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PREMIUM
The Man in the McIntosh Suit
Ayuyang (Blame This on the Boogie) presents a gripping and romantic Depression-era noir about a fledgling community struggling to achieve the American dream without sacrificing who they are.
Campbell merges memoir and hardboiled mystery to create a fascinating and revealing portrait of how world events impact an individual’s sense of self and creative drive.
PREMIUM
Queen in Comics
Queen fans, megafans, and curious newbies will clap and sing along to this colorful, kaleidoscopic graphic novel.
PREMIUM
Darkly She Goes
In this fantasy tale, Mallié (Arsène Lupine, Gentleman Thief) and Hubert (Beauty) create an ethereal, shadow-strewn world where cruel pasts corrupt the present.
PREMIUM
Daughters of Snow and Cinders
Award-winning Spanish cartoonist and illustrator Tamarit (Dos Monedas) makes her English-language debut with this fantasy adventure, in which she creates a haunting landscape of rich textures that weave a dark fable set in the time of the American gold rush.
PREMIUM
Murky World
Corben’s (Shadows on the Grave) surreal imagination and highly detailed, stunningly textured illustration have earned him a place among the most highly acclaimed and influential creators of graphic novels and commercial art of the past five decades. This volume collects material originally serialized across various monthly publications in the years before his death in 2020.
PREMIUM
Arca
Author Jensen (Bylines in Blood) balances an exploration of truth and systemic power with propulsive action and suspense, while illustrator Lonergan’s (Planet Paradise) page design and visual storytelling result in an uncanny sense of scale, movement, and pacing.
Another masterwork from a collaborative team that seems increasingly incapable of producing anything less.
PREMIUM
Stringer
A fast-paced crime thriller sure to garner an enthusiastic response from fans of the genre.
An eclectic collection of deeply felt and frequently uplifting stories from across the spectrum of human experience.
Kindt (Mind MGMT: Bootleg) and illustrator Pendanx (A Fake Story) present an engrossing existential noir with a finale as shocking as it is genuinely affecting.
Although this nationally syndicated comic strip was written 30 years ago, the stories and societal critiques are still applicable today. Readers will likely embrace being part of this sisterhood of outspoken friends.
PREMIUM
Vern, Custodian of the Universe
Waiters’s impressive debut is a fast-paced science-fiction odyssey that explores morality, ethics, and personal responsibility with humor and loads of charm.
This is likely, as White hopes in his new preface, to draw new generations to his work, especially those for whom the graphic novel is their preferred reading mode.
A must-read modern folktale set in an alternate world where wishes come true, but not always as expected.
PREMIUM
Kettle Harbour
A powerful, painful debut that will entrance and entangle literary graphic novel lovers. It conjures a complicated history sure to haunt readers as dearly as it haunts its inhabitants.
Malkasian’s “once upon a time” parable infuses a Handmaid’s Tale–type set-up with surrealistic charm and bittersweet resolution, reminiscent of Studio Ghibli’s work. Highly recommended for fantasy connoisseurs.
For readers who love comics and want to see the behind-the-scenes struggles that happen when creators take on the corporations that have monopolized the industry.
PREMIUM
Goes Like This
These emotionally resonant, innovatively illustrated stories assure Crane’s standing as one of the finest storytellers of his generation.
Sharp weaves together Celtic mythology, Christian theology, Arthurian legend, linguistics, theoretical physics, and astronomy in an immensely ambitious and tremendously trippy epic adventure. (This edition collects the first six issues of an ongoing series.) Think The Terminator meets Excalibur with more arcane philosophy, or The Green Knight meets 12 Monkeys with terrifying cyborgs.
Tynion and Estherren have crafted an intriguingly mysterious thriller that evokes the distinct gothic sensibility of Gaiman’s original “Sandman” series.
PREMIUM
Survival Street
Absurd humor and hyper-violence collide in this blisteringly satirical mash-up of Sesame Street and Robocop from Asmus (Rick and Morty) and Festante (Field Tripping).
PREMIUM
Harvey Knight’s Odyssey
Maandag’s combination of surrealism and deadpan humor makes these stories unpredictable, unforgettably weird, and thoroughly entertaining.
