Aiba’s mesmerizing manga adaptation of the psychological horror novel by Japanese “masked-writer” Uketsu (Strange Houses) draws icy menace from fictional found art. The narrative recounts the unsettling circumstances surrounding several sets of drawings before revealing unexpected links between them, inviting the reader to solve their puzzles. In this first volume, college students Sasaki and Kurihara seek out eerie online stories for their paranormal club, and stumble upon the blog of a man whose pregnant wife drew a series of odd, numbered pictures imagining her son’s future before she died in childbirth. Do the pictures contain a coded message? Who is “the person I love the most” to whom the blog is dedicated? The story then switches abruptly to an overworked widow whose art-loving son creates a troubling crayon drawing in nursery school. All the mysteries rely on visual puzzles, optical illusions, and clues hidden within the drawings, which makes comics an ideal medium for adaptation. Aiba’s art is slick, attractive, and faintly sinister, recalling Junji Ito, and for the “found” art he switches up to pastiches of various naive styles. It remains to be seen in future volumes whether all the plot threads will lead to a satisfying resolution, but fans of mystery and horror will enjoy poring over the images and guessing at their hidden depths. (June)

Reviewed on 04/17/2026 | Details & Permalink

Angouléme Grand Prix award winner Sattouf returns with the excellent first of a two-volume conclusion to his Arab of the Future series which recalls an awkward adolescence overshadowed by family crisis. It’s 1992, and Riad is 14, living in Rennes with his French mother and younger brother Yahya. His father has just kidnapped the youngest son of the family, Fadi, spiriting him to his paternal family’s village in Syria. With limited legal recourse (they were not yet divorced), Riad’s mother hangs by a thread as months pass without news of her son. She pleads with diplomats and lawyers, and even calls on a psychic. In the meantime, Riad’s teenage preoccupations—a nascent interest in grunge music, Métal Hurlant, and an artsy girl from school—come tinged with guilt. Hypervigilance sets in, and he struggles—or can’t bearto recall his father’s face, which has been cut from every family photo. Around him swirl ancient beliefs: religion, family lore, fortune tellers, intimations of black magic. These visions dovetail with his interests in Slayer cassettes, Lovecraft stories, and the paranormal. Throughout, his scolding Syrian cousins look down from thought bubbles overhead. Sattouf’s exuberant cartooning and blunt humor belie the thorny psychological complexity beneath—his trademark deadpan dispatches of a perpetual outsider remain, but deepen into probing ruminations. Riad isn’t so much juggling cultural identities as sifting through handed-down distortions and dogmas, and piecing together beliefs of his own. Brooding and introspective, this accomplished installment turns the series’ keen satirical eye inward. (May)

Reviewed on 04/17/2026 | Details & Permalink

A loner is forced to confront her past in this gloomy graphic novel from Late Night with the Devil actor Dastmalchian, drawn by Scaggs (Crosswind). Alix, a college student with a fiercely independent and combative Valkyrie spirit, likes to imagine that she hasn’t needed anybody since being orphaned as a child, when her parents died in a car crash. After saving a stranger from drowning—and discovering he has been following her—she embarks on a quest to uncover his identity. But the closer Alix gets to discovering what the man was after, the closer she gets to facing the pain of her long-held grief and isolation. Her real-world amateur investigation is paired with a parallel dream-realm search, after she falls Narnia-like into a fantasy world populated by characters such as a “shadow queen” and “master builder.” A little girl who looks like a broken, poorly repaired porcelain doll acts as a video game avatar, leading Alix on a symbol-laden quest that may reveal the childhood secrets she prefers suppressed. Dastmalchian’s sometimes hurried script shows flickers of potential as a mystery where the whodunit is more about healing than justice, but the impact is limited by schematic writing and Scaggs’s stiff figures, and the too-easy resolution fails to deliver the intended emotional catharsis. This feels like a pilot that’s not ready for prime time. Agent: Allie Gruensfelder, the Syndicate. (Mar.)

