Much-anticipated titles by Chris Ware and Lynda Barry launch this fall alongside timely, topical debuts (and some quirky space opera and funnies—or it wouldn’t be comics!).
Top 10
Commute: An Illustrated Memoir of Female Shame
Erin Williams. Abrams ComicArts, Oct. 8, $24.99, ISBN 978-1-4197-3674-2
This “sharp and splendidly drawn memoir will strike a strong chord in the current moment,” per PW’s starred review of Williams’s narrative of her daily commute, with piercing flashbacks.
Heart of Darkness
Peter Kuper. Norton, Nov. 5, $21.95, ISBN 978-0-393-63564-5
World War III Illustrated magazine founder Kuper has the artistic chops to adapt Joseph Conrad’s controversial classic with the complexity (and embedded critique of its colonialist lens) that a modern audience deserves.
The House
Paco Roca, trans. by Andrea Rosenberg. Fantagraphics, Nov. 12, $29.99, ISBN 978-1-68396-263-2
After three siblings reunite at their family vacation home, old rivalries and poignant memories alike are rekindled. Roca is a bestseller in his native Spain, and this will be published simultaneously in a Spanish edition (La Casa).
Invisible Kingdom, Vol. 1
G. Willow Wilson and Christian Ward. Dark Horse/Berger, Nov. 5, trade paper, $19.99,
ISBN 978-1-5067-1227-7
In this lushly drawn sci-fi space opera, the novitiate of a superfuturistic alien nunnery conspires with the crew of a shipping vessel of a familiar corporation.
Making Comics
Lynda Barry. Drawn & Quarterly, Nov. 5, trade paper, $22.95, ISBN 978-1-77046-369-1
Influential indie cartoonist Barry follows up her bestselling Syllabus. Professor Skeletor (as she calls herself) doodles comics-making exercises, inspiring students to tap their inherent creativity.
Nancy
Olivia Jaimes. Andrews McMeel, Oct. 1, $14.99, ISBN 978-1-5248-5325-9
Jaimes, the pseudonym of a web cartoonist, rebooted the classic strip Nancy in 2018 and became the first female creator in the strip’s 80-year run. Her work is collected here.
Qualification: A Graphic Memoir in Twelve Steps
David Heatley. Pantheon, Oct. 1, $28.95, ISBN 978-0-375-42540-0
Heatley’s memoir may sound like a joke—this guy is such an addict, he gets addicted to 12-step programs—but these are earnest confessions from the winningly vulnerable cartoonist.
Rusty Brown
Chris Ware. Pantheon, Sept. 24, $35, ISBN 978-0-375-42432-8
Sui generis cartoonist Ware details the painfully ordinary lives of Nebraskan Rusty Brown, who loves Supergirl, and his family, teachers, and classmates, in dizzyingly telescoping detail that crosses time and genres.
Two Dead
Van Jensen and Nate Powell. Gallery 13, Nov. 19, $29.99, ISBN 978-1-5011-6895-6
Powell (the bestselling March series) returns to the Deep South, which here serves as the backdrop for a noir thriller, with writer Jensen. 50,000-copy announced first printing.
Year of the Rabbit
Tian Veasna. Drawn & Quarterly, Oct. 1, trade paper, $29.95, ISBN 978-1-77046-376-9
Cambodian artist Veasna, who was born three days after the Khmer Rouge took over Phnom Penh, documents how his family survived the aftermath in this timely account.
Listings
2dcloud
Hotel Vibes by Chou Yi (Nov. 11, trade paper, $14.95, ISBN 978-1-937541-53-8). Yi’s collection of seven experimental short comics peek curiously into daily life, with such chapters as “Walk,” “Bathroom,” “Ice Cream,” and “Killers,” featuring voluptuous nudes and angular backdrops.
Abrams Comicarts
Parable of the Sower: A Graphic Novel Adaptation by Octavia E. Butler, John Jennings, and Damian Duffy (Jan. 14, $24.99, ISBN 978-1-4197-3133-4). Following up the same team’s graphic adaptation of Kindred is the Afro-futurist’s dystopian novel envisioning a destroyed 2024 America, and the preacher’s daughter whose struggles will lead to the birth of a new faith.
AHOY Comics
Planet of the Nerds by Paul Constant and Alan Robinson (Oct. 29, trade paper, $17.99, ISBN 978-0-9980442-4-8). The real revenge of the geeks is the 21st century and the contemporary technological era, in this comic series where a trio of prototypical popular jocks are transported in time from the 1980s to 2019 to discover that, in retrospect, they’re super-uncool.
