Comic Book Herald’s 50 favorite comics of 2025 are etched in stone and you can see all of them right here. I’m happy with the list – the last two years have been my most careful, studied series of recommendations – but I know from putting together my picks for the best graphic novels of the 2020s (so far) that a handful of books I haven’t even read yet will inevitably creep towards “Oh, that really should have been on the best of the year list!” status.
Here’s an early attempt at getting out in front of some of those, with my 2025 picks for honorable mentions, and comics I simply did not get around to writing about and recommending. In some cases this could mean it’s because they don’t quite measure up to my faves, but in a lot of cases, it probably says more about the headspace I was in when I read them! I’ll try to focus on what I remember liking in the write-ups here, as obviously there was *something* that didn’t click for me for the work to be in the honorable (and how honorable they are!) mentions.
You can find the (near) full 2025 list of all my favorite comics this year on Bookshop. The annual list is right around 100 for the year! Don’t hesitate to let me know any of your favorites I may have missed via dave@comicbookherald.com!
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Tomes I Simply Could/Did Not Commit To But Clearly Recognize As Artistic Achievements!
- Do Admit: The Mitford Sisters and Me
- World Within the World
- Black Arms to Hold You Up
- Precious Rubbish
- More Weight
- Ginseng Roots: A Memoir
Mimi Pond’s “Do Admit” is easily the work I would have been most likely to include 2 or so years ago when I was more susceptible to what I *thought* critics would *think* should be on a year-end best of list (I’m still perfectly susceptible, only older and more tired. It helps!). Practically every second holding Pond’s work left me in a form of awe at the cartoonist’s mastery, and the ambition of her scope (Do Admit doubles as a biography of the six Mitford Sisters, British socialites in the 1920-30s AND a memoir of Pond’s time growing up in 1950’s California). Despite the fact that ultimately I only even considered reading a biography of this group because of Pond’s skill, there are absolutely jaw-dropping histories here I never would have known about (most strikingly, Unity Mitford’s close friendship with, uh, actual Hitler). This is a tremendously impressive graphic novel from a phenomenally skilled cartoonist, and for the love of Jack Kirby, make sure you read it in print!
Julia Gfrörer’s collection of short stories from 2010 to 2022 was an early front-runner for best of the year conversations, to the point that I gave it a read upon publication and then again in November just to confirm whether or not I wanted to feature the work among my own favorites. The Fantagraphics published celebration of Gfrörer’s wonderfully unique approach to dark history and erotic fantasy is well worth checking out. Any one of these mini comix would be among my favorite pulls at any given indie comic con. And for stretches, Gfrörer can win just about anyone over as their favorite cartoonist.
I’ve loved a number of Ben Passmore’s works – BTTM FDRS and Sports is Hell particularly – and Black Arms to Hold You Up: A History of Black Resistance is his most ambitious project to date. “Black Arms” follows Passmore’s own literalized time-traveling journey through acts of black resistance throughout American history, pushing aside the coddled sanitized versions of events for a closer look at the harsh realities. Vital histories and stories told by one of the best Black cartoonists.
It will not at all surprise me to see Precious Rubbish by Kayla E. mentioned alongside Chris Ware’s Jimmy Corrigan or Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home in 5 to 10 years time. I just wasn’t ready emotionally to commit to the realities of the author’s trauma (cowardly, I know!). The whole memoir is told through the language of historical children’s comics, meaning it’s as formally inventive as it is devastating.
More Weight: A Salem Story is definitely my #1 most unfairly poorly considered work of the year. I’m sure I’ll come back to it eventually, but you know, sometimes you just don’t want to sink into a 300 page behemoth about the complete history of Salem, Massachusetts. Again, this says nothing about the work of Ben Wickey which looks incredibly well researched and strikingly told.
Well, I can definitely confirm Craig Thompson’s Ginseng Roots is the best graphic novel about Wisconsin’s ginseng trade and the history of the root. Despite Thompson’s 2000s canonization of Blankets, and to a lesser extent Habibi, it’s also likely Thompson’s best-looking work, full of absolutely gorgeous design and attempts to breathe life into a topic you have likely spent 0 moments thinking about. Unfortunately, it also took me approximately 95 weeks to make it about halfway through the work, and I have no desire to return. Why say in 200 pages what you could say in 448, ya know? Still, damn Thompson draws his ass off in this one.
