Romance, magic, and mystery from top comics talents like Trung Le Nguyen, Mariko Tamaki, and Ngozi Ukazu, plus plenty of promising debuts, make for an exciting season.
Top 10
Angelica and the Bear Prince
Trung Le Nguyen. Random House Graphic, Oct. 7 ($17.99 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-9848-9266-9)
The Harvey Award–winning creator of The Magic Fish spins the tale of a disillusioned teen who develops an unexpected crush (via social media chats) on the mascot of her local theater. Ages 12–18.
Astral Panic
Katie Hicks. Flying Eye, Oct. 7 ($21.99 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-83874-208-9)
Anxiety-ridden artist Gale downloads a bossy self-help app, but it’s a new IRL friendship that really helps, in this brightly drawn debut. Ages 13–17.
Champion
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Raymond Obstfeld, and Ed Laroche. Ten Speed Graphic, Sept. 2 ($26.99, ISBN 978-
0-593-83574-6)
The basketball star makes a graphic novel debut with the story of a Black high school player whose coach tasks him with learning about how Abdul-Jabbar pursued social justice off the court. Ages 12 and up.
Children of the Night
(When Monsters Wake #1)
Victoria Setian and Savanna Ganucheau. Abrams Fanfare, Jan. 13 ($26.99, ISBN 978-1-4197-6263-5)
Bloom author Gancheau joins forces with video game creator Setian for a mash-up of ever-popular teen genres: vampire romance and murder mystery. Ages 13–18.
Flip
Ngozi Ukazu. First Second, Sept. 23 ($18.99 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-250-17952-4)
In bestseller Ukazu’s latest, a Black girl named Chi-Chi who attends a predominantly white private school suddenly swaps bodies with the snooty white boy she’s crushing on. Ages 14–18.
Fustuk
Robert Mgrdich Apelian. Penguin Workshop, Jan. 20 ($17.99 trade paper, ISBN 978-0-593-65890-1)
The odd son out in a family of chefs tries to cook up a dish to impress a demon and restore his mother’s failing health in this debut flavored with Persian and Armenian mythology. Ages 12 and up.
Hello Sunshine
Keezy Young. LB Ink, Sept. 23 ($18.99 trade paper, ISBN 978-0-316-50957-2)
Ignatz and Eisner nominee Young debuts with a supernatural drama about a boy who disappears after a mental breakdown, and his friends, family, and secret lover who team up to search for him. Ages 13–17.
The October Girl
Matthew Dow Smith. Maverick, Oct. 21 ($14.99 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-960578-59-4)
An imaginative young girl grows up to be a bored barista but steps back through the looking glass when her imaginary friend turns up and introduces her to the Night Folk. Ages 14–18.
Tall Water
SJ Sindu and Dion MBD. HarperAlley, Aug. 12 ($18.99 trade paper, ISBN 978-0-06-309015-6)
A Sri Lankan girl searches for her estranged mother in their embattled homeland and gets swept up in the Indian Ocean tsunami. Ages 13 and up.
This Place Kills Me
Mariko Tamaki and Nicole Goux. Abrams Fanfare, Aug. 19 ($26.99, ISBN 978-1-4197-6846-0)
When a prep school’s drama club starlet dies after playing Juliet, a transfer student tries to track down the truth behind what’s deemed a suicide. Ages 14–18.
Young Adult Comics Longlist
2000 AD
The Complete Full Tilt Boogie by Alex de Campi and Eduardo Ocaña (Oct. 21, $27.99 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-83786-605-2). A teen bounty hunter, teamed up with her grandmother and cat, rescues a prince and faces interstellar villains while helming a raggedy spaceship called the Full Tilt Boogie. 13 and up.
Abrams Fanfare
On Starlit Shores by Bex Glendining (Sept. 30, $24.99, ISBN 978-1-4197-6504-9). A young woman and her friend return to her birthplace—a seaside town populated by witches, astronomical phenomena, and other mysteries—to uncover the secrets
left behind when her grandmother died. Ages 14–18.
Red Threads by Ila Nguyen-Hayama (Oct. 28, $26.99, ISBN 978-1-4197-6302-1). Tokyo teen Hana Suzuki gets an unexpected offer to join a magical academy called the Benten School of Esoterics, where something evil begins rampaging the school’s hallowed halls. Ages 13–18.
Andrews McMeel
Folk Remedy by Jem Yoshioka (Sept. 23, $21.99, ISBN 979-8-8816-0404-2). A small-town girl whose family runs an apothecary yearns to set out for the big city in 1920s Taisho-era Japan, where she meets a flirty spirit who leads her into a supernatural world of yokai. 13–15.