Akashic
Fuck, Now There Are Two of You by Adam Mansbach and Owen Brozman (Oct. 1, $15.95, ISBN 978-1-61775-760-0). The third installment in the adult picture book series that started with Go the F**k to Sleep addresses an older sibling whose family is invaded by a new addition. 100,000-copy announced first printing.
Alternative Comics
Twice Shy by Joel Orff (Sept. 17, trade paper, $14.99, ISBN 978-1-68148-606-2). Bob, a cabbie and comics artist, meets Casey, the child (now a preteen) that he never knew he had; despite an awkward start, the oddball pair slowly form a bond in what the PW review called a “tough yet sweet father-daughter fable.”
Archaia
The Man Who Came Down the Attic Stairs by Celine Loup (Sept. 25, $14.99, ISBN 978-1-68415-352-7). After having a child, Emma begins to suspect something horrific lives in her home, and she loses trust in her detached husband. As she endures sleepless nights, this graphic narrative questions whether her skewed reality is due to postpartum depression or something more sinister.
Archie Comics
Blossoms 666 by Cullen Bunn and Laura Braga (Nov. 5, trade paper, $17.99, ISBN 978-1-68255-797-6). Riverdale’s popular, rich twins Cheryl and Jason Blossom may seem like regular teenagers, but in this horror version of the popular Archie series, one of them is secretly the Antichrist, putting the usual cast at risk.
Arsenal Pulp
Swimming in Darkness by Lucas Harari, trans. by David Homel (Nov. 5, trade paper, $24.95, ISBN 978-1-55152-767-3). Harari’s debut graphic novel follows architectural student Pierre as he treks to sketch a thermal springs complex, deep in a mysterious mountain of the Swiss Alps. There, he meets a man similarly obsessed with its secrets, who wants Pierre gone.
Birdcage Bottom
Rooftop Stew by Max Clotfelter (Sept., trade paper, $12, ISBN 978-0-982-65958-8). Clotfelter’s short story collection embraces the grotesque aesthetic of underground comics, alternating bizarre fiction with reflections on traumatic memories of his growing up in the rural South.
Black Dog & Leventhal
The Song of the Machine: From Disco to DJs to Techno, a Graphic Novel of Electronic Music by David Blot and Mathias Cousin (Oct. 8, $24.99, ISBN 978-0-316-52617-3). This graphic work, with a foreword by Daft Punk, illustrates the history and personalities behind the electronic dance music genre, from its emergence in disco to the contemporary scene, with playlists included for each decade.
Boom! Studios
Bury the Lede by Gaby Dunn and Claire Roe (Oct. 8, trade paper, $19.99, ISBN 978-1-68415-427-2). YouTuber and bestselling author Dunn (Bad with Money) teams up with cartoonist Roe to delve into graphic crime fiction, with a young reporter, Madison Jackson, who tangles with femme fatale/celebrity socialite Dahlia Kennedy.
Campfire
Ambedkar: India’s Crusader for Human Rights by Kieron Moore and Sachin Nagar (Aug. 6, trade paper, $16.99, ISBN 978-93-81182-81-9). Ambedkar (1891–1956) fought against prejudice as a human rights activist in India advocating for the “untouchables” caste, and this graphic biography follows him from his early life struggles through political awakening to becoming an architect in the framing of the Indian constitution.
Conundrum
Plummet by Sherwin Tjia (Oct. 8, trade paper, $20, ISBN 978-1-77262-040-5). As Amelia “Mel” Eichenwald wakes up to find herself in free fall, with random objects (and later, other people) dropping beside her, this graphic novel follows along with her descent in a narrative that questions how to tell a story when the protagonist just continues to fall.
Dark Horse
Calamity Kate by Magdalene Visaggio et al. (Oct. 29, trade paper, $17.99, ISBN 978-1-5067-1188-1). Visaggio creates in Kate a contemporary superheroine, who quits her day job and destructive life to head off to L.A.—in order to fight zombies, vampires, demons, goblins, and the Seven Fabled Beasts of Yore.
Neil Gaiman’s Snow, Glass, Apples by Neil Gaiman and Colleen Doran (Aug. 20, $17.99, ISBN 978-1-5067-0979-6). Gaiman and frequent collaborator Doran swap the good and evil characters in this graphic fairy tale retelling in which Snow White is a terror to her poor stepmother, and the queen must thwart her in order to save the kingdom.