Pretty Good Ongoings I Enjoy!
This category’s self-explanatory – I love keeping up with Nights and Ultramega, and will read either work so long as Wyatt Kennedy and Luigi Formisano or James Harren chose to continue, respectively. Nights was a 2024 favorite, and as the series extends above 15 issues, I’m sure I just need to read it all at once before my next return. Same goes for Ultramega, but with a way more reasonable excuse that volume one and volume two come 4 years apart. I’m quite literally always here to see what Harren wants to cook up on the page, but I can barely remember what I was doing four days ago, forget a story four years in the making!
Search and Destroy is a consistently compelling read from Atsushi Kaneko, adapting and re-imagining Osamu Tezuka’s Dororo. Volume 3 is already out by year’s end, and I’ll definitely be reading. There are moments of snow-washed landscape and action in Kaneko’s pages that are among the best of any manga I read. I’ll admit I struggle with a couple elements – #1) The most famous Tezuka adaptation is Urasawa’s Pluto, and this ain’t that #2) I read an enormous amount of Tezuka for the first time this year as part of Extra Issues… and this also ain’t that! – but Search and Destroy is a cool project, and I look forward to completing the read.
Ice Cream Man is of course it’s entirely own category, and one I’ve written more than enough about. Just note, that if I was assessing single issues, Ice Cream Man: The Mortal Coil Shuffle is *easily* my favorite comic shop experience and print read of 2025, with an actual deck of cards masquerading as an issue of Ice Cream Man! God, I love this comic.
Hot Damn That’s A Cool Comic
I had a pretty hit-or-miss year on Kickstarters (I backed more than ever in ’25, but not a ton of them stood out among my favorites), but I’m really glad I got to hold the hardcover Armored in my hands from Clover Press. Michael Schwartz and Ismael Hernandez craft a movie-ready coming-of-age tale, but with a surprisingly dark middle twist. Hernandez in particular is a revelation, with some of the coolest haunted medieval watercolors I’ve ever seen in print.
Andreas Butzbach’s Big-Ass Sword (from 2000AD) was a hotly anticipated read that didn’t live up to my weirdly sky high expectations. Butzbach is a wonderful artist, but I couldn’t shake the feeling he was Hellboy-ing too hard (there’s inspiration and then there’s imitation). But again… maybe I was just cranky that week! I have bad weeks! I’d read it again.
Huge Detective from Adam Rose and Magenta King is another work I thought I’d see among my year-end favorites, with a really ambitious blend of fantasy and detective fiction, where the detectives are – you’re not gonna believe this – literal Giants! There’s a real creative energy to this neo-noir in a work worthy of more attention.
The Hardest Cuts (Dark Horse Graphic Novels)
G. Willow Wilson has had a very good 2025, defying all industry expectations with one of DC Comics’ best ongoings (If you had Poison Ivy going over 40 issues, come on down and collect your million to one odds!). Elsewhere, Wilson’s quiet, contemplative The Stoneshore Register, told in black-and-whites from M.H. Perker, is easily one of the most underrated graphic novels of ’25, like a long lost 90s Vertigo series about a refugee journalist digging into the possibly supernatural mysteries of a small northwest coast town. It’s a subtle, thoughtful slice of life that willfully avoids the splashy fantasy that would make it easy to classify.
Caitlin Yarski’s Living Hell gets off to an incredibly strong start, and feels to me like this year’s series that would have benefited the most from a sure 12 issues. As creator-owned debuts go, Yarski proves here she’s going to be a force in comics. Can’t wait to read her next creator-owned book.
Alex de Campi, Skylar Patridge and Kelly Fitzpatrick made a helluva YA graphic novel in Reversal, a gorgeous, inclusive fantasy bodyswap story that libraries everywhere should be stacking up on.
Catch up on all CBH’s favorite graphic novels of 2025 right here!
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