, impish mythical beings, and robot kingdoms. It’s consistently impressive considering how thoroughly Craig transitioned from “Rick Remender’s incredible Deadly Class artist” to his very own creator-owned do-it-all comics machine. Shades of Shohei warming up to pitch in the World Series (what can’t this guy do?!).
Anyway, I love Kaya. You should too. I hope it breaks all the rules and hits 50 issues!
Uri Tupka and the Gods: Another Story from Lands Unknown
Mike Mignola loves comics storytelling so much that he’s rebuilding a whole new mythology from scratch – post Hellboy (one of the great comics landscapes of the modern era)! It’s among the most positive late-stage career arcs in the history of comics, an industry which obviously has more than its fair share of heartbroken creators. Mignola’s Lands Unknown are certainly in line with the author’s established fixations – dark magic, secret mythologies, quirky talking animals making lil’ jokes while you read some of the darkest folk you’ve seen in your life – and I for one just can’t get over how *fun* it is to see the legend so obviously enthralled.
I prefer Uri Tupka and the Gods to the previous entry (the quite good Bowling with Corpses), largely because it centers the anthology of short folk-horror stories around the titular Tupka (say that twenty times fast!). It’s a more focused guide through the Lands Unknown, where the depth of history and cosmology can overwhelm at this (seemingly) early stage. Tupka will return later this year with Uri Tupka and the Devils, and I absolutely can’t wait. A new Mignola graphic novel every year? Say less!
Chicken Heart
One of the great thrills of seeking all the best new comics is the feeling of opening a new book not knowing if it’s going to hit or miss. I’ll be 122 pages into a trade I really like and still have this nagging feeling in the back of my head that I should start one of those new downloads just in case its *even better*. Generally, I’m chasing a high that doesn’t return (D.A.R.E. kids!) but with Chicken Heart it worked! Bad habits sometimes pay off and should never be changed!
Out now from Street Noise Books, Morgan Boecher’s first full length graphic novel is a marvel. Chicken Heart follows the story of a stand-up comic presenting as female learning of the death of her Trans aunt, visiting her aunt’s Chicken Heart community for “misfits” like herself, and ultimately learning to come to terms with their own trans reality. It’s funny (the lead is a stand-up after all), heartbreaking, and emotionally gripping. Boecher’s character-centric panels, Allred-thick inks, locale specific monocolors (pink for the city, green for Chicken Heart) all play together perfectly for a plaintive yet satisfying journey of self-discovery.
The War
Dammit, Garth. I was having a nice evening pretending we aren’t all a madman’s itchy trigger finger away from utter annihilation! The War is a completely uncompromising modern horror story that disintegrates the daily comfort of thinking nuclear war couldn’t happen because no one would be crazy enough to kick off mutually assured destruction. Garth Ennis and Becky Cloonan (alongside colors from Tamra Bonvillain and letters from Pat Brosseau) take us inside one group of NYC friends as the situation progresses from faux-intellectual party-fodder (can it really be a party unless a guy is mansplaining global war?) to European bombing to New York fallout. The scary part of course is not just that Ennis and Cloonan could bring something so bleak to life – and don’t let the bleakness make you think the work isn’t a page-turner – but that even the act of reading and writing about the graphic novel feels like an active coping mechanism for the threat’s terrifying reality.
Despite the reputation as a masterful shock-jock (Preacher, Punisher and especially The Boys on your resume will do that), Ennis’ last 15 years are full of nuanced, expertly designed war stories (Sara‘s my personal favorite), and some fascinating spectral horror (A Walk Through Hell remains an underrated work). Alongside the absurdly versatile Cloonan (fresh off the excellent horror of Somna), the duo is deliberately unrelenting in The War, largely avoiding sensationalized story beats (admittedly, the earned last page is a massive exception!) or really any feeling of a way out. Likewise, through a focus on fracturing or doomed relationships, the inevitably nihilistic conclusion maintains a troubling emotional core.
I hated how I felt after reading The War. And now you can too!
We’re Taking Everyone Down With Us
Matthew Rosenberg is on a heater. What’s The Furthest Place From Here with Tyler Boss remains one of the most underrated ongoing comics of the last several years, the adaptation of Four Kids Walk Into a Bank (also with Tyler Boss) is filming with Liam Neeson, and now Rosenberg launches his “Rook Spy Thriller” line with We’re Taking Everyone Down With Us, one of the best comics of 2026. Alongside Stefano Landini, Jason Wordie and Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou, the new 6 issue Image series follows Annalisse, a barely-teen girl raised on her father’s supervillain hideout island by robots and a doting Aflred-esque caretaker. When longtime Agent Rook goes rogue and attempts a capture, Annalisse and one of the bots are forced on the run in a world of superspies, supervillains, and SUPER COMICS (put that on the cover!!!).
We’re Taking Everyone Down With Us is surprisingly playful, balanced with Rosenberg’s humorous asides offering some needed self-awareness of all the absurdity abundant in a world of vampire-apes and supervillain cabals. Much like 4 Kids, though, Rosenberg and Landini are very good at discerning the right emotions and tone for the moment, effortlessly alternating between tortured but caring family dynamics, high-speed moving train escapes, and a roguish British spy cursing in ways I’d never imagined (Rosenberg must have gotten his master’s degree at The Ennis Academy For F*&#*& Lads). Landini mirrors some of Rosenberg and Boss’s preferred moves with gazillion-panel headshots breaking up key conversations, but mostly excels in his own right, particularly with character design. It’s amazing how quickly this camp-Bond meets Copra world of comics-fans tropes accelerates into its own captivating entity.
