85 anticipated YA and adult graphic novels for summer 2025

Our lineup of YA and adult graphic novels for summer 2025 is packed with exciting stories across genres, from romance and sci-fi escapism to horror, academics and the avant-garde.

Ray Terciero and Claudia Aguirre’s Anne of Green Gables reimagining in a Southern Baptist community offers a unique perspective on a classic tale. Stephanie Williams and Sas Milledge’s adaptation of The Raven Boys brings Maggie Stiefvater’s character-driven YA fantasy series to life in a new format.

Marissa Meyer and Joelle Murray’s summer romance follows an amusement park worker searching for her own happily-ever-after moment, while Rick Remender and Brian Posehn dive into 80s skateboard culture in a gritty coming-of-age series about two boys from broken homes. Jesse Lonergan offers a contemporary take on creation-era myths, and Martin Panchaud delivers an infographics-inspired story that pushes the boundaries of the graphic novel format. Ignatz Award nominee Kit Anderson returns with a psychological thriller exploring the blurred lines of reality.

In non-fiction, George Takei reunites with Steven Scott, Justin Eisinger and Harmony Becker to share his experiences of coming out in an emotional follow-up to THEY CALLED US ENEMY. Jeff Lemire offers insight into his creative process, while Harold Schechter, Eric Powell, Reinhard Kleist, and Stephen Weiner provide compelling perspectives on unique personalities. Debut storyteller Eagle Valiant Brosi paints a powerful portrait on life as an outsider, and Sofia Alarcon discusses climate change and eco-anxiety in her first collection. Glen Fleischman explores how comics are made, while Eike Exner deep dives into the origin and structure of manga.

Without further ado, let’s dive into the list of YA and adult graphic novels for summer 2025!

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Yucatan 1512

Created By: Alex Vede
Publisher: Dark Horse Books
Release Date: May 28 (Comics Shops) / May 27 (Bookstores)
List Price: $19.99 Paperback

An expedition of Spanish soldiers make landfall in the Yucatan Peninsula in 1512, seeking a legendary city of Mayan Gold. Sorolla, a grizzled, old soldier full of remorse, seeks oblivion on foreign soil. When his commander slays one of the native inhabitant’s only family, Sorolla rebels against his troop to save the child. The quest for the city of gold turns into a manhunt. The pair flee through the jungle seeking sanctuary from the onslaught of the Spanish soldiers at their heels. But deep in that jungle, in the heart of the ancient city, rests monstrous warriors waiting for a vengeful summons. 

The Harrowing Game

Created By: Antoine Revoy
Publisher: 23rd St.
Release Date: May 28 (Comics Shops) / May 27 (Bookstores)
List Price: $29.99 Hardcover / $19.99 Paperback

The rules of the game are simple: Three ghosts gather to tell their stories in turn. Scariest story wins. Only the winner may move on. For thousands of years, the souls of the dead have gathered to play the game. Tonight, the storytellers locked in this existential battle are a recently deceased girl with no memories, an old woman trapped in a mirror, and a smirking boy in a bathtub. Their terrifying tales span time and space, from the temples of ancient Egypt to the taxidermy labs of modern New England. Yet the same primordial evil lurks in the margins of each story. This presence tempts the innocent as well as the corrupted, and its hunger is boundless.

Drawn in exquisitely disturbing detail and full of twists you’d find in the finest horror manga, The Harrowing Game will leave you gasping.

Dan in Green Gables

Writer: Rey Terciero
Artist: Claudia Aguirre
Publisher: Penguin Workshop
Release Date: Jun. 4 (Comics Shops) / Jun. 3 (Bookstores)
List Price: $24.99 Hardcover / $17.99 Paperback

Despite a life on the road with his free-spirited mother, fifteen-year-old Dan Stewart-Álvarez has always wanted to settle down. He just didn’t think it’d be like this: with his mother abandoning him in rural Tennessee with two strangers—his gentle grandmother and conservative, rough-around-the-edges grandfather. Here, he is forced to adjust to working the farm, entering high school, and hardest yet—reckoning with his queerness in a severe Southern Baptist community. But even as Dan grows closer to his mawmaw, befriends fellow outsiders at school, and tries to make a new life for himself in Green Gables, he has to discover whether he can contend with intolerance and adapt to change without losing himself in the process.

From award-winning author Rey Terciero and Eisner Award nominee and illustrator Claudia Aguirre comes a new retelling of Anne of Green Gables about unconventional families, queer identity, and finding the meaning of home in the most unlikely of places.

Go Figure: Figurative Social Surrealist Paintings

Created By: Guy Colwell
Publisher: Fantagraphics
Release Date: Jun. 4 (Comics Shops) / Jun. 3 (Bookstores)
List Price: $29.99 Hardcover

Go Figure collects 44 “social surrealist” figurative paintings, spanning 1987–2023. All are in eye-popping color: many depict a crowd in observational tableaux, each figure a character by virtue of dress, body language, and interactions with each other, animals, and their setting. Other paintings reflect Colwell’s wide travels, and still others are surreal — such as Junior and the Legs (2023), which shows a young man strumming a guitar on stage, accompanied by disembodied women’s limbs. Each image has a narrative and a moral purpose — often, one figure bravely moves forward, despite a hostile crowd. In Guy Colwell’s world, no individual could ever be an island, just another part of a rich ecosystem. Thematically, then, it is fitting that this book was made possible by a group of his collectors, who are sponsoring the show/Guy Colwell retrospective Imaginary Reality, from which this book is created, in an independent space. Go Figure is in an 11″ × 11″ format, to best feature the high-quality reproductions of these numerous critically praised works.

Cornelius: The Merry Life of a Wretched Dog

Created By: Marc Torices
Writer: Andrea Rosenberg (Translator)
Publisher: Drawn & Quarterly
Release Date: Jun. 4 (Comics Shops) / Jun. 3 (Bookstores)
List Price: $39.95 Hardcover

Cornelius is a fumbling loser, the butt of everyone’s jokes. When his friend Alspacka is kidnapped, the subsequent criminal investigation turns into a dramatic and emotional ordeal, upending Cornelius’s life. Torn between his desire to be a writer and his immense guilt over his cowardly role in Alspacka’s abduction, Cornelius is a classic Faustian figure: an aspiring artist so hungry for success that he will pay any price.

Rarely does a book so delightfully defy categorization. Cornelius is an experience: a farcical collage that reads like a drug-fueled fever dream, an intense emotional pendulum oscillating between psychological horror and slapstick comedy—a real roller coaster. And truthfully, Cornelius is all this and more: a brand, a phenomenon, a way of life. From the singular mind of Marc Torices comes a surreal, carefully curated universe, complete with its own icons, mythology, and metanarratives. Exquisitely drawn, Cornelius’s kaleidoscope of styles pays homage to the comics medium, an unabashed love letter to the form itself. Translated from the Spanish by Eisner Award-winner Andrea Rosenberg, Marc Torices’s critically acclaimed and award-winning Cornelius is mesmerizing in its originality

We Could Be Magic

Writer: Marissa Meyer
Artist: Joelle Murray
Publisher: Feiwei & Friends
Release Date: Jun. 4 (Comics Shops) / Jun. 3 (Bookstores)
List Price: $25.99 Hardcover / $17.99 Paperback

When Tabitha Laurie was growing up, a visit to Sommerland saved her belief in true love, even as her parents’ marriage was falling apart. Now she’s landed her dream job at the theme park’s prestigious summer program, where she can make magical memories for other kids, guests, and superfans just like her. All she has to do is audition for one of the coveted princess roles, and soon her dreams will come true.

There’s just one problem. The heroes and heroines at Sommerland are all, well… thin. And no matter how much Tabi lives for the magic, she simply doesn’t fit the park’s idea of a princess. Given a not-so-regal position at a nacho food stand instead, Tabi is going to need the support of new friends, a new crush, and a whole lot of magic if she’s going to devise her own happily ever after. . . without getting herself fired in the process.

With art by Joelle Murray, the wonder of Sommerland comes to life with charming characters and whimsical backdrops. We Could Be Magic is a perfect read for anyone looking to get swept away by a sparkly summer romance.

Bless the Messy: Life Lessons from a Work in Progress

Created By: Jess Bird
Publisher: S&S/Simon Element
Release Date: Jun. 3 (Bookstores)
List Price: $24.99 Hardcover

Supreme moments of beauty and joy can be found in the mess. Jess Bird is living proof of that. As a queer woman who received a late-in-life ADHD diagnosis, Jess is raising her kids in a blended family, rewriting the rules as she goes along. Far from being an expert or perfect, she embraces her imperfections and invites you to do the same. By sharing her messy, in-process journey, Jess hopes to connect with those who feel isolated or oppressed by society’s narrow norms, making them feel seen and validated.

In this illustrated personal growth book, Jess combines self-reflection, encouragement, and practical guidance. She delves into her struggles and triumphs, offering insights on growing through trauma and healing, breaking free from societal expectations, setting boundaries, redefining home and chosen family, finding self-worth, and embracing anti-perfectionism. The mantra “Bless the Messy” runs through it all, reminding us that every emotion, even the uncomfortable ones, is valid and valuable. Bright, hopeful, real, and raw, Bless the Messy is a warm hug of a book that will make you feel a little less alone.

Trouble! at Coal Creek

Created By: Austin Sauerbrei
Publisher: Haymarket Books
Release Date: Jun. 3 (Bookstores)
List Price: $45.00 Hardcover / $22.95 Paperback

Told through the eyes of a young Welsh immigrant, Trouble! at Coal Creek is the epic story of a cross-racial struggle to abolish the system of convict-leasing in the mines. Austin Sauerbrei’s evocative black-and-white illustrations and masterful storytelling show the personal battles and motivations that led thousands of miners to repeatedly take up arms against the powerful companies, their militias, and politicians.

Lured by coal companies’ promises of good pay, stability, and opportunity, the narrator’s father brought their family across the Atlantic Ocean for work in the mine. The job, however, was deadly, and life grew unbearable as the coal companies immiserated miners and their families. Meanwhile, slavery, the Civil War, Reconstruction, racist terror, and the birth of the Ku Klux Klan were still fresh memories for most. Coal companies relied increasingly on the forced labor of mostly Black prisoners who were loaned out from the state, an extremely profitable continuation of the old system of racist brutality. As Ida B. Wells noted at the time, “The Convict Lease System and Lynch Law are twin infamies which flourish hand in hand.”

The miners of Coal Creek, however, set fire to the edifice of convict-leasing and inspired similar rebellions throughout the South. In this captivating graphic novel, Saurbrei brings their overlooked story to life for new generations of organizers.

In the End We All Die

Created By: Tobias Aeschbacher
Writer: Andrew Shields (Translator)
Publisher: Helvetiq
Release Date: Jun. 4 (Comics Shops) / Jun. 3 (Bookstores)
List Price: $24.95 Hardcover

When three sleazy gangsters storm into an apartment in search of a stolen urn, they set off a series of unfortunate events that threatens everyone in the building. As blood begins to pool, it becomes clear that this story is about more than the senseless violence. What is good and what is evil? Who decides who should die? And does anyone really know their neighbors?

