Top 10
Veteran comics stars Bill Griffith, Mimi Pond, and Joe Sacco headline a season of rabble-rousing politics and genre escapism.
Black Arms to Hold You Up: A History of Black Resistance
Ben Passmore. Pantheon, Oct. 7 ($22 trade paper, ISBN 978-0-593-31612-2)
Poised to be Ignatz and Eisner winner Passmore’s breakout release, this witty and fantastical tour of revolutionary Black leaders offers a “rollicking survey course in a history that has often been reduced to slogans or erased altogether,” per PW’s starred review.
The Blood Brothers Mother
Brian Azzarello and Eduardo Risso. Dstlry, Jan. 20 ($35, ISBN 978-1-9622-6505-8)
Siblings set off on a brutal journey of revenge in this gore-soaked western that has already received an Eisner nomination for Risso’s painterly art.
Do Admit: The Mitford Sisters and Me
Mimi Pond. Drawn & Quarterly, Sept. 16 ($29.95, ISBN 978-1-77046-804-7)
The inimitable Pond delivers a graphic biography of the Mitford sisters, cash poor aristocrats who marry (or flirt) into political influence in the 1930s.
The Last Time We Spoke: A Story of Loss
Jesse Mechanic. Street Noise, Sept. 7 ($20.99 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-9514-9142-0)
“This vulnerable graphic memoir cuts deep,” according to PW’s starred review of Mechanic’s debut, about the death of his mother when he was a teen.
Martian Vision (Absolute Martian Manhunter #1)
Deniz Camp and Javier Rodriguez. DC, Nov. 18 ($24.99, ISBN 978-1-79950-520-4)
An FBI agent’s mind is possessed by a Martian in this psychedelic tale from the Absolute Universe’s Justice League—a buzzy series with die-hard fans.
More Weight: A Salem Story
Ben Wickey. Top Shelf, Sept. 9 ($34.99 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-60309-560-0)
This ambitious retelling of the Salem Witch trials is “shot through with tragedy and dark humor” and “makes readers feel the weight of history,” per PW’s starred review.
The Once and Future Riot
Joe Sacco. Metropolitan, Oct. 14 ($27.99, ISBN 978-1-250-88026-0)
Sacco’s investigation of how politicians fan the flames of ethnic conflicts in Uttar Pradesh, India, pays “homage to the importance of seeking truth, however elusive,” and is “as powerful as it is artful,” according to PW’s starred review. 75,000-copy announced first printing.
Photographic Memory: A Graphic Novel Biography
Bill Griffith. Abrams, Oct. 21 ($35, ISBN 978-1-4197-8414-9)
The Eisner-winning comics biographer offers a portrait of his great-grandfather, photographer William Henry Jackson, whose documentation of the American West led to the establishment of Yellowstone national park.
The Weight
Melissa Mendes. Drawn & Quarterly, Sept. 2 ($29.95 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-77046-716-3)
This graphic novel collects Mendes’s Ignatz-nominated series based on her grandfather’s diaries, about a 1940s kid named Edie growing up in a hard-scrabble farm town.
Witchcraft
Sole Otero, trans. by Andrea Rosenberg. Fantagraphics, Oct. 7 ($34.99 trade paper, ISBN 979-8-8750-0127-7)
The international rising star spins a saga about a sisterhood of feminist witches who’ve wreaked vengeance on bad men since the 18th century.
Adult Comics Longlist
23rd St.
Electric Life: The Hidden Radiance of Everything by Sander Funneman and Peter Brouwers (Nov. 18, $29.99, ISBN 978-1-250-86840-4). The charges running through humans, animals, plant life, and Earth’s atmosphere get illuminated in this graphic explainer of electromagnetic forces at play in the natural world.
Abrams ComicArts
Leo Rising: Queer Spaces, Sexuality, and Fame by Archie Bongiovanni (Jan. 20, $25.99, ISBN 978-1-4197-7087-6). Bongiovanni follows up Mimosa with a graphic novel featuring a lesbian social media star named Leo whose offline reality (studying owls in Alaska) and hidden trans identity are at odds with their public persona.
