Charles Burns is back—along with Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cocreator Kevin Eastman—in an eclectic season that features reimagined classics, comics about therapy, and a philosophical investigation into Einstein and Kafka.
Top 10
All Princesses Die Before Dawn
Quentin Zuttion, trans. by M.B. Valente. Abrams ComicArts, Nov. 12 ($24.99, ISBN 978-1-4197-7664-9)
Set against the backdrop of Princess Diana’s 1997 death, this Sophie Castille Award finalist traces a family’s fraught dynamics around love, lust, and gender.
Babe in the Woods: Or, the Art of Getting Lost
Julie Heffernan. Algonquin, Sept. 3 ($28.99 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-64375-559-5)
Painter Heffernan debuts with a “visually breathtaking” graphic autofiction, per PW’s starred review, about a young mother who gets lost on a hike with her infant son.
Big Jim and the White Boy: An American Classic Reimagined
David F. Walker and Marcus Kwame Anderson. Ten Speed Graphic, Oct. 15 ($35, ISBN 978-0-593-83611-8)
Eisner winners Walker and Anderson reimagine The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn in a story that puts Jim center stage and tracks his descendants across decades.
Einstein in Kafkaland: How Albert Fell Down the Rabbit Hole and Came Up with the Universe
Ken Krimstein. Bloomsbury, Aug. 20 ($32, ISBN 978-1-63557-953-6)
In 1911 and 1912, Einstein and Kafka both lived in Prague, a serendipity New Yorker cartoonist Krimstein mines for a work that’s “irreverent yet full of tenderness for its subjects,” per PW’s starred review. 90,000-
copy announced first printing.
Final Cut
Charles Burns. Pantheon, Sept. 24 ($34, ISBN 978-0-593-70170-6)
A hobbyist filmmaker infatuated with the star of his horror movie loses his grip on reality in Burns’s first major standalone graphic novel since Black Hole.
Mothballs
Sole Otero, trans. by Andrea Rosenberg. Fantagraphics, Aug. 13 ($29.99 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-68396-961-7)
Otero’s “bold and memorable” tale, per PW’s starred review, interweaves the stories of a young woman living through political unrest in modern-day Argentina and her Italian Argentinian grandmother.
Naked City
Eric Drooker. Dark Horse, Oct. 8 ($29.99, ISBN 978-1-5067-4350-9)
New Yorker cover artist Drooker’s latest looks at the meaning of art through an encounter between a painter and a nude model.
Past Tense: Facing Family Secrets and Finding Myself in Therapy
Sacha Mardou. Avery, Oct. 15 ($30, ISBN 978-0-593-54136-4)
Mardou transforms her buzzy webcomic chronicling her therapeutic experiences into a graphic memoir about embracing her past and present selves.
Processing: 100 Comics That Got Me Through It
Tara Booth. Drawn & Quarterly, Sept. 17 ($29.95 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-77046-732-3)
With a style that recalls Tommi Parrish and Lisa Hanawalt, Booth’s bombastic and frank drawings feature bodies, sex, food, and the trials of getting through the day.
Spilled Ink (Drawing Blood #1)
Kevin Eastman et al. Image, Oct. 22 ($19.99 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-5343-7167-5)
This autofiction on the vagaries of comics industry fame from the TMNT cocreator offers a “rollicking black action-comedy that’s equal parts aspirational and cautionary tale,” according to PW’s review.
Serious Matter
Weighty topics across history, politics, science, and urban planning get the comics treatment.
Adieu Birkenau: Ginette Kolinka’s Story of Survival
Ginette Kolinka et al. SelfMadeHero, Oct. 8 ($24.99, ISBN 978-1-914224-23-2)
A 95-year-old Holocaust survivor returns to Auschwitz-Birkenau, bringing along a journalist and a cartoonist.
Before 13th: A Graphic Novel
Michael Ralph, Nia Palmer, Ruth O’Leary, and Laura Molnar. Amistad, Sept. 24 ($22.99, ISBN 978-0-06-309712-4)
A debate between Ida B. Wells and Frederick Douglass serves as a lens on the history of slavery, emancipation, incarceration, and the legacy of the 13th Amendment.