Archaia
Jim Henson Presents by Shannon Watters et al. (Nov. 4, $29.99, ISBN 979-8-89215-558-8) collects original comics stories set in Henson’s worlds of Dark Crystal, Farscape, Fraggle Rock, Labyrinth, and Storyteller from writers and artists including J.M. Lee, Darcie Little Badger, Lilah Sturges, Jill Tew, and Kyla Vanderklugt. Ages 16 and up.
Candlewick
I Wish I Didn’t Have to Tell You This: A Graphic Memoir by Eugene Yelchin (Sept. 16, $18.99, ISBN 978-1-5362-1553-3). In the sequel to the Newbery Honoree’s The Genius Under the Table, a now-teenage Yevgeny tries to find his place in the repressive Soviet state as an artist, under threat of mandatory military service—and gets forced into a psychiatric asylum in Siberia. Ages 14–18.
Dark Horse
The Rise of Hellfire by Jody Houser, Eric Campbell, and Diego Galindo (Sept. 30, $19.99 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-5067-3712-6). This crossover between Stranger Things and Dungeons & Dragons features role-playing party leader and bad boy Eddie Munson, who rallies Hawkins High’s Hellfire Club and gets Lucas, Dustin, and Mike hooked on the dice. Ages 12–18.
Emanata
Quiet Crossings by Vivi Partridge (Oct. 28, $20 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-7726-2113-6). Selena crashes her car at the edge of the world and takes a job at the inn by the ferry to the Great Unknown—but begins to wonder why none of its passengers ever return. Ages 12 and up.
First Second
Always Raining Here by Hazel and Bell (Nov. 11, $17.99 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-250-87012-4). This standalone adapts the webcomic following flirtatious, outgoing Carter as he sets out to woo angsty Adrian, who is too hung up on his ex-boyfriend to get on board, until a disastrous party brings the pair first into friendship and then romance. Ages 14–18.
Rhiannon by Kiara Brinkman and Sean Chiki (Oct. 28, $25.99, ISBN 978-1-62672-723-6). Growing up as the only kid in her grandmother’s trailer park retirement community, Rhiannon longs for the summers when her friend Kit comes to visit—but this time around, a magnetic new teen in the neighborhood brings tension and secrets into the pair’s dynamic. Ages 14–18.
Tripping Over You by Suzana Harcum and Owena White (Aug. 19, $25.99, ISBN 978-1-250-33071-0). This first volume of a queer romance trilogy introduces a pair of boys who fall in love at boarding school—thespian Milo and withdrawn Liam—but who must hide their relationship from Liam’s family. Ages 14–18.
Graphic Universe
Trumpets of Death by Simon Bournel-Bosson, trans. by Edward Gauvin (Aug. 5, $17.99 trade paper, ISBN 979-8-7656-4432-4). When Antoine is dropped off at his grandparents’ home in the forest, they don’t seem glad to see him. Then his angry grandfather takes him out to hunt for mushrooms, and things get even weirder. Ages 14–18.
HarperAlley
Silenced Voices: Reclaiming Memories from the Guatemalan Genocide by Pablo Leon (Sept. 2, $18.99 trade paper, ISBN 978-0-06-322355-4). This “potent graphic novel examination of the effects of the Guatemalan civil war on its people,” per PW’s starred review, tells the story of two sisters separated by the conflict. Ages 14 and up.
Helvetiq
My Trip with Drip by Josephine Mark, trans. by Andrew Shields (Oct. 7, $24.95, ISBN 978-3-03964-107-9). A swearing wolf and a bunny getting treatment for a serious disease are unlikely allies on a road trip through the mountains, dodging hunters and facing their own mortality. Ages 10–18.
Heritage House
Separated from Santo: The True Story of an Italian-Canadian Internee During the Second World War by Brian Barazzuol and Cam Drysdale (Oct. 28, $24.95 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-77203-562-9) recounts the real-life saga of an Italian Canadian immigrant who fled fascism under Mussolini only to be torn from his family and held in internment camps. Ages 16 and up.
Image Comics
Juvenile by Jesús Orellana (Sept. 16, $15.99 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-5343-3207-2). In a future where an epidemic that supposedly only kills teens leads to the mass imprisonment of adolescents by military forces, one rebel named Sara fights back—and uncovers the secret adults are hiding. Ages 14 and up.
