Spring will see new releases from veteran creators in the graphic novel field, with long-awaited work from some of the masters of the form and the follow-up to a celebrated prose novel. The season also brings us a gallery of unforgettable characters, ranging from Bible prostitutes to papergirls.

Comics & Graphic Novels Top 10

The Art of Charlie Chan Hock Chye

Sonny Liew. Pantheon, Mar. 1

Liew audaciously recounts the history of Singapore and its comics through an invented history that uses various styles and techniques to paint the world of a Singaporean cartoonist.

Cousin Joseph: A Graphic Novel

Jules Feiffer. Norton/Liveright, July 25

Feiffer shows off his autumnal verve once more with the follow-up to Kill My Mother. Here, private eye Big Sam Hannigan works a case filled with twists and turns.

Fight Club 2

Chuck Palahniuk and Cameron Stewart. Dark Horse, June 21

Palahniuk’s protagonist faces the horrors of mundane modern life as Tyler Durden lurks nearby. Artist Stewart captures the tensions of the contemporary world and the violence that disrupts—or defines—it.

Goodnight Punpun, Vol. 1

Inio Asano. Viz, Mar. 15

Manga’s master of young adult ennui is back with his most controversial story. Punpun, a young boy with a dysfunctional life, is portrayed as a cartoon bird, his absurd appearance contrasting with Asano’s lyrical, detailed art.

Hot Dog Taste Test

Lisa Hanawalt. Drawn & Quarterly, June 14

This hilarious collection of comics, travelogues, paintings, and doodles from the author of My Dirty Dumb Eyes is mostly concerned with Hanawalt’s twin obsessions: food and horses.

Kramers Ergot 9

Edited by Sammy Harkham. Fantagraphics, Mar. 14

While previous issues of this groundbreaking comics anthology defined a generation of comics, this one presents some of the finest cartoonists from that generation, including Anya Davidson, Michael DeForge, Kim Deitch, and Julia Gfrörer.

The Louvre Collection: Guardians of the Louvre

Jirô Taniguchi. NBM, May

Taniguchi’s entry in this long-running series of graphic novels commissioned by the Louvre veers between fantasy and introspection to explore the meaning of art in our lives.

Mary Wept over the Feet of Jesus

Chester Brown. Drawn & Quarterly, Apr. 12

In astonishingly deadpan episodes, Brown explores various Bible stories through the lens of sex work, as well as the theory that Mary, mother of Jesus, may have been a prostitute.

Paper Girls, Vol. 1

Brian K. Vaughan and Cliff Chiang. Image, Apr. 12

It’s the late ‘80s, and four feisty papergirls are having an adventure in the dark hour of predawn the day after Halloween. Vaughan’s sharp humor and addictive plotting finds an able partner in Chiang’s moody artwork.

Patience

Daniel Clowes. Fantagraphics, Apr. 4

As in The Death Ray, Clowes takes a single fantastic element—a time machine—and uses it to explore human frailty. This time the themes are obsession, abuse, and destiny in a mystery/romance that spans decades.

Comics & Graphic Novels Listings

Abrams ComicArts

The Imitation Game: Alan Turing Decoded by Jim Ottaviani, illus. by Leland Purvis (Mar. 22, hardcover, $24.95, ISBN 978-1-419718-93-9). Award-winning authors Ottaviani and Purvis present a historically accurate biography of English mathematician and scientist Alan Turing, an unconventional genius who was arrested for being openly gay, and whose innovative work still fuels the computing systems that define our modern world.

Alternative Comics

Chainmail Bikini: The Anthology of Women Gamers, edited by Hazel Newlevant (Apr. 12, trade paper, $20, ISBN 978-1-513600-12-3). Alliances are forged, dice get rolled, and dragons get slain in this anthology exploring gaming from a female perspective. Contributors include Annie Mok, M.K. Reed, Molly Ostertag, and Sophie Yanow.

Lou by Melissa Mendes (Apr. 12, trade paper, $14.95, ISBN 978-1-681485-20-1). Lou is an 11-year-old tomboy growing up in a small, working-class town in New England in the 1990s. One summer, it becomes clear that her brother Eddie’s boss at the pizza shop is mixed up in some unsavory business.

Why Would You Do That? by Andrea Tsurumi (May 10, trade paper, $10, ISBN 978-1-681481-02-9) collects Tsurumi’s award-winning comics, which deftly combine stunningly beautiful imagery with humorous commentary about life.