PREMIUM
Sins of the Black Flamingo
Part crime thriller, part supernatural romance, with a remarkably charismatic queer protagonist. Tremendously fun from start to finish.
PREMIUM
Ashes
An adventure paced like a madcap movie plot, with underlying minor chords of identity and relationship echoing throughout, this is a satisfying introduction to Ortiz’s narrative and artistic talents for an English-language audience.
PREMIUM
Golden Rage, Vol. 1
This clever, sometimes tongue-in-cheek adventure will draw in fans of dystopian mysteries and tough heroines.
PREMIUM
The Phantom Scientist
A puzzle, a panopticon, and an invitation to seek answers even as obstructions abound, this is an engaging, dryly funny read for armchair philosophers, disillusioned academics, and the unceasingly curious.
PREMIUM
Esther’s Notebooks
Readers seeking to experience a strange, yet at its core, familiar slice of life in a country steeped in multiple cultures will enjoy the perspective provided in this collection.
Lyrical narration and powerfully evocative black-and-white illustration combine for an uncommonly propulsive, completely immersive biography.
A fast-paced, unpredictable, and utterly original story rendered in delicate linework and vibrant color.
A thoroughly entertaining, loving riff on familiar pulp characters that raises compelling questions about their viability in a rapidly changing world.
Creators Franz and Glanzman (A Sailor’s Story) provide enough explosive action to satisfy the genre conventions of the time in which the story was created, but with a distinct, stunningly powerful, anti-war perspective. This volume collects the entire series for the first time.
PREMIUM
The Exile
Kriek’s luscious brushwork, attention to detail, and refusal to impose modern notions of morality or justice on his characters result in an immersive, provocative saga.
PREMIUM
Super Spy
A tightly plotted, high-stakes masterwork about the terrible cost of life in the shadows.
Ma skewers his cast’s overblown sense of entitlement and lack of self-awareness with terrific deadpan wit. While subplots concerning the misuse of royalty payments owed to artists whose music is popular in karaoke bars and the inner workings of public arts foundations prove a bit dry, Ma’s perspective on the value of originality, the power of celebrity, and the debt one generation of artists owes to those that follow are truly thought-provoking.
A stunningly ambitious, emotionally complex work from an artist with a distinct perspective on the pursuit of artistic fulfillment.
A passionate and refreshingly unsentimental fable that suggests every aspect of the human experience is vital and worthy of celebration.
A deeply unsettling, breathlessly thrilling, uncommonly engrossing horror story, rendered in exquisitely atmospheric illustration, and a provocative meditation on what it takes to stay alive, and to stay human, in a collapsing world. This volume collects the first six issues of a 12-issue story.
An essential purchase for all collections. Add it to the top of your book club suggestion list, and offer it to readers of literary fiction exploring similar themes of identity and belonging.
In a triumph of recovery and reinvention, Burdock has reworked her chaotic past to build a memory-rich present through research, reflection, and compelling artistry.
A treasury of impactful stories from a virtuosic artist with a distinctively empathetic point of view.
King (Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow) and Charretier’s (Department of Truth, Vol. 3) gripping mystery subverts the romance-comic genre but still delivers genuine romantic melodrama. An uncommonly compelling first volume.
PREMIUM
Organisms from an Ancient Cosmos
Working in black and white, Zahler (Forbidden Surgeries of the Hideous Dr. Divinus) creates a peculiar but engrossing blend of hard sci-fi and prison drama that transforms into a tense, high-stakes space opera tinged with a dose of cosmic horror in the last act.
Featuring page after page of non-stop action and pulpy melodrama imbued with Jackson’s perspective as a Black American in the 1940s, this is a work of immense historical value that’s also very fun to read.
Ito (The Liminal Zone) combines macabre horror and absurd humor in his most successfully disturbing long-form work in recent years.
An incredibly moving, uplifting coming-of-age story from a creator working at the top of his ability. Not to be missed.
Lang’s graphic novel debut is a fantastic riff on a simple Japanese folktale, clearly told and lovingly rendered with cinematic aplomb. Will delight brave young readers and fantasy-loving adult readers alike.