Smoke Gets in Your Eyes by Anaïs Flogny, trans. by Dan Christensen (Oct. 7, $25.99, ISBN 978-1-4197-8569-6). Gang life crosses with romance in this Eisner-nominated queer take on mob world betrayal. In 1930s Chicago and New York City, a young Italian immigrant climbs through the ranks of the criminal underground, under the wing (and in the bed) of a hunky enforcer.
Amistad
Fela: Music Is the Weapon by Jibola Fagbamiye and Conor McCreery (Oct. 7, $34.99, ISBN 978-0-06-305879-8) chronicles the life and career of 1970s Nigerian musician and activist Fela Kuti, who brought Afrobeat to global recognition, married more than 20 women, and founded the Kalakuta Republic commune.
Andrews McMeel
And to Think We Started as a Book Club... by Tom Toro (Oct. 7, $19.99 trade paper, ISBN 979-8-8816-0406-6) collects the New Yorker cartoonist’s gag comics, like the one where a certain man of steel is stymied trying to get the best deal on health insurance, including previously unpublished bits.
Avery Hill
The Witch’s Egg by Donya Todd (Oct. 7, $19.99 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-917355-21-6). A witch (who is also a cat) brings forth an angel to be her mate but then must escape the darker side of her spell. As her daughters grow up, they return home to face their origins in a fable about parenting, desire, and protection.
Black Panel
Putin’s Fortune by Yvonnick Denoël and Gildas Java (Oct. 28, $29.99, ISBN 978-1-990521-45-4) traces the former KGB agent’s rise to power since the collapse of the Soviet Union, tracing the origins of his billions in personal wealth via investigative reports, research, and interviews.
Boom! Studios
Vicarious by Ryan Parrott and Eleonora Carlini (Aug. 26, $19.99 trade paper, ISBN 979-8-89215-385-0). In this sci-fi thriller, the rich can buy access to the sensations of a willing proxy, who loses privacy but gains all the luxury and excitement money can buy—and risks deadly consequences if the arrangement goes wrong.
Chronicle
Talking to My Father’s Ghost: An Almost True Story by Alex Krokus (Aug. 5, $22.95 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-7972-2818-1). In a series of imagined conversations with the ghost of his deceased father, Krokus must decide what advice to take, which self-realizations to share, and how to work through his grief with the spirit of the man he’s lost.
Conundrum
About the Little Ones by Zoé Jusseret (Sept. 9, $40 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-77262-112-9). A pair of young girls traverse a land where tools rule, and after meeting sage advisers, rise in rebellion against demands of constant productivity, in this graphic narrative rendered in collage.
Dark Horse
Who Are the Power Pals? by Duane Murray, Ahmed Raafat, and Rob Jones (Oct. 28, $19.99 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-5067-4414-8). Former teen actors from a 1990s superhero series flop dust off their tight-fitting caped costumes and go viral for saving tourists on Hollywood Boulevard from what turns out to be not-so-petty crime.
Dark Horse/Berger
The Stoneshore Register by G. Willow Wilson and M.K. Perker (Aug. 5, $24.99 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-5067-4857-3). A refugee and aspiring reporter joins the local newspaper in a scenic seaside town in the Pacific Northwest dominated by a stone giant, where odd creatures and occurrences are the daily lede.
DC
The Last Amazon (Absolute Wonder Woman #1) by Kelly Thompson and Hayden Sherman (Aug. 12, $24.99, ISBN 978-1-79950-529-7). The origins of superheroes are flipped in the Absolute Universe, where baby Amazonian Diana was raised as a prisoner of hell, tutored in magic by a foe, and flew up from the depths on a winged beast.
The Zoo (Absolute Batman #1) by Scott Snyder and Nick Dragotta (Aug. 5, $24.99, ISBN 978-1-79950-524-2). In the Absolute Universe, Bruce Wayne is the son of a schoolteacher, rather than a billionaire playboy. He grew up on the wrong side of the tracks, survived a shooting, and built up his smarts (and his bulk) before donning the cape.
Dstlry
Warm Fusion by Scott Hoffman and Alberto Ponticellli (Dec. 10, $30, ISBN 978-1-9622-6525-6). In this futuristic riff on
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, a prostitute vigilante who dresses up as Snow White teams up with a loner cop against a mad scientist.