Black Coal and Red Bandanas: An Illustrated History of the West Virginia Mine Wars
Raymond Tyler and Summer McClinton. PM, Oct. 1 ($17.95 trade paper, ISBN 979-8-88744-059-0)
In 1910s Appalachia, activist Mary Harris “Mother” Jones persuades mine workers to unionize, leading to uprisings and violent reprisals by the ruling class.
Born in the USA: The Story of Immigration and Belonging
Lawrence Goldstone and James Otis Smith. First Second, Sept. 3 ($29.99, ISBN 978-1-250-79653-0)
This World Citizens series entry winds through the complex issues surrounding the legal and logistical routes to U.S. citizenship.
Capital & Ideology: A Graphic Novel Adaptation
Thomas Piketty, Claire Alet, and Benjamin Adam. Abrams ComicArts, Sept. 10 ($22.99 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-4197-7705-9)
Economist Picketty’s scholarly work about the wealth gap is illustrated through comics about successive generations of an upper-class family.
Cities Made Differently
David Graeber and Nika Dubrovsky. MIT, Sept. 10 ($19.95 trade paper, ISBN 978-0-262-54933-2)
What makes a city, and what might they look like in the future, are the driving questions behind this ranging guide to urban planning philosophies.
Freedom Was in Sight: A Graphic History of Reconstruction in the Washington, D.C., Region
Kate Masur and Liz Clarke. Ferris & Ferris, Oct. 1 ($24 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-4696-8018-7)
Historian Masur breaks down the Reconstruction era with firsthand accounts and portraits of the major political figures and thinkers of the period.
The Hidden Life of Trees: A Graphic Adaptation
Peter Wohlleben, Fred Bernard, and Benjamin Flao. Greystone, Oct. 29 ($35, ISBN 978-1-77840-165-7)
Wohlleben’s bestselling book arguing that forests form a social network is illuminated in an adaptation that depicts the interconnectedness of trees.
Historieta Doble: A Graphic History of Participatory Action Research
Joanne Rappaport, Lina Flórez G., and Pablo “Altais” Pérez. Univ. of Toronto, Oct. 15 ($29.95 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-4875-5517-7)
In the 1970s, sociologist Orlando Fals spearheaded a new research method connected to activist movements in Latin America, which is detailed here along with the approach’s continued relevance and promise in contemporary scholarship.
In the Shadow of Stalin: The Story of Mr. Jones
Andrea Chalupa and Ivan Rodriguez. Oni, Sept. 3 ($24.99, ISBN 978-1-63715-277-5)
Gareth Jones, a journalist reporting on the Soviet Union in the lead-up to WWII, uncovers and attempts to bring to worldwide attention news of the famine being perpetrated on Ukraine.
Lebanon Is Burning and Other Dispatches
Yazan Al-Saadi et al. Graphic Mundi, Nov. 19 ($21.95 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-63779-078-6)
This anthology of short comics pieces from Middle Eastern artists such as Tracy Chahwan, Ganzeer, Ghadi Ghosn, and Omar Khouri offers fresh perspectives on the Arab Spring and its fallout.
Making Our Easting Down (The Worst Journey in the World #1)
Sarah Airriess. Iron Circus, Oct. 3 ($20, ISBN 978-1-63899-137-3)
Explorer Apsley Cherry-Garrard’s memoirs of the treacherous 1910 Terra Nova Antarctic expedition led by Capt. Robert Falcon Scott get adapted into a graphic novel, the first volume of which sets sail for the South Pole.
Milk Without Honey
Hanna Harms, trans. by Ruth Ahmedzai Kemp. Street Noise, Sept. 3 ($21.99, ISBN 978-1-951491-36-9)
Why do bees matter? This graphic scientific work imagines a world without them, and what other food sources could be lost along with honey if farming practices don’t change, tracing the fragile symbiosis between insect, plant life, and humankind.
Revolution by Fire: New York’s Afro-Irish Uprising of 1741
Marcus Rediker and David Lester. Beacon, Nov. 12 ($18.95 trade paper, ISBN 978-0-8070-1255-0)
Picking up from Rediker and Lester’s Under the Banner of King Death, this graphic dramatization follows fugitive John Gwin into a plot for an uprising in New York City uniting enslaved and oppressed people against the ruling elites.
Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz’s Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States: A Graphic Interpretation
Paul Peart-Smith. Beacon, Oct. 1 ($24.95, ISBN 978-0-8070-1268-0)
The American Book Award–winning history of the U.S. from the viewpoint of Indigenous peoples becomes a graphic work created by the cartoonist who previously adapted W.E.B. Du Bois’s The Souls of Black Folk.
Shadows on the Ice: The 1972 Andes Disaster
Frédéric Bertocchini and Thierry Diette, trans. by Andrew Benteau. Black Panel, Oct. 22 ($22.99, ISBN 978-1-990521-29-4)
When a plane crashed in the
mountains, the survivors resorted to cannibalism to survive. Their true story is recounted here.
Toxic Tropics: A Horror Story of Environmental Injustice
Jessica Oublié, trans. by Irene Vázquez. Street Noise, Nov. 5 ($22.99 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-951491-34-5)
Since the 1970s, toxic pesticides used in the banana
plantations of Martinique and Guadeloupe have wreaked environmental devastation and provoked a cancer epidemic, according to this graphic history.
Voices from Nepal: Uncovering Human Trafficking Through Comics Journalism
Dan Archer. Univ. of Toronto, Aug. 1 ($29.95, ISBN 978-1-4875-5501-6)
The pressing human rights issue of human trafficking gets investigated by means of ethnography and comics storytelling, including the ways NGOs both hurt and help in efforts to combat it.
The End of the World
Comics fans seem to have an endless appetite for the apocalypse, as evidenced by another season when the sky is falling, the sea is rising, aliens and/or robots are ruling, and dystopia is the order of the day.
Astrobots
Simon Furman and Hector Trunnec. Massive, Oct. 22, ($17.99 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-961012-17-2)
As the planet crumbles, mankind sends robots to outer space to seek out a new home—but the astrobots end up creating a mech-led society without those pesky humans.
Dawnrunner
Ram V et al. Dark Horse, Nov. 26 ($29.99, ISBN 978-1-5067-2635-9)
Monsters emerge from a crater and humankind fights back in sports arenas by donning mechanized battle suits, with a young pilot as rising heroine.
The First Verse (Cult of the Lamb #1)
Alex Paknadelillus and Troy Little. Oni, Dec. 3 ($19.99 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-63715-522-6)
In this graphic adaptation of the popular video game, rival cults mix it up in an unholy war.
Future
Tommi Musturi. Fantagraphics, Aug. 6 ($39.99 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-68396-631-9)
Dystopia is just one option considered in Musturi’s revery of possible futures, with interludes populated by aliens, mutants, and pop culture in-jokes.
The Infernals
Ryan Parrott, Noah Gardner, and John J. Pearson. Image, Oct. 1 ($9.99 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-5343-3343-7)
The son of Satan debates who should inherit his ruling spot as Antichrist, launching a sibling rivalry with evil stakes.
Lotus Land
Darcy Van Poelgeest and Caio Filipe. Boom, Sept. 24 ($19.99 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-68415-146-2)
When a future technology promises to preserve a decaying city, things go very wrong.
Man’s Best
Pornsak Pichetshote and Jesse Lonergan. Boom, Dec. 24 ($19.99 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-63796-967-0)
On a spaceship sent to scout for a new home for humanity, the heroes are the emotional support pets along for the ride—who must save their owners when the craft crashes.
Money
Curt Pires and Luca Casalinguida. Dark Horse, Nov. 19 ($22.99 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-5067-4692-0)
Pires imagines the illuminati holding an election between five families to secretly decide the next world order.
My Time Machine
Carol Lay. Fantagraphics, Sept. 24 ($24.99, ISBN 978-1-68396-998-3)
When a woman in 2020 comes into possession of blueprints by H.G. Wells, she constructs a time machine that takes her to the future—where she encounters the horrific outcomes of climate change and today’s rise in fascism.
Napalm Lullaby
Rick Remender and Bengal. Image, Nov. 26 ($16.99 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-5343-2860-0)
A cult takes over Earth, and a supernatural child raised to believe he’s a god bands together with other upstarts to end the domination of their Magnificent Leader.
R.U.R.