PREMIUM
Mission: Yozakura Family, Vol. 1
Serialized on Shonen Jump, Gondaira’s English-language print debut is a wacky and exciting shonen adventure that will appeal to young adults looking for found-family plotlines. Fans of Tatsuya Endo’s Spy x Family and manga with a wild variety of ragtag characters will feel right at home.
The art style is a little unconventional, but readers will likely be drawn in by the poignant, yet humorous tale.
PREMIUM
A Fade of Light
A capable slice-of-life memoir, this captures the denial, frustration, and despair of observing a loved one’s fading away.
PREMIUM
Look Again
Intense, articulate, and self-reflective, this makes one look hard at the shifting nature of memory. An involving graphic memoir for enthusiasts of the genre.
PREMIUM
Look Back
A beautiful, dream-like story about art-making, friendship, and growing up, best appreciated by manga fans with a basic sense of the visual and cultural cues of the genre.
Laced with humor and hard-hitting action, the story unfolds fast from the very first page. Teens and up will clamor for more of this epic fantasy.
A wrenching moral call to awareness and action that belongs in social sciences, history, and medicine collections and on curricula for high schoolers and up.
Rich with informational content and flashes of brilliance, Ervick’s graphic novel is thoughtful and personal, best suited for an audience interested in the topics of athletics and feminism that it delves so deeply into.
An intriguing first entry in a promised trilogy, sure to leave fans anticipating the second installment.
PREMIUM
Upside Dawn
Jason’s virtuosic storytelling and idiosyncratic perspective remain as compelling as ever in this essential new collection.
Bendis and Araújo have created a fascinating world of adventure, with intriguing mysteries and likable characters galore. A wildly entertaining first installment.
DeForge’s often hilarious, sometimes cutting satire is made more impactful by the sense he’s driven less by anger than compassion for those trapped in absurd, faltering systems. Not to be missed.
Ross’s style combines tight linework and painted illustration in a color palette heavy on fluorescent shades of purple and green, warm shades of orange, and eerie blue, resulting in a distinctive pop art masterpiece that must be seen to be believed.
Maillard’s debut arrives in English having already won the 2022 Best Crime Graphic Novel award at the prestigious Angouleme International Comics Festival. A skillfully crafted, uncommonly insightful, and genuinely disturbing horror story.
PREMIUM
The Liminal Zone
While this latest collection never quite manages to evoke the berserk emotional intensity of his best work, Ito’s knack for crafting psychologically complex tales that veer between creeping dread and surrealistic body horror remains unparalleled.
In this seminal feminist alt-manga, Yamada (who passed away in 2009) revealed her protagonist’s complex inner life through poetic prose and fluid, expressive linework reminiscent of fashion illustration but keyed to depict complex emotion. A brilliantly realized, keenly insightful, resonant character study.
PREMIUM
A Concise Dictionary of Comics
This reference is useful and recommended for most libraries so that they can support the growing interest in comic books within many user groups.
PREMIUM
Revenge of the Librarians
Gauld’s (Department of Mind-Blowing Theories) literary comic strips, originally published in The Guardian, are sharp and range in their humor.
PREMIUM
Bone Orchard: The Passageway
Sorrentino exhibits a mastery of illustrative technique, conveying creeping dread through oddly angular or looping layouts of overlapping panels, depicting unexpected details in the first half of this volume and later expressing cosmic terror with starkly realistic double-page depictions of inexplicable landscapes.
An unflinchingly honest coming-of-age memoir and unforgettable depiction of capitalism’s dehumanizing effect on the individual.
PREMIUM
Animal Castle, Vol. 1
Dorison’s briskly paced script skillfully balances a large cast of memorable characters, all brought to life by Delep’s vibrantly painted illustrations. This edition collects the first five issues of the ongoing series.
PREMIUM
The Con Artists
Healy’s (Americana [and the Act of Getting Over It]) broad cartooning reveals his characters’ inner lives through gesture. His keen insight into the tension between what people want and what they actually need from one another, plus his clever dialogue, results in scenes of genuine humor and real pathos. A playfully structured, frequently hilarious character study.
Graham (Cosmic Be-Ing; This Never Happened) has created an occasionally scathing yet perceptive portrait of an especially fraught period in American history.