Theft and poison and so much shooting: and yet, on muted and somber pages, heartless villains become vulnerable heroes—before descending to cruelty once again. In this graphic novel that swept awards for best debut in Germany and Switzerland, a classic gangster comedy of errors grows into a meditation on loneliness, morality, and even love.

Hardcore Happiness: A Graphic Journey to Find Punk’s Positivity

Created By: Reid Chancellor
Publisher: Microcosm Publishing
Release Date: Jun. 4 (Comics Shops) / Jun. 3 (Bookstores)
List Price: $16.99 Paperback

When you listen and scream along to your favorite punk or hardcore band, does that help your mental health or reinforce your frustrations? Artist Reid Chancellor leads us on a tour through hardcore musicians that have struggled with mental health–and written about it in their songs. In this standalone graphic novel, Chancellor picks up the discussion he began in Hardcore Anxiety, in an engaging narrative that will be deeply relatable to anyone grappling with identity, fear, and loss in the mosh pit. If you’re considering supplementing your headbanging sessions with therapy and medication, or if you just want to read about the music scene you love from a unique angle, Hardcore Happiness can help you find your way. Punk opens the door to speaking out about mental health issues, but it doesn’t always encourage you to walk through the door and get help. Chancellor props that door open with humor and vulnerability, asking the question, “Why aren’t there more hardcore songs about seeing your therapist?” That’s a song we all might need to hear.

How Comics Are Made: A Visual History from the Drawing Board to the Printed Page

Writer: Glenn Fleishman
Publisher: Andrews McMeel Publishing
Release Date: Jun. 4 (Comics Shops) / Jun. 3 (Bookstores)
List Price: $40.00 Hardcover

How Comics Are Made covers the entire history of newspaper comics from a unique angle—how they were made and printed. This book combines years of research and dozens of interviews with cartoonists, historians, and production people to tell the story of how a comic starts with an artist’s hand and makes it way through transformations into print and onto a digital screen. You’ll see reproductions of art and artifacts that have never appeared in print anywhere, and some historic comics will appear for the first time ever in any medium in this book. And you’ll find out about metal etching, Dragon’s Blood (a real thing), flong (also a real thing), and the massively, almost impossibly complicated path that original artwork took to get onto newsprint in the days of metal relief printing.

Gaysians

Created By: Michael Curato
Publisher: Algonquin Books
Release Date: Jun. 4 (Comics Shops) / Jun. 3 (Bookstores)
List Price: $32.00 Hardcover

When AJ moves to Seattle in the early aughts, he’s ready to reinvent himself as a gay Asian man—but his dreams hit reality fast with no friends, no job, and an apartment so far out, “not even lesbians live there.” Then a spilled drink at a bar introduces him to K, a glamorous drag queen; John, a shy gamer; and Steven, a reckless flirt. AJ’s “Boy Luck Club” helps him find love, pride, and belonging—until a brutal attack tests everything they know about friendship and family.

Meticulously observed and gorgeously illustrated, Gaysians is a fierce, funny, and tender story of queer resilience and self-discovery.

Family Force V: Book One

Writer: Matt Braly
Artist: Ainsworth Lin
Publisher: Image Comics
Release Date: May 28 (Comics Shops) / Jun. 10 (Bookstores)
List Price: $16.99 Paperback

Fighting alien kaiju with your family on a Friday night is a totally normal part of being a teenager…right? Well, it is for Maise who, despite her protests, continues the family legacy of keeping the world safe, all while trying to get good grades, impress her crush, and balance extracurriculars. But growing up in this family means Maise must live up to the expectations of those she’s destined to protect while not losing herself in the process.

Dimwood

Created By: Richard Corben
Publisher: Dark Horse Books
Release Date: Jun. 11 (Comics Shops) / Jun. 10 (Bookstores)
List Price: $39.99 Hardcover

In the densely vegetated forest of Dimwood, a young woman returns to her family home after many years’ absence. Xera has gaping holes in her memories of her childhood and family, as obscured and dim as the surrounding forest. In Dimwood Mansion, with its decaying, labyrinthine levels she seeks the missing pieces of her past and makes connections with mysterious disappearances and gruesome murders in this original gothic tale, Corben’s final graphic novel.

It Rhymes With Takei

Writers: George Takei, Steven Scott & Justin Eisinger
Artist: Harmony Becker
Publisher: Top Shelf Productions
Release Date: Jun. 11 (Comics Shops) / Jun. 10 (Bookstores)
List Price: $29.99 Hardcover

George Takei has shown the world many faces: actor, author, outspoken activist, helmsman of the starship Enterprise, living witness to the internment of Japanese Americans, and king of social media. But until October 27, 2005, there was always one piece missing—one face he did not show the world. There was one very intimate fact about George that he never shared…and it rhymes with Takei.

Now, for the first time ever, George shares the full story of his life in the closet, his decision to come out as gay at the age of 68, and the way that moment transformed everything. Following the phenomenal success of his first graphic memoir, They Called Us Enemy, George Takei reunites with the team of Harmony Becker, Steven Scott, and Justin Eisinger for a jaw-dropping new testament. From his earliest childhood crushes and youthful experiments in the rigidly conformist 1950s, to global fame asv an actor and the terrible fear of exposure, to the watershed moment of speaking his truth and becoming one of the most high-profile gay men on the planet, It Rhymes with Takei offers a sweeping portrait of one iconic American navigating the tides of LGBTQ+ history.

Combining historical context with intimate subjectivity, It Rhymes with Takei shows how the personal and the political have always been intertwined. Its richly emotional words and images depict the terror of entrapment even in gay community spaces, the anguish of speaking up for so many issues while remaining silent on his most personal issue, the grief of losing friends to AIDS, the joy of finding true love with Brad Altman, and the determination to declare that love openly—and legally—before the whole world. 

Breadcrumbs: Coming of Age in Post-Soviet Poland

Created By: Kasia Babis
Publisher: 23rd St.
Release Date: Jun. 11 (Comics Shops) / Jun. 10 (Bookstores)
List Price: $29.99 Hardcover / $19.99 Paperback

In the late 1980s, Poland faces debilitating food shortages, worker discontent, and astronomical inflation. Seemingly overnight, the country transitions from communism to capitalism. During this period of flux, Kasia Babis is born. In the shadow of national change, Kasia experiences her own journey of growth, from rebellious teen to politically minded activist. She grapples with her country’s deep-rooted Catholicism and forges her own beliefs, leading to her becoming an active part of Poland’s left-wing Razem party. Each new experience is a reminder that broader societal upheavals reverberate on a deeply personal level.

With a deft balance of the intimate and geopolitical, Kasia Babis chronicles her fight to uphold her progressive values while her country heads in the opposite direction. Breadcrumbs is a coming-of-age story—not only of Kasia but of Poland as a modern state.

Love, Misha

Created By: Askel Aden
Publisher: First Second
Release Date: Jun. 11 (Comics Shops) / Jun. 10 (Bookstores)
List Price: $25.99 Hardcover / $17.99 Paperback

Can this road trip get any worse? Yes, Mom (Audrey) wanted to spend time with Misha. And yes, she’s never around and they don’t even live together, so this is a rare opportunity. But Audrey still thinks of Misha as her daughter, despite Misha being non-binary and trying to talk to her openly about it. Misha even tries to write how they feel in a letter, but that isn’t going well either. Then a wrong turn down a forest road leads the mother-child duo straight into the Realm of Spirits! Suddenly in peril and without a clue how to return to their world, Misha and Audrey will have to work together to find their way back home. But can they find a way back to each other?

Endsickness

Created By: Sofia Alarcon
Publisher: Conundrum Press
Release Date: Jun. 10 (Bookstores)
List Price: $25.00 Paperback

A first collection of graphic stories about climate change and eco-anxiety. Coined by Elizabeth Rush, “endsickness” is a term that describes our modern malaise and severe anxiety over the end of the world. For Alarcon, It’s also a shorthand way of describing our culture’s current obsession with all things dystopian and apocalyptic. Climate change is often referred to as a hyperobject: so large in scope and scale that it’s difficult to see or understand the entirety of it. In Endsickness, each story attempts to counter that challenge by taking a close look at the individual quandaries of living in a society that seems at odds with itself, unable to face the existential threat looming on the horizon.

Latina Superheroes (Volume 1): Jalisco & Santa

Created By: Kayden Phoenix
Publisher: Andrews McMeel Publishing
Release Date: Jun. 11 (Comics Shops) / Jun. 10 (Bookstores)
List Price: $14.99 Paperback

Meet Jalisco and Santa: Jalisco is looking for her beloved mother, who disappeared mysteriously. Santa is faced with taking down the corrupt politicians in her hometown. Latina Superheroes illuminates the struggles and triumphs of Latina women, weaving together themes of identity, resilience, and unity. Join these extraordinary heroines as they defy the odds, harnessing their inner strength to forge a brighter tomorrow in this new young adult graphic novel series. Jalisco, a spirited girl from the outskirts of Guadalajara, finds her life shattered when her mother mysteriously disappears. Brushed off by authorities, Jalisco’s quest for truth leads her to the Adelitas, a clandestine group fighting against the sinister forces behind the femicides plaguing their community. Determined to uncover the fate of her beloved mother, Jalisco embarks on a journey of self-discovery and empowerment, guided by the unwavering strength of sisterhood. Santa is from Wexo, a town on the Texan/Mexican border. The upcoming elections are threatening to put a corrupt politician in power: Ilena Chavez-Estevez AKA ICE. Santa joins the other candidate’s campaign and fights. Racial tensions begin to rise within the town. And when citizens of Wexo begin to disappear one by one, Santa must raid the detention camps and take down ICE. Join Jalisco and Santa on their riveting journeys of courage, resilience, and justice in these two stories from Latina Superheroes, the groundbreaking new young adult full-color graphic novel series.

Out of the Gutters: Obscenity, Censorship, and Transgression in American Comics

Editors: Jorge J. Santos Jr. & Patrick S. Lawrence
Publisher: University of Texas Press
Release Date: Jun. 10 (Bookstores)
List Price: $55.00 Hardcover

Comics have long been a subject of moral panics, no doubt thanks to their in-your-face illustrations and their association with young readers. Indeed, the politicians and parents behind today’s book-banning campaigns reserve special ire for graphic novels. What makes today’s controversies different is the content of the alleged obscenity. Instead of targeting sex as such, censors now focus on affirmations of nonheteronormative identity, as in Maia Kobabe’s Gender Queer. And while violence is a constant in comics, stories that acknowledge nationalist oppression and violence, such as Art Spiegelman’s Maus, are also being blacklisted.

