A fantastical world is run through the wringer by a capricious deity in this gorgeous and bloody graphic adventure. Lonergan (Arca) spends little time setting the scene, depicting a dark, horned, whip-carrying God-like figure who drops a crystal onto a desert planet, which then erupts in chaotic life. Seeing monstrous creatures (like a gigantic crab) and primal humans tear each other apart, the deity introduces “control” in the form of a mighty, blue-skinned woman warrior. Later, she finds love with a red-skinned muscular faun-like creature who shares her reluctant talent for violence. But the romantic idyll of “Blue” and “Red” is short-lived, as a power-hungry man displaced by her sudden intervention seeks revenge. There are echoes of both biblical narratives and premodern oral storytelling in Lonergan’s violence-spattered story, which moves ahead in fits and starts, with irregular and arbitrary interference from the forlorn and randomly punitive deity. The art is spectacular throughout; Lonergan mixes precise grid patterns and densely choreographed action scenes with ineffably lovely images, such as a massive bull-like creature colored like the star-studded night sky. This will captivate readers of ancient mythology and Jack Kirby alike. (Aug.)

Reviewed on 06/20/2025 | Details & Permalink

In his impressive first solo graphic novel, animator Wickey (Supper with the Stars) does for Salem, Mass., what From Hell did for London, building layers of history around a crucial act of evil. At the core of the story sits Giles Corey, a victim of the 17th-century Salem witch trials. A cantankerous old farmer, Corey testifies against his own wife, only to be arrested himself, then die refusing to give in to torture. From there, the narrative spirals outward and upward, revealing the cultural context of the witch hunts as well as the future they impact, from modern-day Salem, with its kitschy witch-themed shops and statue of Samantha from Bewitched, to conversations between Massachusetts natives Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and Nathaniel Hawthorne. To Hawthorne, the descendant of a judge in the witch trials, Salem is “a haunted town... forever stained with innocent blood and wicked deeds.” Wickey’s art style shifts between period settings; Hawthorne and Longfellow are rendered realistically, while Corey and his contemporaries are caricatured figures reminiscent of Ronald Searle or Ralph Steadman. His linework has the look of woodcuts or scrimshaw, and he ably evokes chilly coastal vistas and the architecture of stern clapboard houses. Shot through with tragedy and dark humor, this ambitious volume makes readers feel the weight of history. (Sept.)

Reviewed on 06/20/2025 | Details & Permalink

Carr, artist-in-residence at the George A. Romero foundation, teams up with scriptwriter Whitehead for a disappointing comics adaptation of the director’s obscure 1973 film that eschews screams and supernatural horrors for a social moral. The plot follows an elderly man who drifts into an amusement park where he’s berated by employees and visitors for his failing hearing and eyesight, patronized for asking questions, and shoved along to attraction after attraction that preys on his fear of growing older and infirm. At one point, his eyewitness description of a bumper car accident gets disregarded because he wasn’t wearing his glasses. In another scene, he’s ignored and served maggot-ridden food at a restaurant where a young, rich man eating lobster objects to “that smelly old man.” Carr’s realistic artwork highlights dread and uncertainty with shadows and sickeningly macabre faces; unfortunately, the slow pace saps momentum. The supernatural twist involves a time loop and a reveal about past selves and regret, but the art gives it away too early. Though fears of becoming elderly and infirm are legitimately terrifying, this lands as both overly didactic and too tame for horror fans. It’s a miss. (June)

Reviewed on 06/20/2025 | Details & Permalink

Swiss artist Aeschbacher debuts with a comedic and oddly sweet neo-noir laced with nonchalant violence and theatrical dialogue. Eric, the mulleted, mustachioed leader of a trio of goofy gun-toting goons, tries to recover an improbably valuable stolen vase. The group barges into the apartment of the petty thieves, a low-rent Bonnie and Clyde, only to discover that the vase was pawned off on a neighbor. Eric’s command to “blow these fuckheads away” sets off a violent chain of encounters throughout the apartment building, starting with the pervert running a hidden camera from the apartment below. A stoner duo, a contract killer with a lonely cat, a prostitute entertaining her client’s bizarre pharmacological fetish, and an elderly couple with a death wish soon find that their fates are inextricably linked. The delightfully improbable scenario unfurls in parallel narratives that evoke 1990s indie films like Jim Jarmusch’s Mystery Train. The distinctive cartooning recalls a gritty Tintin, and it elevates the excessive gunplay to the poetic absurd, endearing characters to readers just moments before they meet their untimely ends. This tale of low-level criminality gone horribly wrong will appeal to fans of David Lapham’s Stray Bullets and Jason’s I Killed Adolf Hitler. (June)

