The future is hauntingly familiar and hilariously horrific in the ambitious latest from Lubchansky (Boys Weekend). In the year 2081, anthropology student Lucius Pasternak is hired by the Museum of the Former State of New York to leave his high-tech walled city and study Simplicity, a hippie commune that’s survived in the woods since the 1970s. “We’re mighty kind here,” he’s told not long after arriving. “That doesn’t mean we’re just nice.” Lucius interviews commune members, works on their farm, and observes the Mutual Rite, a nightly orgy of sex and violence in which they release their collective id. Inevitably, he becomes part of the community, and Simplicity’s countercultural rejection of gender assumptions is refreshing to him as a trans man. But mystical visions of nature gods, monster sightings in the woods, and a string of bloody deaths suggest that Simplicity may not be so simple after all. Lubchansky’s bright, cartoony art lends lightness and humor to the story’s heavier elements and gives the moments of fantasy a psychedelic touch. The book is almost too many things at once—science fiction, folk horror, political satire, call to revolution—but Lubchansky spins the disparate elements into an audacious story about 20th-century utopian dreams meeting 21st-century cynicism. It’s a sharp addition to the canon of socially relevant science fiction. Agent: Kate McKean, Howard Morhaim Literary. (July)

Reviewed on 04/25/2025 | Details & Permalink

Eisner winner Romanova follows Goblin Girl with another exceptional autofiction, this time set amid the hedonism of Austin’s SXSW festival. Nursing a hangover, Moa vows to “take it so damn easy” in Austin, but relaxation isn’t on the itinerary with her friends and travel partners Åsa and Lina, whose band Shitkid is playing the festival. Hosted by 1980s–1990s alt-rock luminaries turned middle-aged dog dads (including King Buzzo, frontman for The Melvins), the trio plunges headlong into afterparty excess, with side trips to a desert shooting range and a rodeo. Things escalate when they connect with Dylan, a guy from Åsa’s past with a heroin habit. Moa’s inevitable comedown—tears, puke, a possible concussion, and a “massive shame tsunami” following a threesome—dredges up still-raw grief over a friend’s death and forces her to reassess the “self-imposed chaos” in her life. Romanova’s SweeTarts-hued Austin skylines evoke Art Deco and faded Trapper Keepers crossed with Ralph Nagel posters, while her distinctive character designs—long-limbed, elven-faced, with outsize honey bun ears—perform expressive marvels. Amid her candid reckoning with addiction and anxiety, Romanova is also bracingly witty, with nimble banter and blunt punch lines delineating the highs and lows of her central characters’ fierce friendship. Over a winding trail of vomit, snot, and tears, Romanova’s girls stumble toward messy but clear-eyed self-recognition. Like the title suggests, this one has spirit to spare. (Aug.)

Reviewed on 04/25/2025 | Details & Permalink

Lambda award–winning cartoonist Curato (Flamer) makes his adult debut with this earnest, skillfully drawn look at the friendship circle of four single queer Asian folks—cheekily dubbed the Boy Luck Club—in early 2000s Seattle. The story opens with AJ, young and newly out, arriving in the city. He is soon taken under the wing of K, a bighearted drag performer. K also acts as den mother to John, a shy, heavyset gamer with a fatalistic attitude toward romance, and Steven, a handsome nurse who avoids his problems by losing himself in promiscuous sexual adventures. In between romantic entanglements, the four also experience racism, homophobia, and familial rejection, fueling their confusion and self-doubt. Through it all, they nurture one another, albeit with some squabbles here and there. As K counsels AJ, “In this life we die and are reborn in our hearts many times.” At first glance, each of Curato’s characters may appear as gay stereotypes, but he renders them endearingly flawed and fully three-dimensional. This warmhearted tale of found family will charm and entertain readers, some of whom might want to keep a box of Kleenex handy. Agent: Brenda Bowen, Book Group. (June)