Out of the Gutters assembles scholars from diverse disciplines to examine US comics, graphic novels, and cartooning that have been challenged as obscene or transgressive. Covering well-known underground figures like Robert Crumb and Charles Burns, newcomers such as C. Spike Trotman and Emil Ferris, and mainstream creators including Chris Claremont and Archie Goodwin, the collection explores the market economics of transgression, historical representations of graphic violence, the ever-changing meaning of pornography, sex-positive comics by BIPOC authors, and queerness in pop-culture mega-properties like X-Men and The Walking Dead. 

The Unsinkable Ship of Fools

Created By: Jonas Goonface
Publisher: Iron Circus Comics
Release Date: Jun. 4 (Comics Shops) / Jun. 17 (Bookstores)
List Price: $20.00 Paperback

Cum one, cum all! Jump aboard the Ship of Fools for your final ride.

An ensorcelled train hurtles through the night, with no stops and no hope for its passengers; everyone is welcome, and no one can leave. Freaks, kooks, misfits, no one is too strange! No bosses! No brakes! Only thrills, mutual support, and carnal bliss. These vagabonds only have each other now, and in a collection of magical erotic encounters, we get to meet them all—a ragtag group of castoffs who must find the answer: Who’s driving this thing, and who’s ultimately in charge of your fate? The destination of this raucous anarchic locomotive is anyone’s guess, but one thing is certain: The journey will be like nothing you’ve ever seen before!

Black Cohosh

Created By: Eagle Valiant Brosi
Publisher: Drawn & Quarterly
Release Date: Jun. 18 (Comics Shops) / Jun. 17 (Bookstores)
List Price: $24.95 Paperback

When we meet Eagle Valiant Brosi, he is a long-haired commune kid, bullied by other kids, teachers, and his neighbors. And because of his speech impediment, Eagle observes silently and often. Mom—a classic earthy, free spirit prone to discursive lectures on natural medicine and the efficacy of certain plants—is the only one who really cares. So Eagle lets others talk and talk and talk, revealing their true natures and selfish (sometimes even selfless) motivations.

In Black Cohosh, Eagle pieces together the puzzling and hurtful things he has been told as he takes his first, tragic steps into adulthood. While things may seem grim, Brosi’s drawings are loose and limber, stretching and falling across each page. His cast of hippie archetypes come with iconic thatches of hair, bushy beards, and scrawny, gesticulating arms. Black Cohosh is a captivating debut from a natural storyteller with the expert timing of a veteran comedian and the soothing empathy of a death doula.

Soul Machine

Created By: Jordana Globerman
Publisher: Annick Press
Release Date: Jun. 18 (Comics Shops) / Jun. 17 (Bookstores)
List Price: $24.99 Hardcover / $17.99 Paperback

Chloe and her older sister make souls by hand in an empty old house in the countryside. When their supply of breth—the raw material needed to make souls—runs dry, the evil McCorp tries to force them to franchise and make synthetic souls instead. Chloe sets out to the big city in hopes of finding a new source. And maybe a way to modernize their business that Lacey is so determined to keep in the past. On a journey to find a real breth crop, untouched by MCorp’s greedy hands, Chloe uncovers long-buried family secrets—and starts to question whom to trust and what reality even is.

A beautifully rendered debut, Soul Machine is at once a metaphysical science-fiction story and a nuanced exploration of big ideas: spirituality, family, consciousness, and connection, but also unscrupulous consumption, megacorporations, and how egomaniac entrepreneurs impact our lives.

Nostalgia

Writer: Scott Hoffman
Artist: Danijel Zezelj
Publisher: Mad Cave Studios
Release Date: Jun. 17 (Bookstores)
List Price: $17.99 Paperback

A reclusive rock star receives a mysterious package that forces him to face both his past and a resistance movement that represents all of the ideals he had once stood for.

In a world where fame can consume the soul, a once-revered musician has chosen isolation over the limelight. But when an unexpected package arrives at his doorstep, he’s thrown into a whirlwind of memories, regret, and a rebellion that seeks to rekindle the ideals he abandoned. NOSTALGIA is a raw and thrilling exploration of celebrity, redemption, and the power of music, crafted by Scott Hoffman AKA Babydaddy, the award-winning composer and musician behind the Scissor Sisters. With stunning visuals from renowned artist Danijel Zezelj, this gripping tale blurs the line between past and present, forcing its protagonist to face the very essence of what it means to create and believe.

Hagar the Horrible: The First 50 Years

Created By: Dik Browne
Publisher: Titan Comics
Release Date: Jun. 25 (Comics Shops) / Jun. 24 (Bookstores)
List Price: $49.99 Hardcover

It’s time to set sail with the worlds mildest marauding Viking, Hägar the Horrible and his hapless (and helpless) sidekick, Lucky Eddie and his long suffering family, his wife Helga and his duck Kveck. This collection is a celebration of the first 50 years of Hägar’s epic, never-ending quest to put meat, mead and loot on the family table, while doing as little as possible. The collection presents over 1000 daily cartoon strips, including 600 hand-picked by Dik Browne’s son Chris Browne. Featuring a foreword by Chris Browne, a feature by Brian Walker on the history of Hägar, and an article about the almost animated movie. Perfect for fans of Peanuts and newspaper gag strips, this collection is ideal of all ages and as.

Super Visible: The Story of the Women of Marvel Comics

Writers: Margaret Stohl, Jeanine Schaefer & Judith Stevens
Publisher: Gallery 13
Release Date: Jun. 25 (Comics Shops) / Jun. 24 (Bookstores)
List Price: $35.00 Hardcover

What does a hero’s journey look like when the hero in question happens to be a girl? #1 New York Times bestselling author and Marvel creator Margaret Stohl (The Life of Captain Marvel, Black Widow: Forever Red) along with Judith Stephens (producer and cocreator of the Women of Marvel podcast), and Jeanine Schaefer (critically acclaimed editor) interviewed more than a hundred women and nonbinary Marvel contributors in search of the answer to that question.

With one shared goal—to make the historically invisible work of women visible—and with unprecedented access to Marvel creators, writers, and more, Stohl, Stephens, and Schaefer set out to tell the story of the women of the “House of Ideas” from 1939 through today, and along the way, to find the meaning of their own Marvel stories. Packed with biographies and illustrations from creators, graphical reprints and excerpts of historic Marvel comics, and exclusive interviews from acclaimed directors like Anna Boden and Cate Shortland; lauded writers such as Kelly Sue DeConnick, Eve Ewing, Rainbow Rowell, Nic Stone, G. Willow Wilson, Tini Howard, and Maurene Goo; top artists like Jen Bartel; and influential producer Sana Amanat, Super Visible: The Story of the Women of Marvel is an essential read for fans of all ages.

Arcana: The Lost Heirs

Created By: Sam Prentice-Jones
Publisher: Feiwei & Friends
Release Date: Jun. 25 (Comics Shops) / Jun. 24 (Bookstores)
List Price: $27.99 Hardcover / $19.99 Paperback

James, Daphne, Koko, and Sonny have all grown up surrounded by magic in the Arcana, an organization of witches that protects the magical world, run by the mysterious and secretive Majors. Eli Jones, however, hadn’t even known other witches existed . . . until he stumbled into James. As James introduces him to the world of the Arcana, Eli finds the family he never had and a blossoming romance with James.

The five new friends soon realize that sinister things are afoot, and everything may not be what it seems at the Arcana. When the group delves deeper into the mystery surrounding the deaths of their parents and the Majors’ rise to power, they discover that they’re at the center of a curse―one they’ve just unwittingly set into motion. As the friends search for answers, they’ll have to confront the cursed legacy that links them in hopes of freeing their futures.

Tanga Vs. the Kaiju of Cammera

Created By: Kevin Maguire
Publisher: Rocketship Entertainment
Release Date: Jun. 24 (Bookstores)
List Price: $24.99 Hardcover / $19.99 Paperback

Wandering space goddess Tanga receives a warm welcome on a planet with a BIG problem. Will she help or somehow make matters worse?Superstar writer/artist KEVIN MAGUIRE takes you to the farthest (and craziest) reaches of out outer space with the adventures of TANGA, his creator-owned hero!

Huxley

Created By: Ben Mauro
Publisher: Thames & Hudson
Release Date: Jun. 24 (Bookstores)
List Price: $35 Paperback

In this boundary-breaking new graphic novel, a once-thriving world, buried in the ashes of a nuclear holocaust and ruined by generations of planetary wars, now lies in perpetual waste. To save humanity from itself, the remaining AI-bred and cloned elite humans are trained to become workers, soldiers, and enforcers—armored warriors known as Ronin—to help keep order and give humanity a purpose in this brave new world. After a certain age, the clones start to think for themselves and are sent on increasingly dangerous missions until they are killed or “retired,” replaced by younger and more compliant clones, until the cycle repeats itself.

While humanity limps on, the lives of two soldiers, Max and Kai, become intertwined on a routine mission upon discovering an ancient sentient robot known as Huxley, and soon find themselves caught up in a mystery of galactic scale, as the robot’s true purpose is revealed…This thrilling sci-fi debut by artist and world-builder Ben Mauro sets the stage for an immersive postapocalyptic adventure that will leave you captivated and hungry for more.

Model Five Murder: a sci-fi noir

Created By: Tan Juan Gee
Publisher: Silver Sprocket
Release Date: Jun. 25 (Bookstores)
List Price: $15.99 Paperback

A cyborg solves the murder of a dead detective who wears his same face in this sci-fi noir graphic novel. Tansang Loop is a space station with a population of two million, officially speaking. But really, it’s thrice more, including the cyborgs and androids. Io is a Rohm Model Five, a cyborg made with a biomechanical brain and synthetic muscle. While on a routine spacewalk, Io stumbles upon the body of a murdered detective—and improbably, both Io and the detective are Model Fives. Io tries to solve the detective’s last case in order to find out who killed him, but in doing so, may reveal that their lives are more interconnected than meets the eye.

Second Shift

Created By: Kit Anderson
Publisher: Avery Hill Publishing
Release Date: Jul. 9 (Comics Shops) / Jun. 26 (Bookstores)
List Price: $18.99 Paperback

From the time when the station wakes her up, Birdie Doran is on the clock. It’s just her and one or two others on Terracorp’s isolated outpost, processing comets. So she slips into virtual reality, with the station creating adventures for her as she does repairs, routine maintenance, and checks the status on all the systems. But when Birdie discovers another abandoned station just within walking distance of her own, she begins to question her isolation, and her own memories of what her job-and her life―really is. And at every turn, she starts finding the things the station has been hiding from her.

Ignatz Award-nominated author Kit Anderson presents a psychological science fiction exploration of the lines between reality inside and outside the mind.

Letter 44 Compendium

Writer: Charles Soule
Artist: Alberto Alburquerque
Publisher: Image Comics
Release Date: Jun. 18 (Comics Shops) / Jul. 1 (Bookstores)
List Price: $49.99 Paperback

The cult-favorite, political sci-fi series is collected, for the first time, in one complete volume.