Reviewed on 06/20/2025 | Details & Permalink

This bold collection of political cartoons from activist Kerbaj (Beirut Won’t Cry) first appeared as a series of Instagram posts observing that Israel’s attack on Palestine is the first genocide to be livestreamed. Though not a narrative, it captures a sense of unfolding in real time. Sometimes Kerbaj simply redraws a news headline: “Red Crescent Loses Contact With the Team Trying to Rescue Besieged Child Hind Hamadeh.” A few pages later: “Update: Hind is Dead.” Other posts combine agit-prop influences in ironic and striking black-and-white cartoons. “Palestine: The Mother of All Struggles” is the caption above a Russian nesting doll, the mother broken open to reveal a baby with their fist in the air. Kerbaj—who grew up in Lebanon during that country’s 15-year civil war, laments his own feelings of overwhelm. One text-heavy page is dedicated to “My Life On Post-Its, Or: What I Didn’t Find the Time to Draw Yet,” such as “a doctor operating under the light of a smartphone” and “A father leaves his son with doctors at hospital. He comes back an hour later: no hospital - no doctor - no son .” Kerbaj’s takes are quick and shocking, but his message rings clear: The enormity of the crisis is not a reason to give way, but to lean into resistance. (June)

Reviewed on 06/20/2025 | Details & Permalink

In this lavishly illustrated autobiography and career retrospective, Eisner winner Lemire (Sweet Tooth) recounts how he found a niche in the comics industry. Born in rural Canada, Lemire set out to become a filmmaker but was drawn to the indie comics scene of the late 1990s. He self-published comics, including a series funded by a grant from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cocreator Peter Laird, and broke into traditional publishing when Top Shelf picked up his semi-autobiographical Essex County. Success followed, including runs on DC and Marvel comics, collaborations with musicians Gordon Downie and Eddie Vedder, and TV adaptation deals. Lemire describes his rise to alt-comics renown in conversational prose, skimping somewhat on the details of his personal life, though he’s frank about his periodic struggles with depression and anxiety. The illustrations comprise a treasure trove of comic art, including sketches, original artwork, previously unpublished pages, and the complete first issue of Lemire’s early comic Ashtray. Throughout, Lemire comes off as grateful and faintly surprised by the scope of his career. “I can only draw like Jeff Lemire,” he says, “and I am more than okay with that.” It’s a delightful testament to the rewards of not compromising one’s vision. Agent: Charlie Olsen, InkWell Management. (July)

Reviewed on 06/20/2025 | Details & Permalink

The pervasive effects of French colonialism and family betrayal hover over a funeral gathering in Paris, in this lacerating standalone companion to Alagbé’s Yellow Negroes and Other Imaginary Creatures. Claire—blonde, slight, willful—faces her estranged father as her family comes together to bury her grandparents (one of Alagbé’s earlier stories suggests there was a double suicide). Glimpses of Claire’s brooding ruminations reveal the bitter history behind the hostile reunion. Though Claire’s interracial marriage to Alain (an immigrant artist “sans-papiers”) emerges as a focal point of friction, corrosion set in long before. The family fortune, such as it is, traces back to a brothel Claire’s grandparents operated in an immigrant quarter—the setting for a series of searing childhood memories. In Alain, Claire finds an escape from inheritances both pecuniary and psychic, and Alagbé depicts their lovemaking in sensuous, frank detail—yet the legacy of colonialist exploitation skulks ever nearer. Revelations remain tauntingly ambiguous, uncertainties are left suspended in midair. Alagbé shrouds his murky ink wash art in purposeful obscurity, with spectral human forms blurring into near-abstract compositions, like Gerhard Richter photo-paintings by way of Hugo Pratt. In haunted ellipses, Alagbé conjures an almost tactile sense of disquiet that isn’t easily shaken. It’s a stunning graphic novel counterpart to the obsessive fever dreams of Marguerite Duras and Claire Denis. (July)