Reviewed on 04/17/2026 | Details & Permalink

Scottish artist Garresh’s outrageous graphic novel debut is pure spectacle, an explosion of aquatic action and color that delights in the possibilities of the comics form. The story opens on the final stage of the eponymous boat race, with the captains of three fanciful sailboats—the Boulie Bear, the Van Vex, and the Solid Slope—competing to win “everything their hearts desire.” The little Boulie Bear, crewed only by a boy and his dog, trails in third, but as the larger ships are caught up in waves, storms, and sea battles, it may have a chance after all. The story is less important than the telling, as Garresh barrages the reader with dazzling images and daring layouts. He fills pages with swirling water and clouds, spear-like shafts of light, neon color, and impressionistic effects, as when an explosion turns the bridge of a ship into a smear of ink. His art has a 1970s throwback feel, combining elements of European artists like Moebius with American underground psychedelia. Readers with an eye for kinetic beauty will be swept up. (Apr.)

Reviewed on 04/17/2026 | Details & Permalink

Graymalkin Lane podcaster Anderson and indie cartoonist Burke debut with an inspiring graphic memoir detailing Anderson’s path from an unhappy childhood steeped in Mormon doctrine to an out-and-proud gay man and father. Anderson traces his history of traumas, including sexual abuse from an older brother and emotional and physical abuse from his stepfather (who his abused mother ultimately gets a restraining order against), and the constant pressure to stifle any desires deemed unacceptable by the strict Mormon moral code. As an adult, Anderson attempts to live as a straight male, marrying a woman named Maggie and raising two sons with her. But walking a tightrope while “keeping himself so small” throws everything off-balance, resulting in his “constant state of depression.” At one point, his therapist offers the insight that Anderson has been the victim of multiple abuses, not only sexual or physical: “Verbal. Psychological. And spiritual.” Finally, Anderson leaves the church, redefines his relationship with Maggie and his boys (“We aren’t friends, but we are respectful co-parents”), and begins to date men. Throughout, Anderson intersperses brief prose pieces that deepen the narrative, while Remy Burke’s drawings keep the action clear and concise. Anderson concludes with a brief mediative piece titled “You are alive. Are you living?” that gracefully sums up his journey. The hard-won insights here will resonate for fans of queer memoir—and any reader who has faced major life transformations. (May)

Reviewed on 04/17/2026 | Details & Permalink

New Yorker cartoonist Wertz follows Impossible People with another fearless, funny, and foulmouthed graphic memoir. Having relocated from New York City to Northern California, Wertz gets serious with on-and-off boyfriend Oliver and settles into her version of a mature life: “somewhere to eat, somewhere to read, and somewhere to poop.” But when an unexpected pregnancy ends in miscarriage, she realizes she wants a baby, even if it means putting her life as a freewheeling, urban-spelunking artist on hold. Wertz ends up giving birth during Covid lockdowns, and her son, Felix, is monitored for a potential heart problem while the family copes with the California wildfires. Julia finds support in her eccentric family (her filter-less mother’s advice is “both timeless and reliant on whatever media [she] just consumed”), but one of her brothers endures a mental health crisis just as Julia is busiest with her infant. Wertz draws simple characters against lovingly detailed backgrounds, lavishing attention on vintage storefronts and the intermingling in her home of scavenged curios with baby toys. There’s a welcoming messiness to it all that feels apropos to the circumstances—some gag-strip-style anecdotes sport a sketchier stick-figure style, other moments are told as illustrated text, and a few real photos of her kid are movingly peppered in. “Go away,” she tells her son, “so I can finish making this comic about how much I love you.” An artist as smart and snarky as Wertz is incapable of crafting a conventional parenthood story, yet she brings real heart to her irreverent humor. This glows. (Apr.)

Reviewed on 04/17/2026 | Details & Permalink

Cartoonist Maxwell (Phantom Hearts) gives Aciman’s 2007 novel a lush, throwback, and ultra-romantic graphic treatment. In 1980s Italy, 17-year-old Elio welcomes Oliver, his professor father’s houseguest, who is working for the summer as a research assistant while studying for his PhD. Elio is immediately attracted to the handsome student but put off by what he takes to be Oliver’s standoffish attitude. (In particular, his habit of saying “Later” as goodbye, which to Elio sounds as if he “may not care to see or hear from you again.”) The apparent disinterest fuels Elio’s secret obsession. Eventually, both shed their protective shields, and they hook up—the scenes of pulling each other’s clothes “off, and off, and off, and off” are explicitly drawn with “tug,” “kiss,” and “blush.” They go on to form true intimacy, but Elio knows their romantic idyll must end with the summer: “I knew that our minutes were numbered, but I didn’t care to count them.” Maxwell’s visuals emphasize the sun-drenched, beguilingly sensual atmosphere. Her Elio and Oliver look like male leads from vintage romance comics, leaning more cheesecake than relatable, which readers of the novel may find less of a problem with Oliver than with Elio. Still. the story’s heady explorations of desire, passion, and heartbreak remain potent. This offers full-color escapism. (Aug.)