DC
Heroes in Crisis by Tom King, Clay Mann, and Lee Weeks (Oct. 1, $29.99, ISBN 978-1-4012-9142-6). Eisner Award–winner King, a former CIA officer, imagines DC superheroes battling a new villain: PTSD. When a massacre occurs at the Sanctuary, a secret facility where superheroes heal from the traumas of cosmic combat, two heroes wind up as suspects.
Superman: Year One by Frank Miller and John Romita Jr. (Nov. 12, $29.99, ISBN 978-1-4012-9137-2). The creator of Sin City retraces Superman’s origin story, from his crash on earth fleeing Krypton to growing up in Kansas and becoming Clark Kent, and the adventures that follow his emergent powers.
Dead Reckoning
Once upon a Time in France by Fabien Nury and Sylvain Vallée, trans. by Ivanka Hahnenberger (Sept. 18, trade paper, $29.95, ISBN 978-1-68247-471-6). Nury takes on the controversial life of Joseph Joanovici, a Romanian Jew, who as an immigrant in occupied France of WWII acted both as a Nazi collaborator and inside the French Resistance.
Drawn & Quarterly
The River at Night by Kevin Huizenga (Sept. 24, $34.95, ISBN 978-1-77046-374-5). Glenn Ganges has insomnia, and his attempts to sleep bring currents of consciousness that recall his career in the ’90s dot-com boom and bust; his marriage and its pleasures and small betrayals; and what he imagines it would be like to be someone else entirely.
Fantagraphics
Free S**t by Charles Burns (Sept. 24, $19.99, ISBN 978-1-68396-260-1). Burns has for almost 20 years shared sketches and process pieces in a secret zine series handed only to close friends. Twenty-five issues are collected in a volume for his fans and followers to peek into the evolution of characters and motifs in his critically acclaimed graphic novels.
I Know What I Am: The Life and Times of Artemisia Gentileschi by Gina Siciliano (Sept. 10, $29.99, ISBN 978-1-68396-211-3). This graphic biography of the 17th-century Roman painter Artemisia Gentileschi, drawn in ballpoint pen, brings a #MeToo era lens to depict the sexual harassment and oppression she fought against to rise up as a groundbreaking artist.
First Second
Open Borders: The Science and Ethics of Immigration by Bryan Caplan and Zach Weinersmith (Oct. 29, trade paper, $19.99, ISBN 978-1-250-31696-7). Economist Caplan lays out his argument for open borders, with the help of artist Weinersmith, demonstrating how his research leads him to advocate for a radical policy change in America that could benefit the worldwide economy and eliminate poverty.
Griffin
Spring Rain: A Graphic Memoir of Love, Madness, and Revolution by Andy Warner (Jan. 28, trade paper, $19.99, ISBN 978-1-250-16597-8). Warner studied literature in Beirut in 2005, where his coming-of-age among an LGBTQ bohemian crowd crashes into the reality of the violent political struggle in the city. This graphic memoir blends both awakenings.
Harper Wave
Big She Bang: The Herstory of the Universe According to God the Mother by Marisa Acocella (Nov. 19, $30, ISBN 978-0-06-290566-6). Acocella crafts an alternate, illustrated woman-centric story of the whole universe, narrated by God the Mother, and highlighting “shevolutionaries,” from earliest Eve and Kali to contemporary RBG and Gloria Steinem.
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Animal Farm: The Graphic Novel by George Orwell and Odyr (Sept. 3, $22, ISBN 978-0-358-09315-2). The classic fable on the corruption of power, whether of man or of pig, is played out on a painted farmscape in this painterly, authorized graphic adaptation. 50,000-copy announced first printing.
HUMANOIDS
Twilight Man, by Koren Shadmi (Oct. 8, $29.95, ISBN 978-1-64337-571-7). Rod Serling steps out of the re-runs back into this graphic biography that focuses on his outsider status in Hollywood, first as a writer trying to break in, and then a rabble-rouser who challenged networks to push boundaries in concept and format in the Golden Age of Television.
ICON
Gender: A Graphic Guide by Meg-John Barker and Julia Scheele (Nov. 12, trade paper, $18.95, ISBN 978-1-78578-452-1). The creators of Queer: A Graphic History return with an illustrated guide to gender and its historical framing that dives into current debates and compares perspectives from patriarchal societies to trans communities.