Fantagraphics
Buff Soul by Moa Romanova, trans. by Melissa Bowers (Aug. 19, $29.99, ISBN 979-8-8750-0068-3). In Eisner winner Romanova’s autofiction set on a Southwestern American road trip, “over a winding trail of vomit, snot, and tears... girls stumble toward messy but clear-eyed self-recognition,” per PW’s starred review.
The Ephemerata: Shaping the Exquisite Nature of Grief by Carol Tyler (Oct. 21, $39.99, ISBN 979-8-8750-0143-7). Multiple Eisner nominee Tyler delves into a surreal world she calls “Griefville” in the wake of
her husband’s death and her painful estrangement from her daughter.
Wish We Weren’t Here by Peter Kuper (Oct. 14, $19.99, ISBN 979-8-8750-0145-1). The editor of World War 3 Illustrated reflects on the current fractured state of world politics in single-page gag comics that originally ran in the French magazine Charlie Hebdo.
Fieldmouse
A Root Bound Plant Needs Space to Grow by Stacey Zhu (Sept. 5, $14.95 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-956636-54-3). Zhu searches through memories and moments in her past relationships, both romantic and familial, to investigate the nature of love in all its contradictions.
Graphic Mundi
Sleepless Planet: A Graphic Guide to Healing from Insomnia by Maureen Burdock (Nov. 4, $27.99 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-63779-093-9) “weaves examples from contemporary medicine with historical and cultural analysis” to offer a guide to better sleep that “restless readers would benefit from putting on their nightstand,” per PW’s review.
Green Tree
This Might Surprise You: A Breast Cancer Story by Hayley Gullen (Nov. 18, $18, ISBN 978-1-3994-2474-5) documents a British woman’s breast cancer diagnosis and treatment, including anecdotes and tips on navigating the peculiarities of the U.K. healthcare system.
Hard Case Crime
The Loose End by Dave Dwonch and Travis Hymel (Oct. 7, $17.99 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-78774-644-2). A scriptwriter and gambler in debt to mobsters agrees to pay off what he owes by offing a Hollywood bigwig—but the simple scenario goes south fast.
Headshell
Muddy Waters Too by Redman, Ben Katzner, and Geo Gant (Aug. 26, $19.99 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-63849-267-2). Rapper Redman follows up his album Muddy Waters with this comics sequel, a comedy sci-fi misadventure about an inventor of a rich soil that can grow food to feed a hungry planet—and super-weed for happy stoners. 75,000-copy announced first printing.
Helvetiq
The Last of the Giants: An Ultra Running Graphic Novel by Doug Mayer and William Windrestin (Sept. 2, $29.95 trade paper,
ISBN 978-3-03964-104-8). Based on radio producer Mayer’s experience as an ultra-runner, this graphic narrative follows a hopeful taking one more try at a race he’s failed twice already to complete: Italy’s 205-mile Tor des Géants across tough mountain trails.
IDW
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Nightwatcher by Juni Ba and Fero Pe (Sept. 2, $21.99 trade paper, ISBN 979-8-88724-310-8). Eisner nominee Ba leads a spin-off in the relaunched TMNT universe. With the turtles at odds and mostly out of New York City, the gritty metropolis sees a mysterious new masked crusader step up in defense of mutants.
Image
Spectators by Brian K. Vaughan and Niko Henrichon (Sept. 23, $29.99, ISBN 978-1-5343-3121-1). In a future New York City where ghosts roam and the end of the world looms, two spirits unite to observe the fallout as Saga series writer Vaughn “usher[s]
readers into front-row seats to an audacious, explicit, chaotic apocalypse,” per PW’s review.
Interlink
Don’t Be a F*#king Marshmallow: An Illustrated Guide to Revolution by Jesse Mechanic (Nov. 4, $19.95 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-62371-579-3). Journalist and cartoonist Mechanic quotes Dolores Huerta for the title of this compendium of inspirational profiles of activists, including James Baldwin, Noam Chomsky, Audre Lorde, Rosa Parks, and Edward Said.