Reviewed on 04/10/2026 | Details & Permalink

The enlightening English-language debut from French cartoonist Lubie (A Fox in my Brain) takes on ethnic identity and beauty norms with passion and vulnerability. Rose, a biracial girl, lives on Réunion Island near Madagascar with her parents and brothers. She loathes her “hideous, unruly mane” and envies the popular “zoreil” (mainland French immigrant) girls at school. Intense bullying by classmates (“Did you do your hair with a firecracker?”) leads Rose to brutally cut her locks, which her mother then shaves off. The extreme style incites a retrospective journey through Rose’s anxiety-riddled collegiate years in Paris, where she finds “a woman’s appearance is a constant subject of unnecessary commentary” as she wears weaves, relaxers, and braids. Cheeky infographics and testimonials intercut the rounded, expressive and classically cartoony comics that show manga influences, drawn in appealing earth tones. The factoids—detailing the percentage differences in the gender-based prices of haircuts, or the exploitation supporting the global beauty industry—underscore gut-punching emotional revelations. The research interrupts the flow a touch too often, but comedic visual beats enliven the stuttering pace and showcase Lubie’s fondness for expressive anime flourishes. Rose’s self-acceptance arrives in a heartfelt full-circle moment that affirms those who’ve wrestled with their own complex heritage. This is for fans of Ebony Flowers’s Hot Comb and the graphic edition of Stamped from the Beginning. (May)

Reviewed on 04/10/2026 | Details & Permalink

Phang (Erased) joins up with fine artist Bachelier to take readers on a sunny ramble through fashion history. In a loose frame narrative, Yves Saint Laurent and his longtime friend and muse, Betty Catroux, wander the streets of New York City in the 1960s, looking for a restaurant that will admit Betty even though she’s wearing—quelle horreur!—trousers. Yves has just developed Le Smoking, his groundbreaking tuxedo suit for women, and makes grandiose pronouncements like “Pockets can be so powerful” and “A woman in black is a pencil stroke.” Cameos are aplenty, as Coco Chanel, Candy Darling, George Sand, and Andy Warhol join the pair to discuss the role of fashion in gender identity, politics, religion, law, warfare, and more. The narrative is primarily concerned with the ideas driving Saint Laurent, but dips occasionally into the material of a traditional biography, touching on his background and visiting his atelier. Bachelier switches up his art style to suit the subject and mood of each scene, often using loose, fine-lined drawings that suggest fashion design sketches. The characters saunter through collages of line art, color daubs, swaths of thick black brushwork, and photorealistic backgrounds varied with impressionistic scenes suggestive of mood boards. It’s a smart, unconventional portrait of an artist, with enough style to do its subject justice. (May)

Correction: An earlier version of this review misidentified the setting of the frame narrative.

Reviewed on 04/10/2026 | Details & Permalink

Yudori follows Raging Clouds with a lushly drawn, subtly observed love story set in occupied 1920s Korea. Jun Seomoon, the son of impoverished nobles, stoically works off his family’s debt to a nouveau riche department store owner. This requires living under the same roof as the wealthy commoner’s headstrong daughter, Arisa Jo, “the girl with the slimmest eyebrows” at their school. The two teenagers grow up in a world of rapid change, as Korea is torn by harsh Japanese colonial rule and the seduction of Western culture. Arisa embraces the future and chafes against old-fashioned expectations for Korean women, while Seomoon quails at his first escalator ride (“The stairs are moving!!!”), flinches at an on-screen movie kiss, and is appalled when he’s served steak Western-style: “Just a chunk of meat? What is this savagery?!” Seomoon is determined not to fall for the charms of a “modern girl” and tries to to take Arisa down a peg, criticizing her trendy taste for French novels and Japanese food, but she gives back as good as she gets, and the two grow closer in spite of themselves. Yudori’s stunning art has the retro appeal of 1920s East Asian pulp illustration combined with the elegance of classic printmaking. In softly glowing organic colors and decorative layouts framed by flowers and art nouveau patterns, she draws meticulous historical details, such as the journey a block of tofu takes from a street vendor to a lunch box. Fans of Pachinko will sink with pleasure into this opposites-attract romance. (June)

Reviewed on 04/10/2026 | Details & Permalink