A masterfully crafted, fearlessly vulnerable memoir stressing the importance of coming to terms with trauma in order to better know oneself.
PREMIUM
Flip It Like This!
Some conservative churchgoers might protest that they are being misrepresented by Hayward’s comics. However, pastors, readers sympathetic to a broader Christianity, and many people who have been hurt or excluded by conservative Christianity will recognize the ring of truth and find a hilarious, brutally honest ally in Hayward and his work.
This volume, which collects issues 1 through 4 of the “Parasomnia” series, is highly recommended for fans of Bunn, Mutti, stories of parents seeking their missing children, or parallel worlds.
PREMIUM
The Amazing Screw-On Head
Nothing that will disappoint Mignola fans, but nothing to overly excite them either. Not recommended, except for serious Mignola completists.
PREMIUM
Crema
While Christmas’s (Tartarus) narrative and character development could have used more page-space to breathe, this paranormal lesbian romance (a digital graphic novel that’s collected here in print for the first time) is nevertheless a promising choice for libraries with a strong graphic novel readership.
Midori (Kuchikake Ryu no Keiyakusha) has created a sports-themed manga that will really entice fans of similar titles like Haikyu!!, where naturally talented protagonists learn a sport from the bottom up. This manga will especially appeal to readers looking for a sports manga with realist emotions (with downs as well as ups), whose protagonist recovers from a major trauma and navigates life with disability.
Fantasy, science fiction, and western elements seamlessly come together in a compelling and rich world filled with vivid characters. It recalls the blending of western and science fiction tropes in the Firefly/Serenity universe, creating a fresh experience for readers.
PREMIUM
Fear Case
Kindt (Mind MGMT) amps up the cursed object concept, taking a police procedural approach to horror and centering the relationship between Winters and Mitchum. Tyler and Hilary Jenkins’s art is unsettling, presenting both eerie, dreamlike imagery and macabre depictions of death. Overall, this is a satisfying one-shot evoking a nihilistic worldview.
PREMIUM
Delver
This enjoyable adventure pulls readers in with quirky fantasy details underlain by universal issues: gentrification, coming of age, fear of change, and family legacies. Teens through adults will enjoy Temerity’s exploits.
PREMIUM
Snow Angels, Vol. 1
Lemire (Sweet Tooth) and Jock (The Losers) create a harsh, frozen world that generates more questions than answers. This first volume sets the stage for deeper mysteries that might be resolved in later issues. The story will appeal to mature tweens and older readers as they follow the young female protagonists surviving in a violent, alien landscape.
PREMIUM
The Worst Dudes
Not recommended for public libraries, unless they have a large audience for niche science fiction graphic novels.
PREMIUM
The Ghost in You
A cleverly plotted, thoroughly entertaining thriller with a keen focus on characterization and exceptionally realized illustration.
Woodring’s animation-influenced cartooning creates a powerful sense of fluid motion across panels bursting with fantastic imagery. This hallucinatory adventure resonates with the intensity of raw self-disclosure.
Crane’s magnum opus is a stylistically adventurous evocation of how fear and grief create barriers to genuine intimacy. Not to be missed.
Drnaso’s mastery of pacing and tone, plus his knack for developing characters through specific detail and natural dialogue, results in an incisive exploration of alienation that is increasingly unsettling as it builds to a shocking conclusion.
Cunningham’s simplistic, unobtrusive cartooning and keen ability to communicate a clear narrative (even with the multitude of characters and historical events detailed here) create an insightful, often-chilling account of both Putin and Russian history since the fall of the Soviet Union.
Walden’s knack for character development and unique perspective result in a tale perfect for diehard fans of The Walking Dead, as well as newcomers.
PREMIUM
Alice in Borderland, Vol. 1
Aso proves a master of suspense and visual storytelling, especially over the course of a sequence depicting a game of tag through a sprawling apartment complex, complicated by the presence of a hulking, gun-toting serial killer wearing a terrifying horse mask. This first volume, which is the inspiration for a hit Netflix series, should have readers clamoring for future installments.
PREMIUM
Deadpool: Samurai, Vol. 1
A unique, thoroughly enjoyable blend of action-adventure and cutting satire.
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