Iron Circus Comics
The Name & the Mark (Vattu #1) by Evan Dahm. Iron Circus, Jan. 20 ($25 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-63899-155-7). PW’s starred review called this collection of Dahm’s long-running fantasy webcomic an “epic that deserves a place on the shelf besides Jeff Smith’s Bone series.”
Leaping Hare
Tarot: A Graphic History: Pamela Colman Smith’s Story of Arcana, Symbols & Magic by Valentina Grande (Aug. 19, $19.99, ISBN 978-1-83600-273-4) lays out the fortunes of the artist and occultist Pamela Colman Smith, born in 1878, member of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, and cocreator of the Rider-Waite tarot deck that defined the look of cards like the Fool, the Magician, and the Hanged Man.
Living the Line
Harpy by EPHK (Oct. 23, $30 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-961581-12-8). Detective Gung “Gunnie” Yan Fung patrols a futuristic neon-streaked Cape Town of 2064, where a murder case stretches back to Hong Kong and troubles that she thought were left behind long ago.
Mad Cave Studios
Groupies by Helen Mullane and Tula Lotay (Nov. 4, $19.99 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-5458-2126-8). Eisner winner Lotay paints Mullane’s fantastical tale based on research on real-life women who followed (and slept with) rock stars. The narrative finds a sparring clique of willowy groupies attached to a star who seems to trade his lovers’ lives for fame.
Mad Creek
From Cocinas to Lucha Libre Ringsides: A Latinx Comics Anthology, edited by Frederick Luis Aldama and Angela M. Sánchez (Aug. 13, $19.95 trade paper, ISBN 978-0-8142-5948-1), features comics about soccer, wrestling, tacos, and tamales that get to the heart of Latinx culture across the U.S.
Magnetic
Paisley Park by Thomas Kotlarek and Jef (Sept. 23, $24.99, ISBN 978-1-63715-934-7). When Prince dies in 2016, the owner of a record store in Europe treks to the American Midwest with two other funk fans to track down their holy grail: the never-released sessions between Prince and Miles Davis, rumored to be hidden in the rock star’s Paisley Park recording studio in Minnesota.
Marvel Universe
Who Is All-New Venom? (All-New Venom #1) by Al Ewing and Carlos Gomez (Jan. 6, $17.99 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-302-96197-8) relaunches New York City’s other spider guy, Venom—but with uncertainty about his identity, and whether this round the web slinger’s a villain or a hero.
New York Review Comics
The Smythes by Rea Irvin, edited by R. Kikuo Johnson and Dash Shaw (Dec. 2, $39.95, ISBN 978-1-68137-954-8). The 1930s comic strip satirizing suburban social climbers by the first art editor of The New Yorker (who drew the magazine’s classic profile of Eustace Tilly) gets a collection curated by indie cartoonists Johnson and Shaw, with an afterword by Eisner-nominated comics
historian Caitlin McGurk.
Oni
Best of Buds (Adventure Time #1) by Nick Winn et al. (Nov. 25, $19.99 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-63715-910-1). The influential
series is back led by animator Winn, as Finn and Jake are sent on a new quest by Computer Princess, with various artists drawing stories throughout the volume, including Derek M. Ballard, Brenda Hickey, Jorge Monlongo, and Asia Simone.
Pow Pow
Pastimes by Pascal Girard, trans. by Aleshia Jensen (Nov. 4, $14.95 trade paper, ISBN 978-2-925114-54-3), collects diary comics by the French Canadian cartoonist, highlighting odd conversations with local folks he meets in the off-hours from his day job as a hospital social worker.
Random House
Dead Man Walking by Helen Prejean and Catherine Anyango Grünewald (Nov. 18, $20 trade paper, ISBN 978-0-593-13485-6). Sister Prejean’s account of counseling a convicted murderer on death row in 1982, a spiritual reflection on mortality and advocacy against capital punishment, has been adapted many times, and again now as a comic book.
Rebellion
Big-Ass Sword by Andreas Butzbach (Nov. 4, $24, ISBN 978-1-83786-563-5). A robot with a strolling skull for a sidekick and an enormous sword across his back journeys through a world where techno-creatures from a past war still haunt the landscape.