LB Ink
Love Me to Death by Toonimated (Jan. 13, $18.99 trade paper, ISBN 978-0-316-58719-8) collects the webtoon romantasy series, in which a necromancer hiding his magical talents is hired by a grieving groom to bring his fiancé back to life—except the deal
binds them all to an eternal love triangle. Ages 14 and up.
To the Stars and Back by Peglo (Sept. 30, $21.99 trade paper, ISBN 978-0-316-58744-0). Shy Kang Dae is at first at odds with his gregarious new neighbor Bo Seon, who won’t stop trying to be buddies. But over time, they become something more. Ages 13–17.
Maverick
Heartbreak Hotel by Micol Beltramini and Agnese Innocente (Sept. 30, $14.99 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-5458-2042-1). A surreal hotel creates a space out of time for guests to grieve from breakups, but how they leave this in-between realm is an open question. Ages 14–18.
In Mourning by Paula Cheshire (Aug. 26, $14.99 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-5458-1974-6). This graphic memoir unpacks the complicated nature of grief, as Cheshire chronicles her emotional state following the death of her mother and how she moved forward to healing and acceptance. Ages 14–18.
Queen Kodiak by Christopher Greenslate and Riccardo Faccini (Dec. 9, $14.99 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-5458-2101-5). A girl mourning her mother is sent to live with her estranged father in the Pacific Northwest and becomes friends with a huge bear. When her friend is captured, an even more enormous bear called Queen Kodiak storms out to free her cub. Ages 14–18.
Wrack and Rune by Chris Kappel and Alex Arizmendi (Dec. 2, $14.99 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-5458-2100-8). Rory is born into the lineage of the Translators, who wield their magic in secret in New York City. But when he falls in love with ordinary New Yorker Tyson, the boys dangerously question why such potential must be kept under wraps. Ages 14–18.
Penguin Workshop
Good Old-Fashioned Korean Spirit by Kim Hyun Sook and Ryan Estrada (Oct. 7, $17.99 trade paper, ISBN 978-0-593-52133-5). This standalone story from the worlds of Banned Book Club and No Rules Tonight finds young lovers Taehee and Kiwoo mixed up with some spooky grandma behavior when their elders drag them to a full-moon celebration in the countryside of 1980s South Korea. Ages 12 and up.
Quill Tree
Bad Boy: A Graphic Memoir by Walter Dean Myers, Dawud Anyabwile, and Guy A. Sims (Sept. 30, $16.99 trade paper, ISBN 978-0-06-309992-0). Eisner nominees Anyabwile and Sims adapt Myers’s celebrated biography of his 1940s and ’50s coming-of-age in Harlem. Ages 13–17.
Random House Graphic
Cry Out Loud by Tara O’Connor (Sept. 16, $17.99 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-9848-9239-3). A troubled Irish teen is sent to live with distant relatives and discovers she’s planned as the next victim of her family’s ritual sacrifice. Not content to be killed, she fights back. Ages 12–18.
Selfmadehero
The Most Amazing Saturday Morning Rubbish Club by Bill Tuckey and Francisco de la Mora (Nov. 25, $22.99 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-914224-36-2). Based on the experiences of the creators, both of whom have kids with special needs, this tale showcases a group of children with disabilities who band together to clean up their town’s park. Ages 13 and up.
My Dad Fights Demons! by Bobby Joseph and Abbigayle Bircham (Oct. 14, $19.99 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-914224-34-8). A nonbinary teen with a grumpy stepfather and negligent mom finds their day-to-day gets worse than expected when their bizarre dad shows up—from another dimension, and apparently a wizard. Ages 12 and up.
Simon & Schuster/McElderry
A Bite of Pepper by Balazs Lorinczi (Aug. 26, $13.99 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-6659-7046-4). Pepper Mint is a skateboarder, but no ordinary Betty—she’s actually undead. When this vampire on wheels meets an artist named Ana, they hit it off both as collaborators and mutual crushes. But Pepper’s mom wants her to seal the deal with an immortal kiss. Ages 14–18.
The Nefarious Nights of Willowweep Manor by Shaenon K. Garrity and Christopher Baldwin (Aug. 12, $14.99 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-6659-3016-1). PW contributor Garrity’s follow-up to The Dire Days of Willowweep Manor finds Haley pulled once again into an alternate universe of oddballs—and into an unfolding murder mystery. Ages 12–18.
Webtoon Unscrolled
Death of a Pop Star by Violet Karim (Sept. 2, $18.99 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-998341-46-7) collects the webtoon series about an undead singing sensation who parlays with the Grim Reaper to reclaim the stage after she dies in an accident. Ages 13–17.