Reviewed on 06/13/2025 | Details & Permalink

The Jacksons (Two Week Wait), married educators and comics writers, deliver a historical true crime story that skillfully connects a little-known 1940s serial murder case to still-relevant questions about society’s exploitation of violence against women. In WWII-era Australia, Beatrice, a telephone operator, volunteers as an air raid warden to protect her community, especially her sisters Lizzie and June. Her dedication to the war effort is tested when rowdy American soldiers pour into town, scandalizing older Australians with their drinking, dancing, and passes at local women. A string of strangulations, with women’s bodies stripped and left exposed, adds horror to the moral panic. As Beatrice points out, the hunt for the murderer provides an excuse to curb young women’s freedoms: “They blamed alcohol. They blamed men. But they blamed women most of all.” When the so-called Brownout Strangler, named after the electricity outages that characterized the wartime experience, targets one of their friends, who survives, Beatrice and her sisters take action to locate the killer. Graham’s loose, retro-style black-and-white art is sometimes short on detail, but it captures the claustrophobic mood as terror sets in, including grotesque moments like the police displaying a mannequin dressed in a victim’s clothes “to help jog people’s memories.” Crime and history buffs alike will be drawn into this layered real-life mystery. (June)

Reviewed on 06/13/2025 | Details & Permalink

Anderson (Safer Places) takes readers through layers of unreality in this cryptic and haunting science fiction fable. Birdie Doran works for the megacorporation Terracorp, maintaining a lonely outpost on an icebound planet with two other employees, Heck and Porter, plus a desperately upbeat shape-shifting AI companion called Station. Birdie spends much of her time in artificially induced dream sleep, or in VR environments like the gently creepy “ruined castle” fantasy, created by Station, which keep her content but disoriented. Then she discovers another, abandoned outpost on the planet, raising questions about what her team’s mission is and how long they’ve really been there. “It’s almost like... the other station is real, and this is the dead one,” she reflects as VR holograms frolic around her like ghosts. Anderson’s organic, textured watercolors contrast elegantly with the hard SF setting, creating a warm sense of life on the chilly planet. The story raises more questions than it answers, using speculative fiction to create a sense of the uncanny in the style of writers like Tillie Walden or Kelly Link. Readers who dig enigmas will relish the mysteries left unresolved in this high-tech ghost story. (July)

Reviewed on 06/13/2025 | Details & Permalink

This sweet and raunchy slice of life spikes its 1980s California skate-punk nostalgia with brutal face-plants, hard-won lessons, and bursts of violence. Drawing on their own youths, writers Remender (the Sacrificers series) and Posehn (Rifters) craft pitch-perfect dialogue for their likable ruffians on wheels, and a detail-rich suburban Sacramento milieu that both rings true and benefits from comic-book exaggeration. For junior high friends Brian, a boisterously rude metalhead, and Rick, a clean-cut noob who can’t even land the most basic trick, every blowup, put-down, drug trip, humiliation, and botched crush is epic. They grind through their troubles and traumas at skate parks and parking garages, running pranks that go too far and set the stage for a violent showdown with local football stars. Art by Parson (the Tank Girl series) rolls out sugar-rush set pieces, with character designs that blend Mad-worthy caricature with emotionality and stellar period detail. A spirit of authenticity abounds, as in the scene where a mohawked true-believer pontificates that skating and punk rock couldn’t possibly become commodified. It’s a bruiser of a story about finding a crew, wiping out, and still daring to tell a bully, “Take the hint! She’s not that into you, man!” This throwback gem offers rewards for readers well beyond the Thrasher set. (July)

Reviewed on 06/13/2025 | Details & Permalink