Reviewed on 04/25/2025 | Details & Permalink

In Brosi’s unsparing yet mirthful debut, a teenager with a speech impediment navigates the peculiar indignities of commune life and public school. Eagle is teased at school for his unusual name, his long ponytail, and especially his acute speech impediment (represented in speech bubbles as gnarled, indecipherable runes). Teachers regard him with open hostility, and a beating at the hands of two classmates triggers a seizure that lands him in the hospital. Home offers little refuge. His family resides in a hippie commune that zealously polices its back-to-the-land ethos. His mother’s contentious use of bone meal in the vegetable garden precipitates a “consensus meeting” where scandal erupts over the discovery of a fast-food wrapper. While his bushy-bearded father obsesses over the young women at the college where he teaches, Eagle’s softhearted mother imparts wisdom through lessons on native plants but sometimes lapses into unwieldy metaphors (“When you grow up, you might become attracted to some hot young green bean. But it won’t take care of you like a bug, ugly bean will”). Over a loosely structured narrative, Brosi’s sparse, knobbly pen-and-ink illustrations, which recall 1970s pamphlets and Shel Silverstein, mine blunt humor from the self-absorbed adults surrounding Eagle. Brosi’s thorny coming-of-age story hoes a tough row between tragedy and comedy, to disarming effect. It feels like a discovery that comics fans will be talking about for years to come. (June)

Reviewed on 04/25/2025 | Details & Permalink

The fractious life of pioneering photographer Eadweard Muybridge is chronicled in this brisk but thorough graphic biography by Delisle (Factory Summers). Born in 1830, Muybridge sailed from London to the United States in 1850, where he found work as a bookseller and was thrilled by proto-photographic innovations like daguerreotypes. After recovering from an 1860 stagecoach accident that put him in a coma, he had prematurely gray hair, a newly cantankerous disposition, and a hungry curiosity. Muybridge emerges in Delisle’s adroit rendering as an innovator with the mind of a mechanic, the soul of an artist, and a prophetic air. His painstakingly captured photos of Yosemite made him famous, and attracted the attention of railroad tycoon Leland Stanford, who had a hobbyist interest in determining if a galloping horses’ hooves were ever all in the air at the same time. Several years, a million dollars, and one breakthrough idea (a dozen cameras snapping lightning-fast pictures) later, Muybridge proved the answer was yes. He kept innovating, arguably creating the pre-cinematic landscape well ahead of the Lumiere brothers and Thomas Edison, who received the fame and credit. Delisle draws with his usual comedic verve, and keeps the pace at a lively clip while weaving in significant research. Fans of Louis Riel and other comics cultural histories will find this well worth their time. Agent: Sylvain Coissard, Sylvain Coissard Agency. (Apr.)

Reviewed on 04/25/2025 | Details & Permalink

A beachside villa in the South of France provides the backdrop for this poignant graphic novel debut from short story writer Shapiro (Bummer and Other Stories). In 1929, nine-year-old Ida stays with family friends while her parents end their tense marriage. Her goodhearted summer caretakers, Gerald and Sara Murphy, cultivate a “perfect invented world” where “everyone had to act their part.” This includes guests like Ernest Hemingway, Pablo Picasso, Cole Porter, and, centrally, F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald. Only the Murphys’ 11-year-old daughter, Honoria, shuns the facade of happiness, openly mourning her brother Baoth, who died of spinal meningitis, and treating Ida as a shabby substitute, even as she commits to refashion Ida as “more palatable and worldly.” Ida adores Honoria as much as Honoria adores Scott and Zelda, who are depicted here as troubled, charismatic truth-tellers. Together, Honoria and Ida study Judaism—Ida’s family is nonreligious, and Honoria is shopping for a new faith after her Christian God took Baoth—which contributes to the bond they gradually build. It also sets the stage for a fantastic climax, when Honoria dumps a pitcher of drinks on Ezra Pound after he makes antisemtic remarks. With simple but expressive figures, which whimsically recall schoolgirl drawings, Shapiro builds a world of complicated characters whose attempts to be dazzling mask their grief. It’s a witty and wonderful story of friendship in all its forms. (Apr.)