Katerˇina Cˇupová, trans. by Julie Nováková. Rosarium, Nov. 5 ($27.99, ISBN 979-8-9866146-8-7)
The 1920 Czech novel about automatons that develop emotions and revolt against their engineer masters gets adapted into a graphic dystopian fable.
Space Junk
Julian Hanshaw. Top Shelf, Aug. 20 ($19.99 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-60309-543-3)
A pair of alien teens stay behind on a dying planet in this “lush allegory of defiance and growing up,” per PW’s review.
The Sunny-Luna Travelling Oracle
Warren Pleece. Dark Horse/Berger, Aug. 20 ($24.99 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-5067-4137-6)
On an Earth covered in dust following climate disaster, a carnival rolls into town and captivates a young girl.
They Lived
Highlights from this season’s crop of graphic biographies include stories of cinema darlings, religious radicals, and masters of philosophy.
The Adventures of Munich in Marcel Duchamp
Roman Muradov. Uncivilized, Nov. 12 ($29.99 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-941250-66-2)
Muradov probes the mystery of why surrealist painter Marcel Duchamp quit making art after the mostly undocumented summer he spent in Munich in 1912.
Aristotle: A Graphic Biography
Tassos Apostolidis and Alecos Papadatos, trans. by Tom Imber. Abrams ComicArts, Nov. 12 ($24.99, ISBN 978-1-4197-7701-1)
Papadatos follows up the bestselling Logicomix with a biography of Plato’s most promising student in Athens, who went on to instruct Alexander the Great and Ptolemy, found the Lyceum, and establish many of the principles of Western philosophy.
100 Reasons Why Leo Tolstoy Cried
Katya Gushchina. Tra, Sept. 3 ($19.99, ISBN 978-1-962098-02-1)
This biography, which is structured like an illustrated listicle, looks at all the ways the Russian novelist’s vulnerability countered masculine norms of his era.
Audrey Hepburn
Michele Botton and Dorilys Giachetto, trans. by Nanette McGuiness. NBM, Nov. 5 ($24.99, ISBN 978-1-68112-346-2)
From Breakfast at Tiffany’s to Roman Holiday, actor Audrey Hepburn defined ingenue for a generation of filmgoers. But she was also a child of wartime who became a UNICEF ambassador, and this comic takes a wider angle to capture her multifaceted life.
B. Traven: Portrait of a Famous Unknown
Golo, trans. by Donald Nicholson-Smith. PM, Nov. 5 ($19.95 trade paper, ISBN 979-8-88744-055-2)
The author of The Treasure of the Sierra Madre employed many pseudonyms in his roles as a journalist, politician, actor, and editor of an anarchist newspaper in Germany, as documented in this graphic biography.
By Fire: The Jakob Hutter Story
Jason Landsel and Sankha Banerjee. Plough, Jan. 21 ($19.95 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-63608-143-4)
The latest in a series of graphic novels about religious martyrs of the Reformation period spotlights Jakob Hutter, an Anabaptist who was persecuted in Tyrol by the order of Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand I and ultimately burned to death, along with his wife.
Djuna: The Extraordinary Life of Djuna Barnes
Jon Macy. Street Noise, Oct. 8 ($23.99 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-951491-33-8)
Macy depicts Barnes, author of the classic lesbian novel Nightwood, consorting with fellow luminaries of the Lost Generation, including Natalie Barney, T.S. Eliot, Peggy Guggenheim, and James Joyce.
The Giant: Orson Welles, the Artist and the Shadow
Youssef Daoudi. First Second, Nov. 5 ($29.99, ISBN 978-1-250-80594-2)
When the genius creator of Citizen Kane and the infamous radio drama The War of the Worlds fell out of favor in Hollywood, his decline was as dramatic as his rise to prominence. This graphic biography mixes reality and myth to explore his legacy.
Kiss the Sky: Jimi Hendrix 1942-1970
Jean-Michel Dupont and Mezzo, trans. Ivanka Hahnenberger. Black Panel, Sept. 24 ($19.99, ISBN 978-1-990521-27-0)
This chronicle of Hendrix’s troubled childhood and his emergence as a young musician includes a whirlwind tour of his initial encounters with folks like Bob Dylan, B.B. King, Little Richard, Curtis Mayfield, and the Rolling Stones.