When newly-elected president Stephen Blades is sworn into office, the last thing he expected to find on his desk was a letter written by the outgoing president, alerting him to a harrowing secret kept hidden from the world: seven years ago, NASA discovered alien presence in the asteroid belt and sent a stealth mission crewed by nine astronauts to make contact. President Blades has just become the most powerful man on the planet. But only this planet.

Mixing provocative political intrigue, with high-stakes sci-fi action, Letter 44 is a gripping and complex look at leadership in the face of uncertainty.

Dr. Werthless

Writers: Harold Schechter & Eric Powell
Artist: Eric Powell
Publisher: Albatross FunnyBooks
Release Date: Jul. 2 (Comics Shops) / Jul. 1 (Bookstores)
List Price: $29.99 Hardcover

Reviled by comic book fans as a witch-hunting zealot who stirred up a panic among the parents of America for his own self-promoting purposes, he was also a renowned psychiatrists who, among other accomplishments, opened a clinic in Harlem for disadvantaged African-American patients and played an important role in the desegregation of the nation’s schools.  Believing that murder could be abolished through a proper understanding of the mental and social roots of criminal violence, he took a genuinely humane approach to some of the most notorious homicidal maniacs of his time, while simultaneously exploiting their stories for his own commercial ends.

Acclaimed true crime author, Harold Schechter, and multiple Eisner award winning cartoonist, Eric Powell, present a graphic novel that takes an unbiased look at this flawed and enormously and complex man—whose obsessive dream of freeing the world from violence nearly murdered the comics industry.

Float Vol. 1

Writer: Kate Marchant
Artist: CJ Joaquin
Publisher: Graphix
Release Date: Jul. 2 (Comics Shops) / Jul. 1 (Bookstores)
List Price: $24.99 Hardcover / $16.99 Paperback

Amidst the chaos of her parents’ bitter divorce, Alaskan teenager Waverly Lyons trades in her textbooks and parka for a summer of suntans and short-shorts with her aunt in Florida. A fish out of water even back in the snow, Waverly is determined to be everything she isn’t back home: cool, fun, dare she even say part of a group? There’s just one problem. She doesn’t know how to swim. Enter Blake — the super-tan, super-hot, super-arrogant boy next door who seems to hate her guts. When he discovers her secret, Waverly is positive that her perfect summer is perfectly over. But then Blake does the unthinkable. He offers to teach her. This slice-of-life YA romance is illustrated in an anime-inspired style that readers will love. What are you waiting for? Dive in!

My Year as Emma

Writer: Amena Kheshtchin-Kamel
Artist: Guilia Giacomino
Publisher: Dark Horse Books
Release Date: Jul. 9 (Comics Shops) / Jul. 8 (Bookstores)
List Price: $19.99 Paperback

My Year as Emma is about a young Persian/Egyptian-American actress who changes her appearance and legal identity to a blonde white woman in an attempt to escape stereotyping and break into Hollywood, while struggling not to lose her cultural identity in the process.

We follow her journey as she navigates the Cannes Film Festival and enjoys all the perks that come with her newfound persona as Emma. Will she turn her back on her culture for her big chance at success, or will she stay true to herself?

Muted: Volume 1

Created By: Miranda Mundt
Publisher: Ten Speed Graphic
Release Date: Jul. 9 (Comics Shops) / Jul. 8 (Bookstores)
List Price: $29.99 Hardcover / $22.99 Paperback

It has been thirteen years since the mysterious fire at the Severin family manor that killed Camille’s mother and twin sister, and the last thing Camille wants to do is return to her old home deep in the swamps of Louisiana. But she doesn’t have a choice. Deeply ingrained family tradition and Matriarch Athalie—Camille’s coldhearted aunt and head of the Severin household—demand it.

When the time comes for Camille to perform the demon-summoning blood ritual that every prospective matriarch in her family must complete, she is afraid of making a mistake. No matter how hard she tries to be a witch worthy of the Severin name, nothing is ever good enough for her aunt. Camille has practiced and practiced, but instead of the beat of demonic wings or the snap of talons, her blood calls forth evergreen vines and leaves. Terrified of what this might mean, she flees into the swamps.

But her failed ritual gives her something precious: time away from Aunt Athalie. Time to spend with her beloved familiar Toben and kindly cousin Silvia. And—unbeknownst to her—time to fall in love, discover the truth of her magic, reunite with long lost family, work through her grief, and solve the mystery of who killed her mother and sister.

Meat Eaters

Created By: Meredith McClaren
Publisher: Oni Press
Release Date: Jul. 9 (Comics Shops) / Jul. 8 (Bookstores)
List Price: $24.99 Paperback

Let it be said that dying is hard. Nineteen-year-old Ashley Moore found this out the hard way. All Ashley wanted was to keep her head down and work hard until she could escape the small town where she felt she was stagnating. But after waking up one night covered in blood—and irrevocably dead—Ashley finds her foolproof plan for getting out has gone up in smoke, and something within her has changed.

Without a heartbeat and with a disturbing craving for fresh—preferably bloody—meat, Ashley finds herself privy to a world that exists just beneath our own: a world of ghouls and monsters and things that go bump-in-the-night. Despite her desire to be left alone—and to not think about the night of her death at all—Ashley is slowly drawn into the realm of the unusual, getting advice from ancient vampires, dodging angry pack leaders, and becoming the reluctant big sister to werewolves Motley and Harrison. As she does, she finds it increasingly difficult to put away the parts of herself she wishes to ignore—namely, what happened that fateful night she stopped breathing. The truth, it turns out, can’t stay buried forever. In this visceral story about the effects of trauma and anxiety, dying is indeed hard. But getting on with it? That can be worse.

Grommets

Writer: Rick Remender & Brian Posehn
Artist: Brett Parson
Publisher: Image Comics
Release Date: Jul. 9 (Comics Shops) / Jul. 8 (Bookstores)
List Price: $16.99 Paperback

Grommets is both an authentic look at ’80s skate culture—a snapshot of the generation that turned skating into a worldwide phenomenon— as well as a heartfelt coming-of-age story following two friends from troubled homes navigating their damage in an era when no one cared.

The series’ title springs from skater slang, a “grommet” is a commonly used term for a young up-and-coming skater or surfer. Since the ’60s it’s been used to describe the next generation of kids who, with youthful exuberance, love the sport but want to put their spin on it. Collects the complete story, Grommets #1-7.

LOW: Bowie’s Berlin Years

Created By: Reinhard Kleist
Publisher: SelfMadeHero
Release Date: Jul. 9 (Comics Shops) / Jul. 8 (Bookstores)
List Price: $19.99 Paperback

Low traces the aftermath of David Bowie’s groundbreaking tour of America, and the iconic “Berlin years” that followed. Hot on the platform heels of Starman: Bowie’s Stardust Years (SelfMadeHero, 2023), Reinhard Kleist masterfully concludes his two-part biography of David Bowie. In 1976, Bowie escaped the frantic madness and substance abuse of his life in Los Angeles for the Wall of the divided city of Berlin. With his friend Iggy Pop in tow, Bowie quit drugs and created LOW, the first album of his “Berlin Trilogy”. But even here, in some of the happiest days of his life, Ziggy Stardust would not let him go…

Low follows Bowie’s forays through West Berlin’s revolutionary music scene and wild club life, and takes us deep into his recording sessions at Hansa Studios. The friendship between Bowie and Iggy drives both artists to new creative heights, while Bowie’s relationship with the cabaret icon Romy Haag illuminates his fascination with Berlin as a city on the brink. Kleist’s Low is both a retelling of Bowie’s Berlin years and a vibrant portrait of the city itself.

Super Science Vol. 1 Bill Sienkiewicz Edition

Writer: N. Alessando K.
Artist: Perker
Publisher: The Lab Press
Release Date: Jul. 9 (Comics Shops) / Jul. 15 (Bookstores)
List Price: $49.99 Hardcover

Super Science is a sci-fi/comedy about a world where the limits of human imagination have become real. For five days the entire sky over twelve spots across the globe turn amethyst purple. The inexplicable result was in each location, professional engineers and scientists, as well as tinkers, amateur inventors, and high school science teachers were able to create scientific and engineering breakthroughs in ways far surpassing the world’s top scientific institutions. Our story starts three years later in Los Angeles, where a breed of actual superheroes and super villains are emerging.

Dealing with this new phenomenon is LAPD’s new “Mad Scientist Division.” Our two main characters are the no-nonsense Sergeant Esmerelda Villanueva and her idealistic young partner, Officer Jack Mantle. Other main characters are manipulative industrialist Burt Montague, and his bold lab assistant Felicia Bari; perpetually unlucky Karen Katz, a former biology teacher who has turned herself into a human-cat hybrid; Esmerelda’s son Gabe, who might be the smartest teenager on the planet; and finally, nefarious super villain Dr. Cornelius Otherland, and his nemesis, bumbling superhero Gas Giant.

This mind-bending graphic novel from THE LAB ships in a gold-foil stamped cloth slipcase.

Will Eisner: A Comics Biography

Writer: Stephen Weiner
Artist: Dan Mazur
Publisher: NBM
Release Date: Jul. 16 (Comics Shops) / Jul. 15 (Bookstores)
List Price: $29.99 Hardcover

Explore the life of Will Eisner, one of the most influential artists in the history of comics through the most appropriate medium: a graphic novel! From his immigrant roots and childhood in New York, starting his own comics studio and business, and the creation and publication of his beloved comic, The Spirit, through popularizing the term “graphic novel” as the result of trying to convince a general trade publisher to publish the groundbreaking A Contract with God, you’ll follow along in Eisner’s life journey.

With the most prestigious comics awards named after him, Will Eisner is forever celebrated not only in what he created but his unerring belief in comics’ capacity to be better, to reach higher, to be a full art form in its own right. This is the life of this man of vision who helped to put comics on the map.

10,000 Ink Stains: A Memoir

Created By: Jeff Lemire
Publisher: Dark Horse Books
Release Date: Jul. 16 (Comics Shops) / Jul. 15 (Bookstores)
List Price: $54.99 Hardcover

Featuring his brilliant work from Sweet Tooth, Essex County, Black Hammer, Descender, and so much more. Lemire takes the reader book-by-book, writing essays about the making of each project, showcasing artwork from all of them, details about his personal life during the creation of each book, sharing some never-before-seen process material on each book, and unpublished stories as well. This is the ultimate book for Jeff Lemire and modern comic book fans.

Raging Clouds

Created By: Yudori
Publisher: Fantagraphics
Release Date: Jul. 16 (Comics Shops) / Jul. 15 (Bookstores)
List Price: $34.99 Hardcover

Amélie is a brilliant woman trapped in the restricting social mores of high Dutch society in the mid-16th century. Her marriage to Hans, a swashbuckling merchant, is a terrible match. While he charms the townsfolk, at home he is her intellectual inferior and treats her with cruelty and sexual violence. Expected to be a devoted housewife, Amélie can only be her true, free-spirited self when Hans travels away on business — when she can explore the town alone, lose herself in literature, and study winged animals to learn about the mechanics of flight. She looks to the skies and dreams of flying far away. Her life changes when Hans returns from his journey with Sahara, a slave mistress from a distant land. The two women are drawn to each other — each recognizing their confinement in a world dominated by men — and work together to seek their freedom.