Boom Box

Power Up by Kate Leth and Matt Cummings (June 7, trade paper, $19.99, ISBN 978-1-608868-37-7). Eons ago, it was prophesied that four distinguished champions would be chosen to lead the universe into a new age of strength and peace, but the team is unusual: Amie, an art student; Sandy, a single mom; Kevin, aging athlete; and Silas—a goldfish? A super team-up with a twist.

Dark Horse

The Eltingville Club by Evan Dorkin (Feb. 10, hardcover, $19.99, ISBN 978-1-61655-415-6). The ultimate collection of the ultimate word on the fugly side of fandom, collecting every Eltingville story from the Dork, House of Fun, and the Eltingville Club #1–#2 comics, three of which won the Eisner Award for Best Short Story.

Fight Club 2 by Chuck Palahniuk, and artists Cameron Stewart, Dave Stewart, and David Mack (June 21, hardcover, $29.99, ISBN 1-61655-945-4). Ten years after starting Project Mayhem, the hero of Palahniuk’s acclaimed novel lives a mundane life. But it won’t last long, the wife has seen to that. He’s back where he started, but this go-round he’s got more at stake than his own life.

How to Talk to Girls at Parties by Neil Gaiman, illus. by Gabriel Bá and Fábio Moon (June 15, hardcover, $17.99, ISBN 978-1-61655-955-7). Two teen boys crash a local party and discover some surprising girls. The Locus Award–winning short story by Neil Gaiman is adapted in vibrant ink-and-watercolor illustrations by the Daytripper/Two Brothers duo of Bá and Moon.

DC Comics

Cyborg, Vol. 1: Unplugged by David Walker and Ivan Reis (Mar. 29, trade paper, $14.99, ISBN 978-1-4012-6119-1). Half-man, half-machine, Victor Stone—aka Cyborg—thought he knew everything about his unique cybernetic body. But the machine that gives him powers is evolving, and he has no idea what’s causing these changes.

DC/Vertigo

The Twilight Children by Gilbert Hernandez and Darwyn Cooke (May 17, hardcover, $22.99, ISBN 978-1-4012-6245-7). Legendary creators Hernandez and Cooke team up for a surreal story set in a remote Latin American seaside village that faces unusual happenings after a foreign white orb washes ashore.

Dover

Through the Habitrails by Jeff Nicholson, intro. by Matt Fraction

(Feb. 1, trade paper, $14.95, ISBN 978-0-486-80286-2). Darkly humorous tales chronicle a nameless protagonist’s struggle with a stultifying routine of office drudgery. The stories’ Kafkaesque vignettes offer eerie perspectives on the rigors of everyday life.

Drawn & Quarterly

Carpet Sweeper Tales by Julie Doucet (Mar. 29, trade paper, $19.95, ISBN 978-1-770462-39-7). Doucet (My New York Diary) returns to comics storytelling with her current collage style with a collection of lighthearted stories that play upon the disconnects between 1970s imagery and our modern world.

Hot Dog Taste Test by Lisa Hanawalt (June 14, hardcover, $22.95, ISBN 978-1-770462-37-3) is the hilarious follow-up to My Dirty Dumb Eyes. Hanawalt dismantles the notion of breakfast, says good-bye to New York through a street food smorgasbord, shadows chef Wylie Dufresne, and samples all-you-can-eat buffets in Vegas.

Mary Wept Over the Feet of Jesus by Chester Brown (Apr. 12, hardcover, $21.95, ISBN 978-1-770462-34-2) retells nine biblical stories that reassess the Christian moral code by examining the cultural implications of the Bible’s representations of sex work. Brown weaves a connecting line between Bathsheba, Ruth, Rahab, Tamar, Mary of Bethany, and the Virgin Mother.

Fantagraphics

Kramers Ergot 9, edited by Sammy Harkham (Mar. 14, hardcover, $29.99, ISBN 978-1-60699-905-9). The ground-breaking anthology of avant-garde comics returns with work by Michael Deforge, Noel Freibert, Steve Weissman, Anya Davidson, Stefan Marx, Abraham Diaz, Leon Sadler, Julia Gfrörer, Adam Buttrick, Kim Deitch, Ben Jones, Andy Burkholder, and many more.