The Last Starry Night
Jamison Odone. Black Panel, Aug. 20 ($29.99, ISBN 978-1-990521-25-6)
Dealing with worsening mental illness, Vincent van Gogh retreated during the last years of his life to an inn in the French countryside and created 75 artworks in an intense period of creative rejuvenation. He also bonded with the innkeeper’s daughter, whose original writings form the basis for this graphic account.
Martin Scorsese
Amazing Ameziane. Titan Comics, Oct. 15 ($29.99 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-78774-324-3)
On the heels of Quentin by Tarantino and Don Coppola, Ameziane concludes his “Cineaste Trilogy” of graphic biographies, with the camera panning this time to Goodfellas director Martin Scorsese.
Myths of Making
Julien-G. Beehive, Sept. 24 ($37.95, ISBN 978-1-948886-36-9)
This collection of 25 artist profilesfeatures Francis Bacon, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Georgia O’Keeffe, August Rodin, and Wu
Daozi, each of whose stories are united by the question of how the legend of an artist’s inspiration takes on a life of its own.
Tell Me a Story Where the Bad Girl Wins: The Life and Art of Barbara Shermund
Edited by Caitlin McGurk. Fantagraphics, Nov. 19 ($39.99, ISBN 979-8-8750-0004-1)
Presenting a retrospective of Barbara Shermund’s groundbreaking cartoons from the 1920s to the 1960s alongside letters and other ephemera, this biography pays tribute to an undersung artist.
Adult Comics & Graphic Novels Longlist
ABRAMS COMICARTS
Frank Miller’s Pandora by Frank Miller et al. (Oct. 8, $24.99, ISBN 978-1-4197-7723-3). In Miller’s version of the fable—cowritten by Anthony Maranville and Chris Silvestri, with art by Emma Kubert—an alienated young girl finds a flower-shaped relic with the power to change the world.
ANDREWS MCMEEL
Day One Dictator: More Doonesbury in the Time of Trumpism by G.B. Trudeau (Sept. 17, $19.99 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-5248-9434-4) skewers the former president in the inimitable style of the long-running, Pulitzer finalist Doonesbury series.
ARSENAL PULP
All Our Ordinary Stories: A Multigenerational Family Odyssey by Teresa Wong (Sept. 24, $21.95 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-55152-949-3). This family memoir about reckoning with the effects of displacement “probes the legacy of Wong’s Chinese immigrant parents with gentle curiosity, wry humor, and moments of aching regret,” per PW’s review.
Something, Not Nothing: A Story of Grief and Love by Sarah Leavitt (Sept. 24, $24.95 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-55152-951-6) is a portrait of mourning and the discovery of light after darkness, drawn in the wake of Leavitt’s partner’s death by medically assisted suicide following a long and painful illness.
AVERY HILL
Adrift on a Painted Sea by Tim Bird (Oct. 1, $18.99 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-910395-82-0) pays homage to the author’s mother, a hobbyist painter whose landscapes are showcased here alongside Bird’s comics about her life and her death from cancer during the early days of Covid.
BLACK PANEL
King Arthur & the Ladies of the Lake by Vincent Pompetti, trans. by Andrew Benteau (Nov. 19, $24.99, ISBN 978-1-990521-30-0) adapts the Arthurian legends from the point of view of the water-bound women who proffer up the sword Excalibur to the knight as he starts his adventures.
BLOOMSBURY
What to Do When You Get Dumped by Suzy Hopkins and Hallie Bateman (Jan. 21, $27.99, ISBN 978-1-63973-189-3) follows up the mother-daughter duo’s What to Do When I’m Gone with hard-won advice based on what Hopkins learned after her husband left her for his ex. 70,000-copy announced first printing.
BOOM! STUDIOS
Hunt for the Skinwalker by Zac Thompson and Valeria Burzo (Aug. 27, $17.99 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-60886-156-9) delves into a notorious ranch in Utah that has been the nexus of reported paranormal activity for decades.
