Star Trek actor and Eisner award winner Takei follows They Called Us Enemy with a deeply felt and good-humored graphic memoir that charts his long journey toward self-acceptance as a gay man. The accessible narrative opens with a prologue set in 2022, when Takei appeared on The View to discuss coming out at the “very late” age of 68 and declared that “society groomed me to be closeted.” He then flashes back to his boyhood, where he learns to pretend to be attracted to girls: “Even at this early stage, I was an actor... hiding my true self behind a character.” In high school, he develops a passion for the stage, and eventually he lands roles in theater, film, and television. Alongside fond memories of playing Sulu on Star Trek, he peppers in cameos from such luminaries as Cary Grant. Across the years, he confronts personal, professional, and historic highs and lows. Despite his fears, when he finally comes out publicly, it bolsters his career. He campaigns openly for gay marriage and gets asked to appear on series like The Big Bang Theory. Harmony Becker’s crisp, bright art complements Takei’s sunny storytelling, and though he frankly acknowledges present-day political challenges, he concludes on a determinedly optimistic note: “If we have the courage to fight for our principles, America will be okay.” This invigorating autobiography effortlessly mixes inspiration with insight. (June)

Reviewed on 05/09/2025 | Details & Permalink

The Kwong brothers debut in English with a new agey sci-fi thriller that tosses a bewildering flurry of high concepts into an outlandish but rollicking adventure. Ella Summer, reporter for a tabloid that investigates UFOs and urban legends, is hiding quirks that could land her in the pages of her own paper, such as her ability to talk to trees. When she pries into the death of her former professor, who used to peddle alternate theories of evolution, she uncovers evidence of a conspiracy involving rival alien invaders. The plot incorporates enough paranormal paranoia to power a season of The X-Files: lizard people, men in black, indigo children, aliens gathering on the dark side of the moon, and characters casually dropping knowledge like, “humans store the information of all interstellar races within their D.N.A. coding.” Even when things get weird(er)—for example, when Ella scores a ride from two celestial mechanics in mascot costumes—the proceedings look stunning, thanks to artist Chi-Kit Kwong’s organic lines, funky textures, and lively character art reminiscent of seinen manga artists like Naoki Urasawa. The story may be too far-out for some, but those who can get into the groove will have a blast. (May)

Reviewed on 05/09/2025 | Details & Permalink

Roberts follows up The Joy of Quitting with more deadpan glimpses into her daily life that reveal much by saying little. Much of this volume was drawn during the Covid-19 lockdowns and their immediate aftermath, and Roberts captures the alternately claustrophobic and cozy vibes of the period succinctly. “It’s been really weird getting used to seeing my co-workers without masks,” she reflects. “Mouths and noses are a lot less attractive than eyes.” Her fine-lined black-and-white sketches capture moments ranging from the weighty (dealing with her multiple sclerosis, Roberts monitors her health and reflects on the “black holes in her brain”) to the aggressively mundane (“Can I take a picture?” she asks her kid on their first trip to Sam’s Club. “This is a special moment in your childhood”). Moments of domestic comedy include Keiler’s rejoinder, “Is anyone downstairs cooking?” to her child’s inquiry about the whereabouts of dinner, or her husband’s gentle ribbing about the many times she’s vowed to quit drawing. Despite the difficulties sustaining her creative practice, she finds meaning in art: “The bad part of making comics again,” she says, “is that I feel worse on days when I’m too sick to do it.” Fans of Roberts’s dry humor and relentless honesty will be grateful that she finds it hard to quit. (May)

Reviewed on 05/09/2025 | Details & Permalink

Video game writer and web cartoonist Ishihiro (How Baby) debuts with this vibrant slow-burn sapphic romance. