Talented newcomers Ezra Claytan Daniels, Ebony Flowers, Ben Passmore, and Kelsey Wroten offer imaginative graphic novels this spring, and veteran cartoonists Brian Fies, Jaime Hernandez, and James Sturm return with new works.

Top 10

Adventures of Alexander Von Humboldt

Andrea Wulf and Lillian Melcher. Pantheon, Apr. 2 (hardcover, $29.99, ISBN 978-1-5247-4737-4)

This work of nonfiction details the life of Alexander von Humboldt (1769–1859), a Prussian explorer and scientist whose radical theories of the natural world profoundly influenced historical figures including Thomas Jefferson and Charles Darwin.

BTTM FDRS

Ezra Claytan Daniels and Ben Passmore. Fantagraphics, June 11 (hardcover, $24.99, ISBN 978-1-68396-206-9)

In a story about a hip black designer and her ditzy friend in search of a cheap apartment, Daniels (Upgrade Soul, a PW Best Book of 2018) and Passmore offer a combination of comedy and afrofuturist horror that probes urban blight and gentrification.

Cannonball

Kelsey Wroten. Uncivilized, Apr. 23 (hardcover, $24.95, ISBN 978-1-941250-33-4)

Wroten debuts with a story about the making of art and the coming-of-age of Caroline, a queer aspiring writer, alcoholic, art school graduate, and self-proclaimed tortured genius.

Detective Comics: 80 Years of Batman (deluxe ed.)

Edited by Paul Levitz, with various artists. DC Comics, Mar. 19 (hardcover, $29.99, ISBN 978-1-4012-8538-8)

This hardcover collection of 80 years of Batman stories and essays about the character features a lineup of celebrated authors and past Batman creators.

Fire Story

Brian Fies. Abrams ComicArts, Mar. 5 (hardcover, $24.99, ISBN 978-1-4197-3585-1)

Fies offers an account of his experience losing his family’s home and all their possessions in a devastating California wildfire in October 2017.

Hot Comb

Ebony Flowers, Drawn & Quarterly, May 21 (trade paper, $21.95, ISBN 978-1-77046-348-6)

Flowers illuminates issues of race, class, and notions of beauty and identity in a series of pieces focused on the hair and the lives of black women.

Love and Rockets: Is This How You See Me?

Jaime Hernandez. Fantagraphics, June 11 (hardcover, $24.99, ISBN 978-1-68396-182-6)

Hernandez finds his unforgettable Love & Rockets characters Maggie and Hopey in middle age and on a road trip to a punk rock reunion in their old neighborhood..

MacDoodle Street

Mark Alan Stamaty. New York Review Comics, Apr. 2 (hardcover, ISBN 978-1-68137-342-3)

A new edition of Stamaty’s long out-of-print Village Voice strip, which ran from 1978 to 1980, provides an absurdist recreation of life in Greenwich Village.

Off Season

James Sturm, Drawn & Quarterly, Jan. 22. (hardcover, $24.95, ISBN 978-1-77046-331-8)

Using anthropomorphic animal characters, Sturm charts the dissolution of a marriage with the 2016 presidential election as backdrop, capturing the slow disintegration of a family.

They Called Us Enemy

George Takei et al. Top Shelf, July 16 (trade paper, $19.99, ISBN 978-1-60309-450-4)

Offering a gripping account of racism, democracy, and resistance, the Star Trek actor’s graphic memoir recounts the story of his childhood, when he was imprisoned in a internment camp for Japanese-Americans during WWII.

Comics & Graphic Novels Listings

Abrams ComicArts

Nobody’s Fool: The Life and Times of Schlitzie the Pinhead by Bill Griffith (Mar. 19, hardcover, $24.99, ISBN 978-1-4197-3501-1) is a graphic biography of Schlitzie, a sideshow performer best known from the 1932 film Freaks and for inspiring Griffith’s Zippie the Pinhead comics series.

Arsenal Pulp

Dear Scarlet: The Story of My Postpartum Depression by Teresa Wong (May 7, trade paper, $17.95, ISBN 978-1-55152-765-9) captures Wong’s struggle with motherhood and postpartum depression, outlining her search for remedies and her assurances to other mothers suffering from postpartum depression that they are not alone.

Black Crown

Euthanauts: Ground Control by Tini Howard and Nick Robles (Feb. 19, trade paper, $19.99, ISBN 978-1-68405-404-6). The Euthanauts are an unusual group of near-death survivors recruited to explore what lies beyond the world of the living.