Rare Flavours by Ram V and Filipe Andrade (Apr. 30, $16.99 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-60886-153-8). The creators of The Many Deaths of Laila Starr serve up the tale of a demonic spirit who visits the mortal world in order to sample Indian food and escort a filmmaker around to document all the deliciousness he discovers.
CATALYST
Good Luck to Us All: A Graphic Memoir of Sorts by Karen Vermeulen (Jan. 28, $19.95 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-960803-10-8) details the pressures and anxieties of social media through an account of its impact on Vermeulen’s dating life, dressing habits, and self-definitions.
DARK HORSE
Holler by Jeremy Massie (Sept. 24, $29.99 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-5067-4341-7) tunes into grunge rockers Mark and Jay as they try to break out of their conservative small-town life in the Appalachian mountains and start a band.
Masterpiece by Brian Michael Bendis and Alex Maleev (Sept. 24, $24.99 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-5067-3049-3) unites the Eisner winners behind the Daredevil and Scarlet series for an action comic in which the cartoonist daughter of a notorious criminal couple becomes the target of a vengeful billionaire her parents once robbed.
Dark Horse/BERGER
Backflash by Mat Johnson, Steve Leiber, and Ryan Hill (Nov. 12, $22.99 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-5067-4510-7). When his mother dies, Devin discovers while sorting through her belongings that when he holds objects from his family’s history, he can travel back in time—so, he “backflashes” to try and find out who his absent father really was.
DC COMICS
Batman: Off-World by Jason Aaron and Doug Mahnke (Nov. 12, $19.99 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-77952-701-1) launches the Dark Knight into outer space, where he chases bad guys across galaxies while a cosmic villain threatens Gotham.
Megadeath (Birds of
Prey #1) by Kelly Thompson and Leonardo Romero (Aug. 6, $19.99 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-77952-558-1) brings the gang back together when Black Canary needs Harley Quinn’s cohort of ride-or-die ladies to back her up on a delicate and deadly mission.
DRAWN & QUARTERLY
Dog Days by Keum Suk Gendry-Kim, trans. by Janet Hong (Oct. 22, $24.95 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-77046-731-6) tells a story of grief, healing, and acceptance when a couple in mourning moves to an unwelcoming new town and starts adopting dogs.
Forces of Nature by Ed Steed (Oct. 29, $24.95, ISBN 978-1-77046-698-2)
collects the New Yorker cartoonist’s single-panel gags, which mock and marvel at the absurdities of contemporary life.
DSTLRY
Gone by Jock (Aug. 13, $30, ISBN 978-1-962265-00-3) sends a scrappy young heroine into space when Abi sneaks aboard a fancy tourist ship in search of food and accidentally gets caught up in a dangerous quest.
FAIRSQUARE Graphics
Meschugge: The Madman’s Maze by Benni Bodker and Christian Højgaard (Oct. 1, $24.99 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-960171-12-2) sets a murder mystery in the Jewish ghetto of 1905 Copenhagen, where a killer mutilates his victims with kabbalistic symbols and the police seek the help of a young Jewish girl to reveal the secrets of her insular community.
FANTAGRAPHICS
Jessica Farm by Josh Simmons (Oct. 22, $29.99, ISBN 978-1-68396-993-8). This domestic horror story finds a girl named Jessica traversing her Midwestern farmhouse on Christmas morning, where strangecreatures await around every corner.
What We Mean by Yesterday by Benjamin Marra (Aug. 20, $24.99 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-68396-973-0) collects the webcomic about a teacher who accidentally smokes a speed-laced cigarette in the faculty break room and revs up for an unpredictable adventure.
FIELDMOUSE
French Girl by Jesse Lee Kercheval (Sept. 3, $22.95 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-956636-38-3) explores parenting, the passing of time, loss, and other topics in painterly interludes by a poet and translator turned cartoonist.
FLOATING WORLD
Heavenly Days by Em Frank (Sept. 10, $24.99 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-942801-68-9) is a queer, trans love story about the instant connection between two strangers who meet at a coffee shop a week before one of them is due to fly across the world.
GRAPHIC MUNDI
Shrink: Story of a Fat Girl by Rachel M. Thomas (Oct. 15, $24.95 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-63779-079-3). Cartoonist Thomas, who was also an EMT, takes on fatphobia and the assumption that weight loss is necessarily healthy, particularly for mental health, in a graphic narrative that combines memoir and sociocultural commentary.