Told as a fiercely feminist story and spectacularly illustrated, Raging Clouds is the dazzling graphic novel debut of Korean comic book artist Yudori. In her lush manga style, Yudori imagines the period in rich detail with careful attention to settings and costumes, while evoking the cultural and societal standards of the time. She creates complex women characters who grapple with indignity over their social position, engage in lustful fantasies, and ultimately relish in seizing agency in their lives. Raging Clouds is a powerful story about the role of women in society, the reality of existing within a non-consensual relationship, and the struggle to push back against the boundaries these women have been boxed into.

Disney Epic Mickey: The Comics Collection

Writer: Peter David
Artist: Claudio Sciarrone Paulo Mottura
Publisher: Fantagraphics
Release Date: Sep. 24 (Comics Shops) / Jul. 15 (Bookstores)
List Price: $29.99 Hardcover

Dive into graphic novel retellings of the video game classics Epic Mickey and Epic Mickey 2: The Power of Two — and the “Tales of Wasteland” miniseries that came first! Join Mickey Mouse for wild thrills in Wasteland, a parallel Disney world where Oswald the Lucky Rabbit and Gremlin Gus are the big stars… and Donald Duck, Daisy, and Goofy are animatronics! Mickey unwittingly upends Oswald’s world by accidentally unleashing the Shadow Blot — a monstrous, magical version of Mouseton’s Phantom Blot. Can Mickey join forces with Oswald to defeat this colossus and its minions… or will the shady Mad Doctor and an entire family of Peg Leg Petes drive them apart? Comics legend Peter David (The Incredible Hulk, X-Factor, The Little Mermaid, Star Trek novels) and Italian Disney artists Claudio Sciarrone (Duck Avenger), Paolo Mottura, and Fabrizio Petrossi bring us an amazing series of Wasteland adventures!

Beneath

Writer: Steven DeKnight
Artist: Michael Gaydos
Publisher: Mad Cave Studios
Release Date: Jul. 15 (Bookstores)
List Price: $19.99 Paperback

Deputy Sheriff Jess Delgado is tasked with transporting the sole survivor of a mysterious attack along the Texas-Mexico border to CoreCivil, a for-profit immigration detention center closing down due to wide-spread protests. Housing only a handful remaining detainees and manned by a skeleton crew of disgruntled guards, the detention center becomes a desperate battle ground when something otherworldly emerges from deep below the earth. Something that only fears the light. Deputy Delgado must pull together the guards and detainees – two groups that hate and fear each other – to survive the night. Or fall to the vengeance of the things that live beneath.

Spectrum

Writers: Rick Quinn & Dave Chisholm
Artist: Dave Chisholm
Publisher: Mad Cave Studios
Release Date: Jul. 15 (Bookstores)
List Price: $19.99 Paperback

Melody Parker is losing her mind. Ada Latimer wants to be normal. Together, they will travel across the spectrum of the 20th century in search of madness: both the kind you inherit from your parents and the kind required to be an artist. 

Terminal Exposure: Comics, Sculpture, and Risky Behavior

Created By: Michael McMillan
Writer: Dan Nadel (Introduction)
Publisher: New York Review Comics
Release Date: Jul. 23 (Comics Shops) / Jul. 22 (Bookstores)
List Price: $39.95 Hardcover

The first-ever collection of comics and assorted artwork by Michael McMillan—not only a legendary underground cartoonist, but also a sculptor, painter, printmaker, filmmaker, animator, poster designer, and an avid rock climber. Michael McMillan has said he’s “not really a cartoonist,” but the evidence suggests otherwise. Born and raised in California, he was a draftsman and industrial designer by trade before he plunged into the burgeoning San Francisco underground comix scene of the early 1970s. He drew for legendary publications such as Weirdo, Young Lust, Lemme Outa Here!, Arcade, and produced his own one-issue wonder, Terminal Comics. But just as often he drew for himself, playing with the form of comics out of the sight of readers. He reimagined the kinds of stories single-panel, two-panel, and many-panel strips could tell and blended favorite genres from his childhood (horror, sword-and-sandal, science fiction) with more mature themes (autobiography, dating, sex) to create new and striking forms.

Terminal Exposure brings together McMillan’s comics for the first time, alongside a selection of his electrifying sculptures, his eye-popping paintings, and stunning pages from his rock climbing journals. With an introduction by Dan Nadel, this volume offers a comprehensive portrait of an exceptional artist, sculptor, climber, and—yes—cartoonist.

The Women With Fifty Faces

Writer: Jonathan Lackman
Artist: Zachary J. Pinson
Publisher: Fantagraphics
Release Date: Jul. 23 (Comics Shops) / Jul. 22 (Bookstores)
List Price: $29.99 Hardcover

On April 7, 1928, Maria Lani blew into in Paris claiming to be a famous German actress and proceeded to seduce the cultural elite with her undeniable charisma and strangely enticing enigmatic aura. She persuaded fifty artists — Pierre Bonnard, Marc Chagall, André Derain, Henri Matisse, Georges-Henri Rouault, Fernand Léger and Suzanne Valadon among them — to immortalize her in paintings and sculptures, which would appear as an important plot device in a forthcoming film. Unveiled as an exhibition in New York, the art works traveled to Chicago, London, Berlin, Rotterdam, and Paris. But, in 1931, as legend eventually had it, she and her husband Max Abramowicz vanished without a trace, and so did the art. The film was never made. The Woman With Fifty Faces is about uncovering as much of the truth about Maria Lani as possible. The images that cascade through the book are stunningly beautiful, deeply compassionate, and farcically grotesque, capturing the essence of Lani’s life. From Poland’s antisemitic pogrom in the early 19th century to the vulgar glamour and decadence of 1920s Paris to the Nazi occupation of France in the ’40s, the tumultuous Europe Lani traverses becomes nearly as much of a character as Lani herself.  Jon Lankman spent two decades researching Lani’s life and Zachary James Pinson spent 5,000 hours putting pen to paper. The result is a masterful collaboration about identity and the power and limits of reinvention.

The Age of Video Games: A Graphic History of Gaming from Pong to VR and Beyond

Writer: Jean Zeid
Artist: Rouge Emilie
Publisher: Andrews McMeel Publishing
Release Date: Jul. 23 (Comics Shops) / Jul. 22 (Bookstores)
List Price: $19.99 Paperback

Time travel to pivotal moments in video game history with a wistful millennial Jean Zeid, extremely online zoomer, Émilie Rouge, and their robot sidekick Roby in a lively, action-packed conversation all generations of gamers will enjoy. Émilie’s massive portal cannon takes the team from era-to-era, lab-to-lab, revealing the real people, inventions, and breakthroughs in gaming. Go right with them as they clear levels in 8-bit sidescrollers, combat games, simulators, multi-player RPGs, and more — but watch your step! Includes a full index and acknowledgements.

Fool’s Gold: Death by Karaoke

Writers: Jenna Woldenga, Felix Irnich, Chrostopher Hastings, Avery Howett & Princess Abella
Publisher: Gallery 13
Release Date: Jul. 23 (Comics Shops) / Jul. 22 (Bookstores)
List Price: $24.99 Paperback

Written alongside award-winning comic-book writer Christopher Hastings (Adventure Time, Five Nights at Freddy’s), Fool’s Gold is a chaotic, imaginative, and hilarious adventure story that follows a group of real-life friends as they embark on a role-playing campaign filled with dragons, vengeful witches, and deadly karaoke.

A stoic masked druid, a cursed monkey sorcerer, and a bubbly magical girl are among the adventurers in a party searching for powerful crystals left behind by an ancient dead civilization…but their plans are derailed when an afternoon of drunken karaoke kicks off nothing short of the apocalypse. That’s just how things go when you’re in a fantasy role-playing session with gamemaster Felix and player Dingo. These two are your guides to the bizarre and hilarious world of tabletop role-playing, the delight of collaborative storytelling, and the chaos of letting the dice decide what happens next.

Evil-ish

Created By: Kennedy Tarrell
Publisher: Feiwei & Friends
Release Date: Jul. 23 (Comics Shops) / Jul. 22 (Bookstores)
List Price: $25.99 Hardcover / $17.99 Paperback

Hawthorne Vandercast has big plans: join the infamous Brigade of Shade, move into a glamorous castle, and leave their mundane life as a potion barista behind. But when they finally get the chance to join the Brigade, Hawthorne finds themselves overshadowed by Maple, a bubbly, bright, flowery girl who could not look further from evil. After an accident ends in death, Hawthorne is suddenly tasked with leading the Brigade. They soon begin to realize that maybe villainy isn’t actually all it’s cracked up to be.

Evil-ish spins the classic tropes of good and evil on their heads in a hilarious and tender story about a teenager who feels bigger than their job, their town, and their circumstances . . . and finds out that what they thought they wanted might not be what they actually need.

From Above: An (Info)graphic Novel

Created By: Martin Panchaud
Publisher: Abrams ComicArts
Release Date: Jul. 22 (Bookstores)
List Price: $26.99 Hardcover

From Above is an internationally acclaimed, groundbreaking graphic novel that tells its story from a bird’s-eye view. Characters are depicted as colored circles in a graphic and strikingly designed visual approach reminiscent of Chris Ware’s. Readers are forced to actively engage with the story as its relatively simple setup unfolds into a shocking and surreal adventure. Thrilling, funny, fresh, and surprising, From Above is a one-of-a-kind graphic novel that is impossible to put down.

Simon is an unpopular and awkward 14-year-old boy. Overweight, eager to please, and well-meaning, no matter how hard he tries, his lot in life is to be bullied by the neighborhood children and neglected by his absentminded parents. But one day everything changes for Simon when he does a favor for a fortune teller who rewards him by telling him the name of the winning horse at the Royal Ascot. Simon becomes an overnight millionaire when he bets his father’s life savings on the winning horse. But as he returns home, he discovers that his mother is in a coma and his father has disappeared. Simon can’t collect his winnings without finding his father, and he can’t help his mother until he solves the mystery of her sudden condition. With time running out, can Simon change his fortune?

Doll Parts: A Lovesick Tale

Created By: Luana Vecchio
Publisher: Image Comics
Release Date: Jul. 16 (Comics Shops) / Jul. 29 (Bookstores)
List Price: $17.99 Paperback

Twelve-year-old Madeleine dreads the idea of growing up. She fears becoming like the cruel older girls or facing the contempt of her devoutly religious mother. But most of all, she doesn’t want to become a target for the monsters that are out there, hiding in plain sight. However, a stomach-churning discovery forces Madeleine to confront the harsh reality that growing up isn’t a choice—it’s survival.