Nod Away by Joshua Cotter (Mar. 7, trade paper, $24.99, ISBN 978-1-60699-912-7). In this SF graphic novel, a woman seeks to develop a way to move the “innernet” (internal internet) hub from a human child to an electronic nexus.

Patience by Daniel Clowes (Apr. 4, hardcover, $22.99, ISBN 978-1-60699-666-9). The creator of Ghost World writes a psychedelic science fiction love story, veering with uncanny precision from violent destruction to deeply personal tenderness in a way that is both quintessentially Clowesian and unique in the author’s body of work.

IDW

(dist. by Diamond)

Godzilla in Hell by James Stokoe and various (Feb., trade paper, $19.99, ISBN 978-1-63140-534-1). Godzilla meets his greatest adversary—the impossible tortures of Hell. Each issue of this miniseries will see Godzilla enter a new level of the underworld to do battle with the impossible.

IMAGE COMICS

(dist. by Diamond)

Paper Girls, Vol. 1, by Brian K. Vaughan and Cliff Chiang (Apr. 12, trade paper, $9.99, ISBN 978- 1-63215-674-1). In the early hours after Halloween 1988, four 12-year-old newspaper delivery girls uncover the most important story of all time. Suburban drama and otherworldly mysteries collide in this smash-hit series about nostalgia, first jobs, and the last days of childhood.

Plutona by Jeff Lemire and Emi Lennox. (Apr. 12, trade paper, $9.99, ISBN 978-1-63215-601-3). Five kids discover the body of the world’s greatest superhero, Plutona, in the woods after school one day. This discovery sends them on a dark journey that threatens to tear apart their friendship and their lives.

Kodansha

Princess Jellyfish, Vol. 1, by Akiko Higashimura (Feb. 16, trade paper, $19.99, ISBN 978-1-63236-228-5) is the long-awaited U.S. debut of the manga smash. Tsukimi Kurashita lives in Amamizukan, a safe space for girl geeks. A chance encounter with a beautiful and fashionable woman sets off an unexpected adventure for these nerds.

Real Account, Vol. 1, by Okushou and Shizumu Watanabe (Mar. 22, trade paper, $10.99, ISBN 978-1-63236-234-6). Hunger Games for the social media generation as Ataru Kashiwagi discovers that if he reaches zero followers on the Real Account social media platform he will die.

Koyama

(dist. by Consortium)

After Nothing Comes by Aidan Koch, edited by Bill Kartalopoulos (May 10, trade paper, $20, ISBN 978-1-927668-32-0). Koch makes comics about moods and moments, marks and symbols. In washes of ink, pencil smudges, white paint, over traces of drawings, she creates resonant tone poems on paper.

Gorgeous by Cathy G. Johnson (May 10, trade paper, $10, ISBN 978-1-927668-27-6). Sophie has tried to stay out of trouble, but tonight trouble has found her. On a lonely stretch of highway, she meets anarchist punks in a crackup of metal and emotion that proves sometimes the freedom of youth causes damage along the way.

Marvel

Thanos: The Infinity Finale by Jim Starlin and Ron Lim (Apr. 12, hardcover, $24.99, ISBN 978-0-7851-9305-0). Thanos is back in the conclusion to Starlin’s trilogy about the paramour of Death. The galaxy has been ravaged while Thanos was absent, and the obliteration of all time and space may truly be the end.

Microcosm

Threadbare: Clothes, Sex, and Trafficking, edited by Anne Elizabeth Moore (May 10, trade paper, $13.95, ISBN 978-1-621067-39-9). Reports illustrated by various artists pull at the threads of gender, labor, and cultural production to paint a picture of human rights violations in a globalized world; featuring the work of Leela Corman, Julia Gfrörer, Simon Häussle, Ellen Lindner, and Melissa Mendes.

NBM

(dist. by IPG)

The Louvre Collection: Guardians of the Louvre by Jirô Taniguchi (May, hardcover, $24.99, ISBN 978-1-68112-034-8). The famed manga artist provides the latest entry in the Louvre collection of graphic novels. After a group trip to Europe, a Japanese designer stops in Paris alone. But a sudden illness gives him an unexpected perspective on the crowded halls of the Louvre.