House Amok by Christopher Sebela and Shawn McManus (Mar. 26, trade paper, $19.99, ISBN 978-1-68405-418-3). Driven by a hallucinatory combination of possible secret implants, conspiracy theories, and weird extradimensional invaders, the Sandifers—a spectacularly dysfunctional and violent family—head out on a cross-country search for answers and salvation.

Lodger by David and Maria Lapham (June 11, trade paper, $17.99, ISBN 978-1-68405-476-3). The creators of the Eisner Award–winning Stray Bullets series return with a noir crime thriller about a young woman and her grim determination to find the man who killed her mother.

Celadon

Why Don’t You Write My Eulogy Now So I Can Correct It? by Patricia Marx and Roz Chast (Apr. 2, hardcover, $20, ISBN 978-1-250-30196-3). Marx teams with New Yorker cartoonist Roz Chast to turn Marx’s mother’s hilarious maternal one-liners into a book of full-color cartoons.

Clarkson Potter

I Was Their American Dream: A Graphic Memoir by Malaka Gharib (Apr. 30, trade paper, $16.99, ISBN 978-0-525-57511-5). Gharib’s graphic memoir tells the story of growing up in a Filipino and Egyptian family, adapting to white American culture, and striving to be just another all-American kid.

Chronicle

This Land Is My Land: A Graphic History of Big Dreams, Micronations, and Other Self-Made States by Andy Warner and Sofie Louise Dam (May 7, trade paper, $19.95, ISBN 978-1-4521-7018-3) collects the true stories of 30 utopian locales around the world built by idealists in an effort to create havens, such as the gay and lesbian kingdom of the Coral Sea Islands or the antislavery community of Libertatia.

Dead Reckoning

Katusha: Girl Soldier of the Great Patriotic War by Wayne Vansant

(Mar. 13, trade paper, $26, ISBN 978-1-68247-425-9). A fictional account of the Nazi invasion of Ukraine in WWII, this graphic novel tells the story of war through the eyes of Katusha, a Ukrainian teenage girl, who fights as a tank driver and commander, facing death, hopelessness, victory, and love.

Men at Sea by Riff Rebs (Apr. 15, trade paper, $19.95, ISBN 978-1-68247-387-0). Eight dark and poetic stories of life and death on the high sea by such classic authors as Joseph Conrad, Edgar Allan Poe, and Robert Louis Stevenson are adapted into comics.

Night Witches by Garth Ennis and Russ Braun (Mar. 13, trade paper, $24.95, ISBN 978-1-68247-390-0).

As the German army advances into the U.S.S.R. in WWII, a squadron of women aviators, using obsolete planes, risks death to fight back. Known as the Night Witches, these women become legends.

Dey Street

Adventures of Barry & Joe: Obama and Biden’s Bromantic Battle for the Soul of America by Adam Reid (Mar. 26, hardcover, $26.99, ISBN 978-0-06-288290-5). The new genre of Barack Obama and Joe Biden adventures gets the graphic treatment in this epic tongue-in-cheek sci-fi tale, as Barry and Joe become time-traveling superheroes (guided by Neil deGrasse Tyson) who bounce though time fighting injustice wherever they find it.

Doubleday/Talese

Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood and Renée Nault (Mar. 26, hardcover, $22.95, ISBN 978-0-385-53924-1). This graphic adaptation of Atwood’s celebrated novel presents the story of Offred, a handmaid in the Republic of Gilead, where women have lost all human rights and serve only to provide children.

Drawn & Quarterly

Grass by Keum Suk Gendry-Kim, trans. by Janet Hong (June 4, trade paper, $29.95, ISBN 978-1-77046-362-2). This work of graphic nonfiction documents the life of Okseon Lee, a Korean woman forced, as a young girl, into sexual slavery by the Japanese army in WWII, while capturing her determination to survive extraordinary hardships and marking the horrific costs of war.

Familius

Good Moms Have Scary Thoughts: A Healing Guide to the Secret Fears of New Mothers by Karen Kleiman and Molly McIntyre (Mar. 1, hardcover, $16.99, ISBN 978-1-64170-130-3). Kleiman, coauthor of This Isn’t What I Expected and founder of the Postpartum Stress Center, offers a resource guide to help new mothers deal with postpartum depression.

Fantagraphics

Hobo Mom by Charles Forman and Max De Radigues (Feb. 12, hardcover, $14.99, ISBN 978-1-68396-176-5). This collaborative graphic novel relates the tale of Tom; his preteen daughter, Sissy; and his wife and Sissy’s mother, Natasha, who abandons her family to hop trains only to return after several years to a husband and daughter distraught over her absence.