LUANA VECCHIO, winner of the 2022 Russ Manning Promising Newcomer Award, invites you back into the infernal world of LOVESICK to uncover the tragic origins of the dark web’s most infamous dominatrix. Part coming-of-age and part horror-thriller, DOLL PARTS is a must-read for both seasoned fans and newcomers to the twisted universe of LOVESICK, where youth and innocence are nothing more than meat for the cruel.

Simplicity: A Novel

Created By: Mattie Lubchansky
Publisher: Pantheon
Release Date: Jul. 30 (Comics Shops) / Jul. 29 (Bookstores)
List Price: $29.00 Hardcover

n 1977, a group called The Spiritual Association of Peers decamps to the woods of the Catskills, taking over an abandoned summer camp. They name their new home Simplicity.

In 2081, scholar Lucius Pasternak, a fastidiously organized trans man, tries to keep his head down living in the New York City Administrative and Security Territory, which was founded after the formal dissolution of the United States in 2041. Then, he’s offered a job by the mayor, billionaire real estate developer Dennis Van Wervel, to complete an anthropological survey of the people of Simplicity for a history museum he’s financing. A wary Lucius is nevertheless drawn in by the people of the small wooded community, intrigued by its strange rituals and in particular by the charming acolyte Amity Crown-Shy. Born and raised on the compound, Amity is comfortable in their own skin, a striking contrast to Lucius’ repressed reserve. But Lucius’ control starts to slip when he begins to suffer visions both terrifying and sensual—visits from beautiful but nightmarish creatures.

Then, just as Lucius discovers that Van Wervel’s project is more sinister than it seemed, members of the community begin to disappear, leaving behind grisly signs of struggle. The denizens of Simplicity believe that a being they call “The Lamentation” is responsible for the attacks. Amity and Lucius set out to hunt for the creature in the dangerous Exurb Zones, a wild wood full of libertarian doomsday preppers, wealthy isolationists, and worse. There, they’ll finally discover the true threat to their way of life—and what they’re willing to do to stop it.

Misery of Love

Created By: Yvan Alagbé
Writer: Donald Nicholson-Smith (Translator)
Publisher: New York Review Comics
Release Date: Jul. 30 (Comics Shops) / Jul. 29 (Bookstores)
List Price: $29.95 Paperback

In Misery of Love, a spiritual sequel to the acclaimed Yellow Negroes and Other Imaginary Creatures, Yvan Alagbé continues his interrogation of race and family in modern France. The book focuses on the dream-like memories of a woman named Clare, who is spending time with her family for her grandfather’s funeral. Alagbé shifts between narratives of the family, all haunted by the legacy of France’s colonial subjugation of Africa. Alagbé works in stormy grayscale washes, using comics, as he puts it, as “a sacred dimension which celebrates, questions and perpetuates life…. I believe that life is not damnation but grace.”

This is another ambitious, devastating masterpiece from one of France’s best contemporary cartoonists.

Aurora

Created By: Red
Publisher: Andrews McMeel Publishing
Release Date: Jul. 30 (Comics Shops) / Jul. 29 (Bookstores)
List Price: $18.99 Paperback

The shining city of Vash in the world of Aurora is protected by a great and powerful god of the same name, but even Vash’s incarnation cannot withstand the Collector, an immortal sorceress bent on unmaking the world. Vash’s city is destroyed and his soul abducted, leaving only ruins and the wounded, empty body of his incarnation. When newborn soul Kendal awakens in the body, he is driven to rescue the imprisoned Vash. Now Kendal must grapple with living as a mortal and defeating a force powerful enough to sunder the gods.

Kendal is aided by the friends he makes along the way: Alinua, a volatile elven hermit terrified of her uncontrollable life magic; Erin, the prideful Elemental Magus, master of all six elements, who is burdened with a world-shattering curse; and Falst, a surly beastman trying to find his way in a world that hates him. Together, they will journey through magic and mystery, explore perilous environments, and confront ancient forces. Stars dance beyond the shimmering curtains of Aurora; it is time to draw those curtains back . . .

With exclusive author commentary and bonus story content, Aurora (Volume 1) has plenty for both fans and new readers to enjoy.

The Raven Boys: The Graphic Novel

Created By: Maggie Stiefvater
Writer: Stephanie Williams
Artist: Sas Milledge
Publisher: Viking Books for Young Readers
Release Date: Jul. 30 (Comics Shops) / Jul. 29 (Bookstores)
List Price: $24.99 Hardcover / $17.99 Paperback

Blue Sargent comes from a family of psychics. Only, she has never had the same clairvoyant abilities they had and has always felt too ordinary within the magic that surrounded her. Enter Gansey, a rich student from Aglionby, the town’s all-boys private school teeming with wealth, privilege, and trouble. Blue’s always made it a point to stay away from its students, the Raven Boys.

But when Gansey asks her to join him and three other Raven Boys on his quest to find a long-forgotten Welsh king rumored to be sleeping beneath the mountains of their quiet Virginia town, Blue doesn’t hesitate. She jumps at the chance to finally be a part of something real and full of magic, a world she was born into yet one that always stood just out of reach. Soon enough, she’s swept into a strange and shifting world woven into theirs, one far more dangerous than anything they could have dreamt up.

Now reimagined as a stunning full-color graphic novel adapted by Stephanie Williams and illustrated by Sas Milledge, The Raven Boys unravels a thrilling plot around a cast of characters impossible to forget.

Manga: A New History of Japanese Comics

Writer: Eike Exner
Publisher: Yale University Press
Release Date: Aug. 4 (Bookstores)
List Price: $37.50 Hardcover

The immensely popular art form of manga, or Japanese comics, has made its mark across global pop culture, influencing film, visual art, video games, and more. This book is the first to tell the history of comics in Japan as a single, continuous story, focusing on manga as multipanel cartoons that show stories rather than narrate them. Eike Exner traces these cartoons’ gradual evolution from the 1890s until today, culminating in manga’s explosion in global popularity in the 2000s and the current shift from print periodicals to digital media and smartphone apps.

Over the course of this 130-year history, Exner answers questions about the origins of Japanese comics, the establishment of their distinctive visuals, and how they became such a fundamental part of the Japanese publishing industry, incorporating well-known examples such as Dragon Ball and Sailor Moon, as well as historical manga little known outside of Japan. The book pays special attention to manga’s structural development, examining the roles played not only by star creators but also by editors and major publishers such as Kōdansha that embraced comics as a way of selling magazines to different, often gendered, readerships. This engaging narrative presents extensive new research, making it an essential read for enthusiasts and experts alike.

The Stoneshore Register

Writer: G. Willow Wilson
Artists: M.K. Perker & Richard Bruning
Publisher: Berger Books
Release Date: Aug. 6 (Comics Shops) / Aug. 5 (Bookstores)
List Price: $24.99 Paperback

When refugee and aspiring journalist Fadumo arrives to work at the Stoneshore Register, she is entering a far stranger place than she realizes. At first, the colossal stone giant overlooking the rundown, seemingly ordinary Pacific Northwest fishing town seems like the only remarkable element. But he is not the only strange surprise: changelings, selkies, cursed ships—the bizarre has a home in Stoneshore, yet no one gives it a second thought. But Fadumo doesn’t just want to cover these odd occurrences. She wants to dig deeper. And what she discovers is a land so steeped in mysterious history, it will change all who dare to explore it.

Rowlf and Other Fantasy Stories

Created By: Richard Corben
Writer: Hayao Miyazaki (Introduction)
Publisher: Dark Horse Books
Release Date: Aug. 6 (Comics Shops) / Aug. 5 (Bookstores)
List Price: $39.99 Hardcover

The next volume of the Richard Corben Library is a trilogy of werewolf stories. Rowlf is a postmodern take of Beauty and the Beast that mixes high fantasy with dystopian science fiction. It is the first masterpiece in Corben’s long career. The Beast of Wolfton and its sequel The Spirit of the Beast are ironic love stories of a werewolf family saga. The book closes with a poignant free adaptation of one of the Japanese legends by Lafcadio Hearn called The Story of Oteg. All packaged in a beautiful new printing with meticulously restored artwork and featuring a new introduction by Hayao Miyazaki (Spirited Away). All presented in a gorgeous hardcover with a dust jacket!

Well known for his legendary fantasy underground masterpieces published by Fantagor Press as well as Heavy Metal, Richard Corben’s work has been recognized internationally having been awarded one of the most prestigious recognitions in comics literature the Grand Prix at Angoulême as well having been inducted into the Will Eisner Award Hall of Fame. Collecting Rowlf, The Beast of Wolfton, The Spirit of the Beast, The Story of Oteg, and backup material.

Dark & Dreamy Tales from Japan: Curious Legends from the Greatest Storytellers on Earth

Artist: Yuyupanchi
Publisher: Castle Point Books
Release Date: Aug. 5 (Bookstores)
List Price: $18.00 Hardcover

Explore a surreal world of horrifying demons and magical secrets that will test the boundaries of your imagination. From corpse-eating goblins to shape-shifting animals and giant centipedes, Dark & Dreamy Tales from Japan invites you to discover the ancient legends and timeless characters that continue to inspire today’s best anime shows and movies. With evocative manga art to bring each story to life, you’ll find yourself in the dramatic grip of twenty-one hauntingly beautiful tales.

D.J. Rosenblum Becomes the G.O.A.T.

Created By: Abby White
Publisher: Levine Querido
Release Date: Aug. 5 (Bookstores)
List Price: $19.99 Hardcover

It’s the beginning of the school year—and Briar’s newest resident, D.J. Rosenblum, is not here for it. Ever since her cousin Rachel died, D.J.’s family has been a mess: Her aunt and uncle are catatonic. Her mom is even more scatterbrained than usual. She had to postpone her bat mitzvah a whole year. Worst of all, she and her mom had to move—leaving her best friend, Eva, behind.

Briar does have one redeeming factor, though: Here, in Rachel’s hometown, D.J. can finally get to the bottom of her cousin’s death. With the help of a chatty journalist and a queen-bee hacker, D.J. can fill in the last days of Rachel’s life. And if she can just figure out her Torah portion—with help from her cute tutor, Jonah—maybe, just maybe, she’ll be able to solve a bigger mystery.

For fans of Looking for Alaska and Never Have I Ever comes Abby White’s debut novel, D.J. Rosenblum Becomes the G.O.A.T. It’s a basket of matzo ball soup dumplings for anyone learning to chart their own path, navigate new friendships and crushes, and figure out how to love—and live—after loss.

Trumpets of Death

Created By: Simon Bournel-Bosson
Publisher: Graphic Universe
Release Date: Aug. 5 (Bookstores)
List Price: $17.99 Paperback

One rainy night, Antoine gets dropped off at his grandparents’ remote house in the middle of the woods. He’s stuck between a doting grandmother and a grandfather openly hostile to his presence, and time crawls by while he waits to hear from his parents. When Antoine ventures out with his grandfather to forage for mushrooms, intergenerational conflict and mysterious forces of nature culminate in a fearsome hunt through the forest that will resolve their differences once and for all.