HEADSHELL
Deathstalker: The Damned Blood by Tim Seeley et al. (Oct. 8, $24.99 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-63849-226-9). Slash of Guns N’ Roses joins cowriters Seeley and Steven Kostanski and artist Jim Terry for this adaptation of a 1980s cult film full of swordplay and ritualistic sacrifice. 65,000-copy announced first printing.
IDW
Beneath the Trees Where Nobody Sees by Patrick Horvath (Sept. 10, $17.99 trade paper, ISBN 979-8-88724-108-1). This genre mash-up features rival serial killers, one of whom is a bear named Samantha Strong, in an idyllic forest setting.
IMAGE COMICS
The Deviant by James Tynion IV and Joshua Hixson (Oct. 29, $16.99 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-5343-5691-7). Fifty years after a Santa Claus impersonator went on a Midwestern murder spree in the 1970s, a journalist sets out to get the presumed killer’s side of the story.
INVISIBLE PUBLISHING
Beirut by Barrack Zailaa Rima, trans. by Carla Calargé and Alexandra Gueydan-Turek (Sept. 17, $19.95 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-77843-048-0). Collected into one volume and appearing in English for the first time, Rima’s graphic novel trilogy considers Lebanon’s tumultuous political and social history from the 1950s through the present day.
LEAPING HARE
Witchcraft—A Graphic History: Stories of Wise Women, Healers and Magic by Lindsay Squire and Lisa Salsi (Oct. 15, $19.99, ISBN 978-0-7112-9525-4). Accused witch Biddy Early (1798–1874), who was targeted by the Catholic church for her work as a healer, serves as a guide to this explainer of the rites and herbal practices of witchcraft.
LIFE DRAWN
Hanami: You, Me, & 200 Sq Ft in Japan by Julia Cejas, trans. by Holly Aitchison (Aug. 6, $24.99, ISBN 978-1-64337-665-3). When anime fan Julia’s partner loses his tech job, the couple move to Japan, as documented in this memoir of love and coming of age in a foreign city.
LIVING THE LINE
Surviving on Mars by Brandon Graham (Sept. 29, $19.95 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-961581-02-9). In this diary comics report from the uncanny land of Las Vegas, the Eisner-winning cartoonist grapples with the meaning of creative practice, ambition, depression, loss, and regret.
MAD CAVE STUDIOS
Clay Footed Giants by Alain Chevarier and Mark McGuire (Oct. 8, $19.99 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-5458-0841-2). This tale of two fathers who are each stay-at-home parents focuses on the ways that abuse and toxic versions of masculinity can get passed down despite one’s best efforts.
MARVEL UNIVERSE
G.O.D.S. by Jonathan Hickman and Valerio Schiti (Aug. 6, $29.99 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-302-94859-7) reorders the deities of the Marvel universe, bringing together different types of gods for a cataclysmic event full of cryptic symbols, strange characters, and dire warnings.
MASSIVE
The Exiled by Wesley Snipes, Adam Lawson, and Keith Arem (Sept. 17, $19.99 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-961012-12-7). The Blade star launches his own supernatural noir series that follows a detective nicknamed Roach, who’s in pursuit of a serial killer who murders by extracting his victims’ spines.
MIT
Dream Machine: A Portrait of Artificial Intelligence by Appupen and Laurent Daudet (Aug. 6, $29.95 trade paper,
ISBN 978-0-262-55129-8) sets a sci-fi story about a Paris startup seeking to produce an “immortality game” at the center of current debates about the dangers of artificial intelligence.
NBM
Kids Are Still Weird: And More Observations from Parenthood by Jeffrey Brown (Oct. 15, $9.99 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-68112-344-8). Bestseller Brown looks askance at his offspring’s antics in this follow-up to Kids Are Weird.
NEW YORK REVIEW COMICS
Blurry by Dash Shaw (Aug. 6, $34.95, ISBN 978-1-68137-846-6). This artsy ensemble piece featuring a model, a wedding guest, and a disenchanted teacher “finds insight glimmering in even the murkiest fog of uncertainty,” per PW’s review.