Reviewed on 04/25/2025 | Details & Permalink

A 1947 news item about an apparent suicide opens a sobering window onto 20th-century psychiatric overreach in Thorsen’s poetic graphic debut. Haunted by a decades-old Vancouver Sun article kept by her father, Thorsen delves into archival records to reconstruct Joseph O’Dwyer’s 15-year journey through Canada’s mental health system. Patient records chronicle the Irish immigrant’s struggles with schizophrenia (he claimed to hear “voices of angels”), while family letters document precipitating tragedies, like three siblings dying young. Joseph was entrusted to the care of Essondale, British Columbia’s Provincial Mental Hospital and later a “forensic psychiatric facility” in Colquitz, B.C., where his treatment progressed from insulin coma therapy to electroconvulsive treatment to lobotomy. Medical records lament Joseph’s devotion to “delusional ideas”—a bitter irony, given that the interventions performed on him have since been widely discredited. The nonlinear narrative unfolds over brooding grease pencil compositions that incorporate archival materials and modernist allusions to Robert Doisneau, Pablo Picasso, and Francis Bacon. Hand-lettered texts roam crowded pages in spirals and jagged lines. Quotes from Joyce’s Ulysses (also the source of the book’s title) are peppered throughout, in a nod to accusations that Joseph had stolen a doctor’s copy of the novel. The lyrical structure can be challenging to parse at times, but the overall execution thrums with an obsessive passion reminiscent of Emil Ferris’s work. Thorsen’s haunting indictment of an era of psychiatric hubris fuses dogged scholarship and visceral empathy. (May)

Reviewed on 04/25/2025 | Details & Permalink

Korean artist Yudori unfolds an erotic, feminist-infused tale of yearning in her fiery debut. In Renaissance-era Holland, Amélie, the young wife of a merchant, feels constricted by social mores, exasperated by her marriage, and fascinated by the mechanics of flight. She’s happiest when her husband, Hans, is away on business, freeing her to pursue her interests. (“All she knows how to do is stare at books and eat!” the household servants sniff.) Then Hans brings home a purchase from his latest trip abroad: an enslaved Asian woman, called Sahara (though this is not her real name). Amélie resents the newcomer, who soon replaces her in Hans’s bed, but as time passes the two women recognize that they are trapped together. “Hans has the face of a man who deserves everything,” Amélie despairs as her husband blithely robs her of all that matters—her scientific discoveries, her freedom, and her budding feelings for Sahara. Yudori brings 16th-century Europe to life with a crisp line that turns elegant and sinuous, and she lavishes detail on art, jewelry, clothing, and clockwork. The characters’ expressive faces and body language add humanizing moments and touches of humor to the historical drama. This artsy manhwa soars. (May)

Reviewed on 04/25/2025 | Details & Permalink

Manga fans and murder mystery aficionados will delight in this stunningly illustrated high-fantasy novel by Ikemoto Ghosh. Hakai Hyo is the 33rd person in her family to take up the mantle of hellmaker, someone capable of curating a personalized hell for a paying client’s worst enemy. When a demon curses Hyo’s village with a permanent winter, she strikes a deal with the creature to save her people: Hyo must first venture to Onogoro, an island that demons are forbidden from entering. Once there, she must seek hitodenashi, a cursed fruit consumed by demons that enables their man-eating tendencies, then thrust the island into hell. As Hyo navigates competing alliances, she becomes embroiled in a murder investigation, further entangling her in a treacherous web of power and deceit. Via b&w illustrations rendered using sweeping brushstrokes and precise line art, the creator depicts the alternate historical Japan setting and its inhabitants, both mortal and divine. While lengthy exposition can at times overwhelm, it also serves to convey the richly imagined worldbuilding of this gritty tale about a gifted teen confronting bloodthirsty entities. A glossary and author’s note conclude. Ages 12–up. (Apr.)

Reviewed on 04/11/2025 | Details & Permalink

A romance unfolds in steamy snapshots in this lush and dreamy full-color manga, the English-language debut of Kotteri!. In a nameless European city, a tall, redheaded police officer meets an aristocratic blind woman—or maybe she just always keeps her eyes closed—and offers her a job at the station. Soon they are inseparable. The story is less a narrative than a series of tantalizingly brief scenes, some only two or three pages long, allowing the reader glimpses of the attractive duo at cafés, parties, and an art museum, or sprawled together on a couch. These moments are cryptic, elegant, and erotically charged, with a cool, sexy style reminiscent of French New Wave films. The art pauses fetishistically on sensual details like pastries, coffee, cigarettes, and above all fashion, including militaristic boots and kepi caps. Short text sections offer hints at the characters’ inner thoughts (“The voice was at my feet, but then in the next instant, I heard it from the sky”), but for the most part Kotteri! admires them from a distance. This manga is all vibes, but the vibes are impeccable. Fans of classic European cinema and Parisian chic will want to check it out. (Apr.)

Reviewed on 04/18/2025 | Details & Permalink