Talking to My Father’s Ghost: An Almost True Story

Created By: Alex Krokus
Publisher: Chronicle Books
Release Date: Aug. 5 (Bookstores)
List Price: $22.95 Paperback

Set over the course of a single year, this book follows Alex and his father’s ghost as they stroll along winter beaches, camp in rattlesnake-infested deserts, and share countless diner meals together. Between fielding fatherly lectures on the importance of doing his taxes, how to properly shovel the driveway, and why he should always tip twenty percent, Alex tries to figure out what he needs to say to his dad. Is this a good time for him to come out as bisexual? Or maybe he should ask his dad why he loved drinking so much when it nearly destroyed his health? With help from his mom, his brother, a whole cast of extended family members, and, of course, the ghost himself, Alex tries to figure out how to say goodbye.

In the tradition of Roz Chast’s Can’t We Talk about Something More Pleasant? and Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home, this graphic novel uses humor to examine family foibles and eccentricities as well as the experience of losing a parent. Relatable and heartfelt, it speaks to the universal experience of grief and how it ripples through a community.

Ew, It’s Beautiful: A False Knees Collection

Created By: Joshua Barkman
Publisher: Andrews McMeel Publishing
Release Date: Aug. 5 (Bookstores)
List Price: $14.99 Paperback

To hilarious effect, Joshua Barkman imagines the interior lives of birds as they navigate the seasons. With the occasional cat, raccoon, or insect thrown in for good measure, this masterful second collection offers a satisfying balance of humor and existentialism, visual jest and quiet contemplation. Perfect for fans of Strange Planet and Poorly Drawn Lines, this memorable collection will also delight readers of classic strips like Calvin & Hobbes and The Far Side.

He Rolled Me Up Like a Grilled Squid

Created By: Yoshiharu Tsuge
Publisher: Drawn & Quarterly
Release Date: Aug. 6 (Comics Shops) / Aug. 12 (Bookstores)
List Price: $29.95 Hardcover

By the mid-1970s, Tsuge Yoshiharu was a man changed by circumstance—something his work from 1975 to 1981 boldly reveals. After settling into married life with fellow artist Fujiwara Maki (author of Eisner-winning My Picture Diary), Tsuge would return to the narrative formulas that he knew best: tall tales exchanged between fellow travelers, macabre parables tinged with magical realism, and the enduring comedy of the domestic everyday in a Japan rebuilding itself in the decades following the Second World War.

And yet the confusion and mental illness simmering beneath the surface of his more surreal works come to a rolling boil, reaching an unsettling and horrific crescendo in a series of nightmarish delusions. He Rolled Me Up Like A Grilled Squid captures a midcareer author taking stock of his anxieties and suspicions while connecting the dots between his seemingly monotonous present and his complicated past. Confrontations between both periods in his life are explored through the lens of his deteriorating mental state, expressed directly through experiments with different visual styles collected in this volume.

Translated by prolific art and comics historian Ryan Holmberg, He Rolled Me Up Like A Grilled Squid is a remarkable catalog of creative experiments alongside a veteran storyteller’s most compelling observations about people at their most human.

The Moon Prince

Created By: Kevin Fraser Mutch
Publisher: Fantagraphics
Release Date: Aug. 13 (Comics Shops) / Aug. 12 (Bookstores)
List Price: $29.99 Paperback

Mistreated for being mixed-race and forced into hard labor at a workhouse in West Hoboken, New Jersey, young Max and Molly are ordinary orphans — or so they think. That is, until a wise old man hears their last name: M’Chawi. Rattled by this realization, he sends them off on a journey that will uncover the secret behind their mystic lineage and give them purpose and power far from home — on the Moon!

There, they encounter the Moon’s fantastic inhabitants: the Sky Pirates and their merciless Queen Melissa; the Groos, blue primates and genius mechanics — literal grease monkeys — and their robot protector, Moma Machina; and a kingdom of singing spiders giant enough to eat a man. Looks can be deceiving, and those who first appear frightening can turn out to be allies, and even friends. Take Prince Grakko, pampered heir-apparent to the Bat-People.

The Moon is a land locked in constant battle. Races live in fear and ignorance of one another. To make matters worse, the siblings’ getaway isn’t as clean as they’d hoped, and the Earth Queen’s Grand Inquisitor is hot on their trail. Armed with a bejeweled dagger, pendant, and pure hearts, Max and Molly must unite the denizens of the Moon under a common cause, before humanity’s folly reduces their world to rubble. Equal parts Jules Verne, Huck Finn, and Bone, The Moon Prince is a star-spanning, page-turning epic for the ages.

Aquinnah

Writer: Matteo Casali
Artists: Rachele Aragno & Clarissa Saccani
Publisher: Dark Horse Books
Release Date: Aug. 13 (Comics Shops) / Aug. 12 (Bookstores)
List Price: $29.99 Paperback

Amber has carried the question of her past for years. With no memory of her childhood haunted by chronic pain, she assumes it’s amnesia—until a strange man claiming to have answers appears. And a story much darker, stranger, and more otherworldly begins to take shape. Amber and her girlfriend are caught up in a net of occult secrets and ancient monsters connected to the seaside town of Aquinnah, and as the town’s dark history is uncovered, Amber must decide if she will be the town’s salvation…or its doom.

Writer Matteo Casali (Batman: Europa,  Marvel’s What If) and artist Rachele Aragno (Mel the Chosen, Leonide the Vampyr) spin a terrible tale of history and injustice.

Midst: Tales from the Cosmos

Writers: Colin Lorimer, Jasmine Walls & Kendra Wells
Artists: Alejandro Aragon & Others
Publisher: Dark Horse Books
Release Date: Aug. 13 (Comics Shops) / Aug. 12 (Bookstores)
List Price: $29.99 Hardcover

Third Person and Critical Role proudly present the collected edition of tales from the Midst cosmos. 

Between the bright Un and the mysterious Fold sits the islet of Midst…What do a crash landing on an uncharted islet, a struggling farmer in the Un, and a small Fold town plagued by peculiar changes have in common? They’re all part of the strange and expanding cosmos of Midst, the hit sci-fi/western podcast series from Third Person in conjunction with Critical Role. Explore the people, places, and bizarre phenomena that will immerse you in the unexpected and unique stories from an entirely new cosmos.

This hardcover collection features 3 individual stories, with writing by Colin Lorimer, Jasmine Walls, and Kendra Wells; art by Alejandro Aragón, Aviv Or, and Vash Taylor; and colors by Chris O’Halloran, Quinton Winter, and Kelly and Nichole Matthews, in collaboration with Matt, Sara, and Xen of Third Person! Collects Midst: Address Unknown, Midst: The Valorous Farmer, Midst: Ripples, and sketchbook material.

Tall Water: A Graphic Novel

Writer: SJ Sindu
Artist: Dion MBD
Publisher: HarperAlley
Release Date: Aug. 13 (Comics Shops) / Aug. 12 (Bookstores)
List Price: $26.99 Hardcover / $18.99 Paperback

Ever since she turned sixteen, Nimmi has wanted to see her mother. Though she has a loving but overprotective father and a budding relationship, she yearns to travel to Sri Lanka to confront the mother who refused to leave the island during a war, not even for Nimmi’s sake. Her father is going back for the first time as a reporter on assignment, but he refuses to take her, deeming Sri Lanka too dangerous.

But then Nimmi’s mother appears to her in a dream, asking her to come find her, and Nimmi knows she must go. Her father is livid when he sees her at baggage claim, but by then it’s too late, and he reluctantly agrees to help Nimmi make contact with her mother. In Sri Lanka, Nimmi tags along with her father and his guide, past checkpoints and armed soldiers and increasing hints of the war that rages there. However, the day after Christmas, disaster strikes and a tsunami ravages the island. Stranded amid the devastation and destruction, can Nimmi reunite with her mother? Through her journey, Nimmi might just learn that the person she most needed to find was herself.

The Nefarious Nights of Willowweep Manor

Writer: Shaenon K. Garrity
Artist: Christopher Baldwin
Publisher: Margaret K. McElderry Books
Release Date: Aug. 13 (Comics Shops) / Aug. 12 (Bookstores)
List Price: $24.99 Hardcover / $14.99 Paperback

Haley is summoned back to the Willowweep pocket universe to deal with a huge crisis: another pocket universe is collapsing, and the survivors are seeking refuge in Willowweep. Haley and herfriends discover that the newcomers are from a mystery-themed universe complete with a blustery colonel, a sweet old spinster, and a butler. But shortly after their arrival, strange things start happening to Willowweep…the once-Gothic pocket universe is transforming into a whodunit! As the tropes of a detective story start to multiply, a murder rocks Willowweep. And when she searches for the culprit, Haley begins to suspect that one of the newcomers is trying to eradicate Willowweep. One by one, all her friends disappear, and it’s up to Haley to get to the bottom of this mind-boggling mystery. Can she grow past her Gothic romance roots to become a new kind of heroine?

La Tierra Yerma / The Barren Land

Created By: Carla Berrocal
Publisher: Reservoir Books
Release Date: Aug. 12 (Bookstores)
List Price: $25.95 Paperback

A curse hangs over the land in the form of a persistent drought. The Them, a race of savage and predatory creatures, are getting too close to the homes of humans and their livestock, and the cowgirls must rearm and prepare to confront them. At the center of this threat are two families divided over land and history, the houses of Salvatierra and Isla Perdida. The forbidden romance between Leonor and Isabel, the heirs of each house, will play a key role in the conflict’s resolution.

Artist at Last

Created By: Bill Pearson
Publisher: Fantagraphics
Release Date: Aug. 16 (Comics Shops) / Aug. 15 (Bookstores)
List Price: $30.00 Paperback

Having worked in comics from just about every position and angle over the last 50+ years (including as the editor of the legendary witzend), Bill Pearson’s first solo art book collects a decades-spanning body of work, never seen until now. His illustrations dance playfully between monstrous and silly imaginary creatures in the vein of Vaughn Bode, and abstract gems evoking Wassily Kandinsky. If the title rings with humility, it’s only because Pearson is selling himself short. A culmination of a life devoted to comics, Fantagraphics is proud to present Artist at Last.

He Lost His Keys in Space

Writers: Lizzy Lang & Luke Milton
Artist: Luke Milton
Publisher: Black Panel Press
Release Date: Aug. 6 (Comics Shops) / Aug. 19 (Bookstores)
List Price: $26.99 Hardcover

Earth’s first and worst ambassador, Vega Ulysses, has freshly completed a tumultuous twelve year mission of galactic diplomacy, paid off his mortgage, and can finally return home to Earth. There’s just one problem– he lost his keys in space! Now, with his reluctant crew of outsiders in tow, Vega must retrace his steps, searching wild, diverse planets teeming with hostile aliens, silly robots and rude cosmic entities– all forcing him to confront the havoc he has wreaked while haphazardly advancing Earth’s selfish, consumerist agenda.

A delirious take on sci-fi cartoons of the eighties, He Lost His Keys in Space reads like an entire animated series in a book. A darkly funny satire of the most ridiculed planet in the universe: Earth!