ONE WORLD
Into the Uncut Grass by Trevor Noah and Sabina Hahn (Oct. 15, $26, ISBN 978-
0-593-72996-0). The former host of The Daily Show teams up with illustrator Hahn to spin an inspiring fable about a child who ventures out from the safety of home and into sage encounters with creatures of a magical world.
ONI
Eat Your Heart Out by Terry Blas, Matty Newton, and Lydia Anslow (Aug. 13, $19.99 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-63715-454-0). “Glamorous queer aesthetics, fairy tale optimism, and earthy sincerity uplift this breezy coming-of-age tale” set in the N.Y.C. fashion world, according to PW’s review.
RADIATOR COMICS
UM by buttercup (Sept. 14, $20 trade paper, ISBN 978-0-9963989-5-4), which stands for “umbral mechanics & urban midwifery,” collects the webcomic featuring a Black and nonbinary aspiring midwife with unexpected powers who is dragged into a showdown that spans thousands of years of conflict and colonialism.
ROSARIUM
The Adventures of Lion Man by John Jennings, Yvette Lisa Ndlovu, and Bill Campbell (Jan. 7, $12.95 trade paper, ISBN 979-8-9866146-7-0) updates and adapts into an Afrofuturist spy thriller the Black superhero Orrin C. Evans created for All Negro Comics in 1947.
SELFMADEHERO
Madame Choi and the Monsters: A True Story by Patrick Spät and Sheree Domingo (Sept. 10, $22.99 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-914224-22-5) recounts how South Korean actor Choi Eun-hee and her filmmaker ex-husband were kidnapped by agents of North Korea in 1978 and forced to make movies under the direction of Kim Jong-il.
SILVER SPROCKET
Boy Island by Leo Fox (Aug. 21, $29.99, ISBN 979-8-88620-050-8). A boy named Lucille is stuck on Girl Island and tries to escape in this allegorical comics fable about the transgender experience.
STORM KING COMICS
Blood of the Taken by Sian Mandrake (Oct. 1, $24.99, ISBN 979-8-9887285-3-5). Buddies get bitten in this friendship-slash-monster comic when two friends in Western Massachusetts encounter a crazed vampire looking to fill out a coven.
TEN SPEED GRAPHIC
Castle Swimmer by Wendy Martin (Oct. 22, $24.99, ISBN 978-0-593-83581-4) collects the Webtoon series about a rebel merman who rejects his role in prophecy—only to become imprisoned in the Shark kingdom, where an unlikely savior (and romance) emerges.
TINY ONION
True Weird by James Tynion IV et al. (Jan. 28, $24.99 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-5067-4168-0). This anthology series replays supposedly real but uncanny events, including strange medical phenomena or seeing spirits, with writers and artists including Michael Avon Oeming, Ming Doyle, Anand RK, and Gavin Fullerton.
TITAN COMICS
Downlands by Norm Konyu (Oct. 1, $29.99, ISBN 978-1-78774-332-8). When a teen’s twin sister dies, he fixates on the myth of a dark harbinger hound in the South Downs of England, and asks his neighbor, who is rumored to practice witchcraft, to help him follow the story to the land of the dead.
TOP SHELF
The Moon and Serpent Bumper Book of Magic by Alan Moore and Steve Moore (Oct. 15, $49.99, ISBN 978-1-60309-550-1). Fashioned like a book of spells, this offers guidance for aspiring magicians and occultists of all stripes from the “proprietors of the celebrated Moon and Serpent Grand Egyptian Theatre of Marvels,” aka acclaimed comics creator Alan Moore and his late colleague.
ULTIMATE UNIVERSE
Married with Children (Ultimate Spider-Man #1) by Jonathan Hickman and Marco Checchetto (Sept. 10, $19.99 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-302-95729-2) calls on Peter Parker to level up his web-slinging duties against a super villain, but that’s proving tricky now that he’s a dad.
UNCIVILIZED BOOKS
Six Treasures of the Spiral: Comics Formed Under Pressure by Matt Madden (Oct. 8, $34.99 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-941250-65-5) collects comics across a range of genres, all created with formal restraints, such as a visual palindrome, a comics haiku, or a story mapped on to the letters of the alphabet.
This article has been updated with further information.