Thoreau, a Sublime Life by A. Dan and Maximilien Le Roy (Apr., hardcover, $19.99, ISBN 978-1-68112-025-6) relates the forward-looking inspirational life of the great author, philosopher, and pioneering ecologist.

New York Review Comics

Agony by Mark Beyer, intro. by Colson Whitehead (Mar. 22, trade paper, $15.95, ISBN 978-1-590179-81-9). Amy and Jordan are just like us: hoping for the best, even when things go from bad to worse. They are devoured by fish, beheaded by ghosts, menaced by bears, and hunted by the cops, but still they struggle on, bickering and reconciling, scraping together the rent, and trying to find a decent movie.

Peplum by Blutch, trans. by Edward Gauvin (Apr. 19, trade paper, $24.95, ISBN 978-1-590179-83-3) brings a masterpiece by the European comics master into English for the first time. A grand, strange dream of ancient Rome weaves together threads from Shakespeare and The Satyricon along with Blutch’s own distinctive vision.

NoBrow

(dist. by Consortium)

Geis: A Matter of Life and Death by Alexis Deacon (July 26, hardcover, $19.95, ISBN 978-1-910620-03-8) debuts a gripping fantasy trilogy, in which 50 souls battle to control a magical island after the fall of the land’s matriarch. Some are good, some evil—and there is only one seat in which to rule.

Norton/Liveright

Cousin Joseph: A Graphic Novel by Jules Feiffer (July 25, hardcover, $27.95, ISBN 978-1-631490-65-1). Meet Big Sam Hannigan, a tough, righteous man on a mission. The only problem: it’s the wrong mission. Feiffer brings us the next hardboiled chapter, following Kill My Mother, in this trilogy, the culmination of a storied career.

Pantheon

The Art of Charlie Chan Hock Chye by Sonny Liew (Mar. 1, hardcover, $30, ISBN 978-1-101870-69-3). A brilliantly conceived graphic novel tells the history of Singapore through the lens of its greatest—though not entirely successful—comic book artist.

Everything Is Teeth by Evie Wyld and Joe Sumner (May 10, hardcover, $24.95, ISBN 978-1-101870-81-5). From the award-winning author of All the Birds, Singing comes a deeply moving graphic memoir about family, love, loss, and irresistible forces that, like sharks, course through life unseen, ready to emerge at any moment.

Rebellion

(dist. by S&S)

Sooner or Later by Peter Milligan and Brendan McCarthy (Apr. 7, trade paper, $17.99, ISBN 978-1-78108-428-1). The artist behind Mad Max: Fury Road and the writer of X-Statix and Hellblazer produce a classic of 1980s British comics. Unemployed Micky Swift’s life is suddenly turned inside out when he is plucked from the present and dragged into the 30th century as the property of Mr. & Mrs. Katsbreath.

Roaring Brook/First Second

Something New: Tales from a Makeshift Bride by Lucy Knisley (May 3, trade paper, $19.99, ISBN 978-1-626722-49-1) is a new memoir from the author of Relish; she sets out to plan and execute the adorable DIY wedding to end all adorable DIY weddings, including building a barn and inventing a new kind of photo booth.

Secret Acres

(dist. by Consortium)

Sick by Gabby Schulz (June 14, hardcover, $21.95, ISBN 978-0-9962739-1-6). The author of the perennial classic Monsters (as Ken Dahl), Schulz returns with a graphic novel that explores the larger, hot-button issue of national health care. Severely ill, uninsured, alone, and confined to his bed for weeks, Schulz was left searching—only to find himself.

SelfMadeHero

(dist. by HBG)

Irmina by Barbara Yelin (Apr. 12, hardcover, $24.95, ISBN 978-1-910593-10-3). In the mid-1930s, Irmina, a young German woman, travels to London and meets Howard Green, one of the first black students at Oxford. Based on a true story, this moving and perceptive graphic novel conjures the oppressive atmosphere of wartime Germany and the passive complicity of its people with sympathy and intelligence.

An Olympic Dream: The Story of Samia Yusuf Omar by Reinhard Kleist (Apr. 12, trade paper, $22.95, ISBN 978-1-910593-09-7). The image of Samia Yusuf Omar running for last place at the 2008 Beijing Olympics will be imprinted in the minds of all who saw it. What the cheering crowd couldn’t know then was what it took to get there.