First Second

Adventure Zone: Murder on the Rockport Limited by Clint McElroy et al. (July 16, hardcover, $26.99, ISBN 978-1-250-22928-1). Adapted from the popular D&D podcast, the second volume of the series captures Taako, Magnus, and Merle in a D&D murder mystery that features a genius child detective, a surly wizard, an axe-wielding pro wrestler, and a pair of meat monsters.

Kid Gloves: Nine Months of Careful Chaos by Lucy Knisley (Feb. 26, trade paper, $19.99, ISBN 978-1-62672-808-0). Using her own experiences with fertility problems and miscarriages, Knisley details the history and science of women’s reproductive health, examining many aspects of motherhood with humor.

PTSD by Guillaume Singelin (Feb. 26, hardcover, $24.99, ISBN 978-1-62672-318-4). This fictional graphic work follows Jun, a female veteran with mental and physical wounds, who returns from an unpopular war and falls into poverty and drug addiction. Amid her struggles, she is saved by the kindness of a stranger, her fellow war veterans, and the companionship of a dog named Red.

Harper Design

Bart Simpson Breaks Out by Matt Groening (Apr. 2, trade paper, $16.99, ISBN 978-0-06-287873-1). In this new collection of classically wacky stories, Bart Simpson and his buddies are recruited by the Mafia; in another story Lisa competes with Bart for the title of Class Clown, then Bartman takes on a new super villain: an eight baby–wielding villain called Dr. Octuplets.

Koyama

When I Arrived at the Castle by Emily Carroll (June 19, trade paper, $15, ISBN 978-1-927668-68-9). A young woman journeys to the Countess’s castle and discovers the skin-crawling secrets within its walls in this erotically charged gothic horror story.

Lion Forge

Summit, Vol. 3: Truth or Consequences by Amy Chu and Marika Cresta (May 28, trade paper, $14.99, ISBN 978-1-5493-0286-2). Reluctant superhero Dr. Valentina Resnick-Baker has lost the powers she gained during the Event and believes she can now return to a normal life, until she hears a voice in her head that belongs to a friend whom she thought was dead.

The Underfoot! by Ben Fisher, Emily S. Whitten, and Michelle Nguyen (Apr. 23, trade paper, $12.99, ISBN 978-1-5493-0289-3). This epic fantasy and sci-fi graphic novel highlights a trio of Hamster warriors on a dangerous mission to save their allies, a group of badgers, from flooding and new threats.

NBM

Rolling Stones in Comics! by Ceka (Mar. 15, hardcover, $24, ISBN 978-1-68112-198-7). In 21 comics stories supported by biographical material, Ceka relives the music, lyrics, and 50 years of global popularity of Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, and the Rolling Stones.

Silent Invasion: The Great Fear by Larry Hancock and Michael Cherkas (May 15, trade paper, $16.99, ISBN 978-1-68112-206-9). The second volume of Hancock and Cherkas’s sci-fi epic continues the paranoia over UFOs and Communist spies, as reporter Matt Sinkage discovers a government-backed alien invasion of Earth.

The Year of Loving Dangerously by Ted Rall and Pablo Callejo (Apr. 15, trade paper, $17.99, ISBN 978-1-68112-215-1) revisits Rall’s college years in 1980s New York City. He’s expelled from college and broke, but avoids homelessness by continuously hooking up with young women, until the psychic toll of exchanging affection for room and board begins to wear him down.

New York Review Comics

Alay-Oop by William Gropper (June 11, hardcover, $24.95, ISBN 978-1-68137-301-0). Originally published in 1930 by Gropper, a prolific newspaper cartoonist, the book is a lost classic and his only book-length narrative. It’s the story of two circus acrobats who fall in love and the schemer who comes between them, a tale that captures the charm of New York City of the period.

NoBrow

Darwin: An Exceptional Voyage by Fabien Grolleau and Jeremie Royer (Feb. 12, hardcover, $22.95, ISBN 978-1-910620-50-2). A fictional recreation of the life of Charles Darwin follows him as a young man in 1831 as he embarks on the historic trip aboard the HMS Beagle that leads to his theory of evolution, which transforms the world of science.

One World

Good Talk: A Memoir in Conversation by Mira Jacob (Mar, 26, hardcover, $30, ISBN 978-0-399-58904-1). Novelist Jacob turns awkward conversations with her six-year-old, half-Jewish, half-Indian son—very often about race, class, sex, and lots more—into a graphic memoir of race in America.

Oni

Guerillas: Omnibus Edition by Brahm Revel (Feb. 26, trade paper, $39.99, ISBN 978-1-62010-575-7) collects the popular series about a soldier in Vietnam, just hoping to stay alive, who discovers an elite (and mysterious) platoon of chain-smoking chimpanzee soldiers, which turn out to be a one of the most dangerous fighting forces in the jungle.