IDW
After the Spring: A Story of Tunisian Youth by Helene Aldeguer, trans. by Edward Gauvin (Sept. 22, $21.99, ISBN 978-1-684055-46-3). In the years after the Arab Spring of 2011, a group of Tunisians must cope with their uncertain future, pursuing daily life and personal dreams despite the calls for activism in the streets and feeling abandoned by their government.
Image Comics
Simon Says, Vol. 1, by Andre R. Frattino and Jesse Lee (Sept. 17, trade paper, $16.99, ISBN 978-1-5343-1319-4). Simon, a Jewish artist forced to paint train cars during the Holocaust, works with the U.S. military to hunt down former high-ranking Nazi officers. But when Simon is told his crusade must stop, he goes vigilante to seek revenge for his family and his people.
Iron Circus Comics
The Complete Curvy by Sylvan Migdal (Nov. 5, trade paper, $50, ISBN 978-1-945820-40-3). Migdal’s webcomic, collected in one volume, stars an ordinary girl who hops through dimensions and pursues myriad adventures with the help of a cast of silly characters.
Koyama
Stunt by Michael Deforge (Sept. 17, trade paper, $15, ISBN 978-1-927668-69-6). An actor hires a professional double, then explores depths of degradation and self-destruction, in this graphic novel by the absurdist comics creator DeForge.
Lion Forge
Stay by Lewis Trondheim and Hubert Chevillard (Aug. 27, $19.99, ISBN 978-1-5493-0771-3). Fabienne’s lover Roland is killed in a freak accident just before their planned vacation. She goes on the trip anyway, dazed and hiding from the tragedy, then meets a street vendor, Paco, who helps her process her loss.
Marvel
Ms. Marvel, Vol. 1, by Saladin Ahmed and Minkyu Jung (Oct. 29, trade paper, $17.99, ISBN 978-1-302-91829-3). Eisner Award–winner Ahmed takes over the teenage Muslim superhero series, as Kamala faces both a personal loss and an alien invasion of New Jersey, as well as the mystery of who is the “Chosen One.”
Spider-Man: Life Story by Chip Zdarsky, Mark Bagley, and John Dell (Nov. 5, trade paper, $17.99, ISBN 978-1-302-91733-3). It’s almost 60 years since Peter Parker was bitten by a radioactive spider in 1962’s Amazing Fantasy #15; Zdarsky and Bagley retell the history of Spiderman, setting key events in the series against six different decades.
Microcosm
Hardcore Anxiety: A Graphic Guide to Punk Rock and Mental Health by Reid Chancellor (Sept. 10, trade paper, $14.95, ISBN 978-1-62106-767-2). With the guiding narrative of a young fan discovering the music and working through mental illness, this graphic novel speaks to the larger intersections of punk rock and mental health from the music’s inception in the 1970s to the current scene.
NBM
Forbidden Harbor by Teresa Radice and Stefano Turconi (Sept. 15, $29.99, ISBN 978-1-68112-232-8). It’s 1807, and Abel is shipwrecked off the coast of Siam and can only remember his name. When he’s picked up by a ship from Her Majesty’s Navy, a rowdy and magical seafaring adventure ensues, including lost treasure, secret identities, and three fugitive captain’s daughters.
New York Review Comics
Pittsburgh by Frank Santoro (Sept. 17, hardcover, $29.95, ISBN 978-1-98167-404-8). Santoro employs mixed media to deconstruct the story of his family, trying to understand his parents’ estranged marriage by working backwards to their courtship, while drawing a portrait of the changing face of the city of his birth and coming-of-age in the 1980s (with his dachshund, Pretzel, as a small witness).
Nobrow
Americana (and the Act of Getting Over It) by Luke Healy (Sept. 10, trade paper, $18.95, ISBN 978-1-910620-61-8). Irish cartoonist Healy tracks his attempt to walk the length of the Pacific Crest Trail, which runs 2,650 miles, from California’s border with Mexico to Washington’s border with Canada, and what he learns along the way.
North Atlantic
Me, Mikko, and Annikki: A Community Love Story in a Finnish City by Tiitu Takalo, trans. by Helena Halmariand Michael Demson (Aug. 6, trade paper, $24.95, ISBN 978-1-62317-360-9). Finnish graphic novelist Takalo, in an English-language debut, draws the fight to save her historic working-class neighborhood, Annikki, from gentrification and highrise development.