Selfmadehero
This Slavery by Scarlett and Sophie Rickard (Oct. 8, $23.99 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-914224-35-5) adapts the radical, romantic 1925 novel by Ethel Carnie Holdsworth set in the U.K. during the Industrial Revolution, wherein two sisters take
different paths after the cotton mill where they work burns down.
Seven Stories
Elon Musk: American Oligarch by Darryl Cunningham (Sept. 9, $24.95 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-64421-522-7). Cunningham
follows up Billionaires with an “edifying” graphic biography of the tech leader and political influencer that makes the “disturbing allegation that Musk has forsaken his own humanity as he’s chased power in the guise of innovation,” per PW’s review.
Silver Sprocket
Electric Cowboy by Ansel Kite (Oct. 15, $9.99 trade paper, ISBN 979-8-88620-076-8). A pair of romantic androids circle a desert planet, where they’re tasked with rebuilding a home for humans—but one goes missing, and the other chases through memories of their lost lover to find more and less than they hoped to recover.
Street Noise
Hybred by Jamie Mustard and Francesca Filomena (Oct. 7, $20.99 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-951491-43-7). A futurist and an Italian artist join up for this fable about a child in extreme poverty and neglect in an alternate version of Los Angeles, who elevates himself through his powers of imagination.
Ten Speed Graphic
A Brief History of a Long War by Mariam Naiem, Yulia Vus, and Ivan Kypibida (Jan. 27, $19.99, ISBN 978-0-593-84015-3). Ukrainian journalist Naiem chronicles in this graphic history hundreds of years of conflict and domination by Russia of Ukraine, leading up to the present war.
Titan Comics
System Preference by Ugo Bienvenu (Sept. 16, $29.99, ISBN 978-1-78774-148-5). In a dystopian future where data storage is maxed out and social media snapshots delete classic works of art, a rogue archivist tries to save masterpieces in the surrogate robot that’s also carrying his unborn child.
Top Shelf
Ionheart by Lukas Kummer (Aug. 19, $24.99 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-60309-558-7). A spurned knight flees from a demon through a radioactive fantasy land. “Fans of genre-benders like Nimona and The Mushroom Knight will want to explore Kummer’s weird worlds,” per PW’s review.
Ultimate Universe
The Winter Soldier (Ultimate Wolverine # 1) by Christopher Condon and Alessandro Cappuccio (Sept. 2, $19.99 trade paper,
ISBN 978-1-302-96205-0). In the Maker’s realm of the Ultimate Universe, his advisers Magik, Colossus, and Omega Red decide to put a mutant soldier into battle, sending Wolverine to face off against Kitty Pryde and Gambit.
Vault
Kid Maroon by Christopher Cantwell and Victor Santos (Sept. 23, $24.99 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-63849-269-6). A 12-year-old child detective leaves the simple life in Tiny Falls—where he solved butterfly mysteries—for the brooding, bloody streets of Crimeville. 50,000-copy announced first printing.
Verso
Patchwork: A Graphic Biography of Jane Austen by Kate Evans (Oct. 28, $34.95, ISBN 978-1-80429-622-6). Using Jane Austen’s own quilting as a framework and inspiration, Evans stitches together the story of the novelist’s life in an embroidered comics narrative.
Webtoon Unscrolled
Chasing Red by Isabelle Ronin and SilentMaru (Sept. 30, $19.99 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-998341-39-9) collects the first volume of the webcomics adaptation of Ronin’s sports-romance novel. Lothario basketball star Caleb can’t win over Veronica, until she gets evicted and turns to him for help. 75,000-copy announced first printing.
Read more from our Fall Comics & Graphic Novels feature.
Fastest Way to a Comics Fan’s Heart
This Fall season lays out a feast of comics about cooking, restaurants, eating, and imbibing.
Nine New Comics for Arthouse Cinephiles
These comics that take on film in unusual ways, adapt unexpected features, or bring a filmmaker’s cinematic vision to the page promise to be worth the price of admission
Don’t Look Under The Bed: Monster Comics
There’s nothing more classic than a monster comic—new graphic novels lurching out of the shadows this fall both delight in the expected tropes and run them out of town.