Long Road to Liquor City by Macon Blair and Joe Flood (Feb. 19, trade paper, $19.99, ISBN 978-1-62010-461-3). In this Great Depression–era adventure, the hobo duo of Jed and Thanny travel the country in search of the fabled Liquor City, leaving a trail of goofy mayhem in their wake, with the law, in the form of rail yard sergeant Roan O’Feathers, in hot pursuit.

A Quick and Easy Guide to Queer and Trans Identities by Mady G and J.R. Zuckerberg (Apr. 23, trade paper, $9.99, ISBN 978-1-62010-586-3). Using a series of comics stories, as well as interviews, Mady G and Zuckerberg provide a starting point for anyone interested in learning more about queer and trans life. They also cover such topics as sexuality and gender identity, coming out, and navigating relationships.

Pegasus

The Be-Bop Barbarians by Gary Phillips and Dale Berry (Feb. 5, hardcover, ISBN 978-1-68177-776-4). Set in the world of 1950s jazz, anticommunist hysteria, and the civil rights movement, this graphic novel is the story of three black cartoonists struggling to create unconventional comics in a racist industry.

Quirk

Manfried Saves the Day by Caitlin Major and Kelly Bastow (Apr. 2, trade paper, $14.99, ISBN 978-1-68369-108-2). Manfried, the pet man of slacker tomcat Steve Catson, fights to prevent a fat-cat real estate developer from shutting down the local stray man shelter, while also finding he has to share his home with an even cuter rival, a stray man named Garfield.

SelfMadeHero

Maggy Garrisson by Lewis Trondheim and Oiry Stephane (Apr. 30, trade paper, $24.99, ISBN 978-1-910593-64-6). Finally landing a job, Maggy Garrisson is a secretary to an alcoholic private detective. Soon, her new boss is beaten to a pulp and Maggy must enter a sinister world of corrupt cops and career criminals.

Seven Stories

Spit Three Times by David Reviati, trans. by Jamie Richards (Apr. 9, trade paper, $28.95, ISBN 978-1-60980-909-6), relates the coming-of-age story of three rural Italian boys, while examining their town’s fraught relationship with a nearby community of Roma.

Titan Comics

Shades of Magic, Vol. 1: The Steel Prince by Victoria Schwab and Andrea Olimpieri (Feb. 26, trade paper, $16.99, ISBN 978-1-78586-587-9). Arrogant prince Maxim Maresh is sent to tame a lawless and violent port city, where he encounters an unruly band of soldiers and a pirate queen.

Tyler Cross: Angola by Fabien Nury and Bruno (Mar. 12, hardcover, $24.99, ISBN 978-1-78586-731-6). Criminal-for-hire Tyler Cross is incarcerated at Angola, Louisiana’s notorious prison, where a Sicilian clan has put a price on his head, in this popular European crime series.

Top Shelf

Nocturne: The Walled City, Book Two by Anne Opotowsky and Angie Hoffmeister (July 23, trade paper, $39.99, ISBN 978-1-60309-451-1). Song, Xi, and Yubo, the three boys introduced in book one, come of age in the Walled City—a section of Hong Kong’s Kowloon peninsula—as it becomes a lawless ghetto in the 1930s.

Tor

Chronin, Vol. 1: The Knife at Your Back by Alison Wilgus (Feb. 19, trade paper, $17.99, ISBN 978-0-7653-9163-6). In this time-traveling story, Mirai Yoshida finds herself stuck in 1864 in samurai Japan and desperate to escape, since she has knowledge that the shogunate is about to fall.

Uncivilized

Sky in Stereo, Vol. 2, by Mardou (Apr. 23, trade paper, $13.99, ISBN 978-1-941250-32-7). This volume picks up the story of 17-year-old Mardou, locked away in a psychiatric ward after taking LSD, in a work that examines hospital life and the trippy inner world of mental illness.

Valiant

Faith: Dreamside by Jody Houser and MJ Kim (Mar. 12, trade paper, $9.99, ISBN 978-1-68215-297-3). Plus-size superhero Faith Herbert, aka Zephyr, must enter into a fantastical realm to protect her Harbinger Renegades teammate, Animalia, from a nightmarish foe who exists only in her dreams.

Livewire, Vol. 1: Fugitive by Vita Ayala, Raúl Allén, and Patricia Martín (May 21, trade paper, $9.99, ISBN 978-1-68215-301-7). Using her technopathic abilities, Livewire has plunged the U.S. into a nationwide blackout causing untold devastation, and has become the enemy of the government she once served.

Correction: An earlier version of this article misspelled the name of the publisher Familius.