Random House
Excuse Me: Cartoons, Complaints, and Notes to Self by Liana Finck (Sept. 24, trade paper, $20, ISBN 978-1-984801-51-7). Compiled from Instagram and the New Yorker, these cartoons by Finck look askance at everyday experiences in her scratchy sketch style, with chapters on love, dating, gender (and other politics), time and space, and “Notes to Self,” among other topics.
Secret Acres
Persephone’s Garden by Glynnis Fawkes (Oct. 1, trade paper, $21.95, ISBN 978-0-9991935-6-3). Inspired to retell the myth of Persephone, which ancient Greeks used to explain the eternal cycle of seasons, Fawkes presents this auto-biographical collection as a meditation on girlhood, motherhood, and the unyielding passage of time.
Selfmadehero
The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov, Andrzej Klimowski and Danusia Schejbal (Nov. 12, trade paper, $24.99, ISBN 978-0-9558169-2-5). The devil arrives in Moscow, accompanied by a witch, an assassin, and a talking cat, and wreak havoc in the city and in the lives of a writer, “the Master,” and his lover Margarita, in this graphic adaptation of Bulgakov’s classic novel.
Ten Speed
Amazons, Abolitionists, and Activists: A Graphic History of Women’s Fight for Their Rights by Mikki Kendall and Anna D’Amico (Nov. 5, trade paper, $19.99, ISBN 978-0-399-58179-3). This feminist comic book history traces the struggle for women’s rights from the ancient world to modern times, including suffrage, abolition, labor, LGBTQ liberation, and the (ongoing) waves of feminism.
Titan Comics
The Illuminati Ball by Cynthia von Buhler (Oct. 15, $29.99, ISBN 978-1-78773-221-6). This graphic novel adapts the immersive theater production by von Buhler which merges the myth surrounding the Illuminati, a supposed secret organization of the rich and powerful, as well as the 1972 Surrealist Ball that influenced Stanley Kubrick’s film Eyes Wide Shut.
Top Shelf
Cosmoknights, Book One by Hannah Templer (Oct. 1, trade paper, $19.99, ISBN 978-1-60309-454-2). The solo graphic novel debut of Glow series artist Templer is set in a space age and medieval world mash-up with LGBTQ characters, featuring Pan, her friend (and secret princess) Tara, and galaxy-hopping gladiators who will help them fight the patriarchy across the universe.
Uncivilized Books
Holy Hannah by Will Dinski (Oct. 29, trade paper, $24.95, ISBN 978-1-941250-36-5). Dinski loosely draws from the life of cult-leader Jim Jones in this graphic investigation into belief, selfhood, and indoctrination, and the ways that lives intersect in unexpected and sometimes toxic ways.
Univ. of Minnesota
Jack and the Ghost by Chan Poling and Lucy Michell (Sept. 24, $17.95, ISBN 978-1-5179-0571-2). Fisherman Jack Cooper is the last of his long family line and spends his days in mourning, in the remote town of Greyshore, until a ghostly woman appears and beckons him into the sea—while his friend, Red, tries to keep him on the shore.
Univ. of Texas
Bowie: An Illustrated Life by María Hesse and Fran Ruiz, trans. by Ned Sublette (Sept. 6, $21.95, ISBN 978-1-4773-1887-4). David Bowie’s life story appears as a graphic bio, from his working-class childhood to glam rock emergence to stardom, including personal dramas, substance abuse and recovery, and a cast of contemporaries featuring Iggy Pop, Brian Eno, and Freddie Mercury.
Valiant
The Forgotten Queen by Tini Howard and Amilcar Pinna (Sept. 3, trade paper, $9.99, ISBN 978-1-68215-324-6). Howard and artist Pinna craft a horror/fantasy featuring the War Monger, an ancient witch from the Mongol Empire, who rode with warriors from Siberia to Carpathia and inspired their bloodlust, and who has returned to keep up the killing.
Viz Media
Cats of the Louvre by Taiyo Matsumoto, trans. by Michael Arias (Sept. 17, $29.99, ISBN 978-1-974707-08-9). Eisner Award–winner Matsumoto imagines a family of cats who inhabit the Louvre museum in Paris at night; when the gallery patrons go home, a surreal world comes to life among the works of art, witnessed only by these stealthy kitties.