The plan for this world is intriguing, as the creators are taking a page out of the Brubaker/Philips playbook with a serialized approach of Rook Spy Thrillers. So instead of We’re Taking Everyone Down With Us issue #7, we’ll jump next to In Good Hands With Bad Company #1. I really like the approach for this particular project, as it leaves me wanting more from WTEDWU, but pragmatically not enough where I’m immediately dying for a whole volume two. Instead we’ll bounce out to another Rook story, and I’ll be there day one.
The Bugle Call: Song of War
I’m trying to improve my manga credentials this year (some folks get advanced degrees as they approach mid-life. Not me! I make up credentials!), which led me down a fun rabbit hole exploring all the most interesting “new gen” 2020s manga (I smell a future CBH guide!). So far (and I’ve got a lot more reading to do!), the only book that knocked my hair off and my socks straight back is The Bugle Call: Song of War by Mozuka Sora (story) and Higoro Toumori (art). Fortuitously, the sixth Viz volume translated into English just hit stores, making it a perfect recommendation for the best manga of 2026.
As Sora and Toumori make fun in some back matter, The Bugle Call is *kind of* X-Force/Suicide Squad set in a medieval fantasy, but listen, if every comic with young people developing superpowers had to pay X-Men royalties, we’d never get anywhere (and X-Men would still owe Doom Patrol!). I am not prone to liking manga playing at the battle of Helm’s Deep (it often winds up feeling like… I could just go read more Berserk?), but somehow this book about the damn BUGLER alerting armies is the most compelling piece of superpowered action I’ve picked up this year.
For starters, the powered individuals – the Branched – are extremely compelling characters with uniquely portrayed abilities. Even in cases where I’ve seen this ability before – what’s up Mirror Master! – Sora and Toumori find fresh innovative ways to bring them to life. One character in particular – Zoe – has a powerset that gave me those Isca the Unbeaten feelings (my Krakoa heads know what I’m talking about!). Plus, the creative team are extremely smart about powerset synergies, combining seemingly minor gifts into unstoppable army destroying tide-turners. Of course, all of that isn’t worth much if Toumori doesn’t bring it all to life in captivating ways, and HOLY GUACAMOLE the Looking Glass v. Zoe fight in Volume Four! If you like meta panel explosions have I got a manga for you!
The Bugle Call: Song of War is my favorite ongoing manga right now, honestly even surpassing my long-running favorite Chainsaw Man as Fujimoto approaches the endgame there. This book rules. Check it out!
Absolute Batman Vol. 2 / Absolute Wonder Woman Vol. 2
Ok, fine, since you’re being so PUSHY… I definitively declare my allegiance to Absolute Batman as my favorite Absolute DC comic (at least until Absolute Wonder Woman Vol. 3 makes me flip flop yet again!). Does it matter which one is subjectively *better*? Of course not. The point here is we have creators giving their all to just-fresh-enough spins on the ol’ super friends, with the editorial conviction to ensure the best artists working in superhero comics (Nick Dragotta and Hayden Sherman take all the bows) get to do *their* thing. It’s almost literally all I want from superhero comics in 2026. And then when there is a scheduling fill-in on Batman… it’s GD Marcos Martin! Be still my art!
One of the natural concerns with DC’s Absolute Universe is how long DC can keep it feeling vibrant and friendly to new/lapsed readers before it gives way to that all-too-familiar – looks over both shoulders to make sure MCU stans aren’t listening – fatigue. As these second volumes are hitting shelves Marvel’s Ultimate 2niverse is already on the way out the door! Typically, two to three years is the sweet spot for a shared universe or big idea (New 52, DC Rebirth, Marvel NOW, House of X / Powers of X) before the ideas start to run stale and the freshness wears off. I don’t expect the Absolute U to necessarily be any different. BUT that means we are right in the sweet spot of when this candy tastes the best – enjoy it!
The Woodchipper
Joe Ollman’s new collection of short stories (5 stories, at a 9-panel a page pace essentially makes for 5 compelling graphic novellas!) shows just how far empathy for the inner lives of the average American can take a master cartoonist. In each of the five stories, Ollman dives headfirst into the heads of the working class, waltzing up to slightly sensationalized moments that – with one exception! – never even come close to escaping the bounds of reality. As the narrator puts it in the work’s first story, “The Woodchipper”, nothing actually happened. And yet. As we come to find in this story, the narrator’s whole life is upended, he’s unable to function near the sound of chainsaws or electrical equipment (quite essential for construction!) after he *nearly* turns on a woodchipper before checking and finding a dumb-as-rocks colleague with his hand in the equipment trying to get out his phone. Sure, nothing actually happened. And yet.
Elsewhere we meet a bookstore employee trapped in the office bathroom during Christmas or a landlord who discovers his rental property was the site of a brutal homicide. The scale and scope of the work is relatively small (we spend most of one story in a bathroom after all!) but the urgency of what these moments mean for each character are gripping. The lone exception is the collection’s middle piece, the longest of the five, centering a security guard for a highly questionable mega-corp that experiments on animals. The curiosity for the inner life of Kara is no less rich, but as Kara befriends the vegan animal rights protestors, the work builds to the most dramatic action (and reveal!) of any story here. It’s the only one of the five works that borders on the supernatural. And yet… maybe not. Like most of Ollman’s endings, no morals are overtly declared. It’s up to us to decide what just happened.
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