Simon & Schuster

The Ukrainian and Russian Notebooks: Life and Death Under Soviet Rule by Igort (Mar. 15, hardcover, $28, ISBN 978-1-451678-87-1). The Italian graphic novelist investigates the murder in 2006 of the award-winning journalist and human rights activist Anna Politkovskaya and illustrates the events of the 1932 Holodomor, a government-sanctioned famine that killed anywhere from 1.8 to 12 million ethnic Ukrainians.

Stone Bridge Press

The Osamu Tezuka Story: A Life in Manga and Anime by Toshio Ban, trans. by Frederik L. Schodt (July 12, trade paper, $29.95, ISBN 978-1-611720-25-9) is a documentary manga biography of the influential artist and the birth and evolution of manga and anime in Japan.

2dcloud

Someone Please Have Sex With Me by Gina Wynbrandt (May 10, trade paper, $17.95, ISBN 978-1-937541-17-0). This debut is a refreshing and wry look at sexual frustration, shot through with American pop culture erudition.

Turning Japanese by MariNaomi (May 10, hardcover, $24.95, ISBN 978-1-937541-16-3) tours the mid-’90s Japanese hostess bar scene in the U.S. and the author’s own personal cultural awakening as she finds employment at a hostess bar for Japanese expats, where she is determined to learn the Japanese language and culture.

Uncivilized

(dist. by Consortium)

Jacob Bladders and the State of the Art by Roman Muradov (May 10, hardcover, $19.95, ISBN 978-1-941250-10-5) is the ink-smeared story of a misplaced illustration set in a Blakean vision of 1940s New York. Jacob Bladders is an illustrator, braggart, and victim of assault by thugs sent by the mysterious Charlie.

Rules for Dating My Daughter: Cartoon Dispatches from the Front-lines of Modern Fatherhood by Mike Dawson (May 10, trade paper, $15.95, ISBN 978-1-941250-11-2) features original, passionate, and funny commentary on fatherhood, gun rights, the gender of toys, and staying sane in a world where school shootings and Disney princesses get equal billing.

Valiant Entertainment

Book of Death by Robert Venditti, Robert Gill, and Doug Braithwaite (Feb. 23, trade paper, $14.99, ISBN 978-1-939346-97-1). Can the Eternal Warrior single-handedly protect one child when the entire Valiant Universe wages war against him?

Viz

Goodnight Punpun, Vol. 1, by Inio Asano (Mar. 15, trade paper, $24.99, ISBN 978-1-4215-8620-5). He wants to win a Nobel Prize and save the world. He wants to go far away with his true love. He wants to find some porn. But Punpun’s life is about to unravel. The creator of Solanin is back with a controversial manga.

Behind the Scenes!! Vol. 1, by Bisco Hatori (Feb. 2, trade paper, $9.99, ISBN 978-1-4215-8524-6). The author of Ouran High School Host Club returns with the story of a college student with an inferiority complex who stumbles into the cool crowd.

Shuriken and Pleats, Vol. 1, by Hino Matsuri (Mar. 1, trade paper, $9.99, ISBN 978-1-4215-8525-3). Skilled ninja Mikage Kirio travels to Japan to start a new, peaceful life for herself. As soon as she arrives, she finds herself fighting to protect the life of Mahito Wakashimatsu, and drawn deeper into the machinations of his powerful family.

Yen

The Boy and the Beast, Vol. 1, by Mamoru Hosoda and Renji Asai (Feb. 23, trade paper, $13, ISBN 978-0-316358-20-0). Fleeing tragedy and mistreatment, a young boy named Ren hides among the crowds in Tokyo, runs away, and ends up in the world of the beasts, where he meets a rough-living bear named Kumatetsu.

Handa-kun, Vol. 1, by Satsuki Yoshino (Feb. 23, trade paper, $15, ISBN 978-0-316269-18-6). In this prequel to Barakaman, we meet Sei Handa as a neurotic teen and aspiring calligrapher. His enigmatic nature makes him a magnet to everyone around him, and every day is a comedy of errors.

Servant × Service, Vol. 1, by Karino Takatsu (Apr. 19, trade paper, $20, ISBN 978-0-316314-87-9). On any given day in a certain city, in a certain public services office building down in the Health and Welfare Department, you just might run into a clerk with a tongue twister of a name, a huge flirt, a bundle of insecurity, and a cosplay maniac. 15,000-copy announced first printing.