Ionheart

 

Created By: Lukas Kummer
Publisher: Top Shelf Productions
Release Date: Aug. 20 (Comics Shops) / Aug. 19 (Bookstores)
List Price: $24.99 Paperback

Pursued by a terrifying demon, a young knight flees across the radioactive ruins of a fairy-tale land. His only weapon is the same cursed power that once destroyed this world—what some would call magic, and others would call technology. As his relentless enemy draws closer, the knight’s terrible secrets begin to unfold. How many lives has he lived? Is this the past, the present, or the future? Is he destined to bring love, or unimaginable destruction? And if he fails…will humanity get another chance?

The English-language debut of Austrian-German graphic novelist Lukas Kummer arrives like a thunderbolt, arcing brilliantly between timelines, genres, and dimensions. This ambitious, atom-smashing book combines trace elements of everything from Tintin to Blade Runner to Adventure Time to The Dark Tower into a deadly breakthrough: intricate, explosive, and entirely new.

Drome

Created By: Jesse Lonergan
Publisher: 23rd St.
Release Date: Aug. 20 (Comics Shops) / Aug. 19 (Bookstores)
List Price: $29.99 Hardcover

First, there was nothing. Then, humanity was born, and an endless cycle of violence began. From the depths of the ocean, a mighty demigoddess is called forth to rein in humankind’s destructive impulses, and teach a language of peace and harmony. Civilization quickly takes root, a great city rising from the desert. But the balance between chaos and order is a fragile one, and there are higher powers at work in this strange new world.

Creator Jesse Lonergan pushes the boundaries of the comics medium in this visually spectacular epic. In turns pulse-pounding and heart-wrenching, Drome is a creation myth for the modern age.

This Place Kills Me: A Graphic Novel

Writer: Mariko Tamaki
Artist: Nicole Goux
Publisher: Abrams Fanfare
Release Date: Aug. 20 (Comics Shops) / Aug. 19 (Bookstores)
List Price: $26.99 Hardcover / $19.99 Paperback

At Wilberton Academy, few students are more revered than the members of the elite Wilberton Theatrical Society—a.k.a. the WTS—and no one represents that exclusive club better than Elizabeth Woodward. Breathtakingly beautiful, beloved by all, and a talented thespian, it’s no surprise she’s starring as Juliet in the WTS’s performance of Shakespeare’s classic tragedy. But when she’s found dead the morning after opening night, the whole school is thrown into chaos.

Transfer student Abby Kita was one of the last people to see Elizabeth alive, and when local authorities deem the it-girl’s death a suicide, Abby’s not convinced. She’s sure there’s more to Wilburton and the WTS than meets the eye. As she gets tangled in prep school intrigues, Abby quickly realizes that Elizabeth was keeping secrets. Was one of those secrets worth killing for?

Told in comics, letters, diary entries, and news articles, This Place Kills Me is a page-turning whodunnit from award-winning writer Mariko Tamaki and acclaimed illustrator Nicole Goux that will have readers on the edge of their seats and begging for an encore.

The Exorcism at 1600 Penn

Writer: Hannah Rose May
Artist: Vanesa Del Rey
Publisher: IDW Publishing
Release Date: Aug. 20 (Comics Shops) / Aug. 19 (Bookstores)
List Price: $21.99 Paperback

Kelly Doyle has just been elected the first female president of the United States of America, and boiling political tension could spill over at any second. Having to balance being a mother to two teenagers and navigating the shifting media landscape, all while preventing World War III, has Kelly spread thin, but she could never predict that the nation’s hallowed halls would soon become a demonic battleground for good versus evil.

From the pen of rising comics writer Hannah Rose May (Rogues’ Gallery) and acclaimed artist Vanesa Del Rey (Scarlet Witch) comes this psychological tale perfect for fans of Nice House on the Lake and The Haunting of Hill House.

Buff Soul

Created By: Moa Romanova
Writer: Melissa Bowers (Translator)
Publisher: Fantagraphics
Release Date: Aug. 20 (Comics Shops) / Aug. 19 (Bookstores)
List Price: $29.99 Hardcover

How do you prevent history from repeating itself, and is it possible to protect the one you love from themselves? When cartoonist Moa Romanova joins her rock star bestie on a U.S. tour, life quickly turns chaotic, as adolescent trauma begins to haunt her.

Buff Soul tackles addiction, friendship, and loss in a rollicking road trip adventure involving selling speed, breaking bones, massive hangovers, drug withdrawal, having your entire fist inside your best friend, and shooting guns in the desert. What begins as an insanely comical, hedonistic road trip in the spirit of Pineapple Express, takes a dark turn when her best friend disappears. This event triggers memories of an adolescent trauma she had yet to reckon with, leading Romanova to confront the reality of how far she’s let her self-destruction go. 

Pop Kill

Writers: Jimmy Palmiotti & Dave Johnson
Artist: Juan Santacruz
Publisher: Mad Cave Studios
Release Date: Aug. 19 (Bookstores)
List Price: $19.99 Paperback

Imagine a world where the two dominant and competing Cola companies, each worth billions, are owned by former conjoined twins who are now separated and have grown to hate each other so much they hire assassins, saboteurs, and espionage personnel to meddle with each other on a daily basis. This is the story about brotherly love run afoul, and the people they enlist to do their dirty work.

Hello Sunshine

Created By: Keezy Young
Publisher: Little, Brown Ink
Release Date: Aug. 23 (Bookstores)
List Price: $25.99 Hardcover / $18.99 Paperback

In this lush and romantic queer horror graphic novel, a troubled teen disappears from his small town—sending his loved ones on a paranormal journey to bring him home. Noah is heartbroken. He returns from Bible camp to find that Alex, his secret boyfriend, has had a breakdown and disappeared. He wishes more than anything that he hadn’t left that day. Sky is determined. She’ll stop at nothing to find her childhood friend, even if it means alienating the people she loves. Izzy is ashamed. She knew something weird was going on with Alex, and she didn’t say anything to her boyfriend, Jamie—Alex’s twin brother. If she had, would Alex still be here? Jamie is angry. Angry at Alex for being gone, angry at himself for not noticing something was wrong, and angry at his long-dead mother, Desdemona, who had problems of her own. But what if there was something more to Desdemona’s demons? Why is Jamie seeing her ghost? And can he get past his hatred of her if it means finding out what happened to his brother?

The Rabagoo Race

Created By: Garresh
Publisher: Living the Line
Release Date: Aug. 13 (Comics Shops) / Aug. 26 (Bookstores)
List Price: $15.00 Paperback

The Rabagoo Race, the most famous boat race in the world, sees contestants face certain death throughout its frantic stages, all in the impossible hopes of reaching that mythical finish line, and winning everything their hearts desire. Only three ships have survived the 100 brutal stages of boat racing. Having fought mega sea monsters, riptide hell storms, and whip smart competitors, they must now face each other in the final sprint to the finish line. Does the humble sailboat the Boulie Bear have what it takes to beat the Slick Van Vex and the Indestructible Solid Slope? 

Walt Disney’s Donald Duck “Donald Duck Finds Pirate Gold”: The Complete Carl Barks Disney Library Vol. 1

Created By: Carl Banks
Publisher: Fantagraphics
Release Date: Aug. 27 (Comics Shops) / Aug. 26 (Bookstores)
List Price: $39.99 Hardcover

At last, Fantagraphics presents Carl Barks’s very first Donald Duck stories! This is where it all started, as Carl Barks took control of Donald Duck’s comic book adventures and began a series of clever, creative, complex, and comedic stories that would continue under his cartooning brilliance for more than 20 years — and guarantee his place in comics history.

Volume 1 in The Complete Carl Barks Disney Library is, naturally, filled with firsts: Barks’s first comic book story (starring Pluto), the first Donald Duck story created for an American comic book (and also the first to see Donald and his nephews go on a treasure hunt), Barks’s first Donald 10-pager, Barks’s first truly solo Donald Duck story, and Barks’s first solo longer-form Donald Duck adventure (“The Mummy’s Ring”). With more than 200 pages of story and art, each meticulously restored and newly colored, and the insightful story notes by an international panel of Barks experts, this long-awaited collection of stories makes clear what generations of Disney fans have always known: Carl Barks’s work as The Good Duck Artist is some of the greatest American cartooning in the history of the medium. 

Laser Eye Surgery

Created By: Walker Tate
Publisher: Fantagraphics
Release Date: Aug. 27 (Comics Shops) / Aug. 26 (Bookstores)
List Price: $19.99 Paperback

An unnamed man stumbles upon a flyer directing him to a suspicious medical facility that promises to “fix” his eyesight. After he gets the operation, optical defects begin to emerge, along with a whole new set of concerns. Impressionable and easily alarmed, the man comes to suspect he has received much more than he paid for.

Laser Eye Surgery is the first graphic novel by New York cartoonist Walker Tate. Far from an objective (or even accurate) depiction of the popular eyesight-corrective procedure, this is an idiosyncratic and lopsided take on sight, paranoia, and the comics form. As the man’s vision continues to change in unforeseen ways, he plunges down a path of confusion and intrigue, no longer sure what to trust. Scams and cons appear to be everywhere, a cosmic swindle looms just out of view. Are the perceived dangers really present, or merely thought to be, and which is worse? Shifty and withholding, steeped in dread, Laser Eye Surgery is a comically unsettling rumination on perception and its trappings.

30 Seconds from Gaza

Created By: Mohammad Sabaaneh
Publisher: Olive Branch Press
Release Date: Aug. 26 (Bookstores)
List Price: $22.00 Paperback

Mohammad Sabaaneh is an acclaimed Palestinian political cartoonist who has gained worldwide attention for his insightful and provocative linocut artwork, which sheds light on the reality of Palestinian life under occupation. His striking black-white-and-gray cartoons bring attention to the horrors of the Israeli assaults and atrocities in Gaza and open people’s eyes to the suffering Palestinians endure under Israel’s brutal settler colonialism and its system of apartheid.

After his social media accounts were shadow banned and taken down, resulting in the loss of 15 years worth of content, Sabaaneh started questioning the fate of the thousands of videos and pictures of Gaza that can be erased in a second—the commemoration of its historical importance and the importance of documenting what is happening on the ground. The fate of Gaza’s story and history is in the hands of a few corporations intent on hiding the crimes committed against the people of Gaza.

Capturing and drawing scenes from videos posted on social media was a decision Sabaaneh made as a way to archive moments and information that are expected to be banned and erased later. From the genocide in Gaza to the atrocities in the West Bank, Sabaaneh’s political cartoons portray a world in which injustice is unending, but so is the resilience of the Palestinian people. 30 Seconds from Gaza: Diary of Genocide is an artistic triumph and a powerful testament to Palestinian sumud (steadfastness). It is proof of art’s capacity to make visible what oppressors want the world to forget.

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If you enjoyed this list of anticipated YA and adult graphic novels for summer 2025, check out The Beat’s list of anticipated kids graphic novels for summer 2025!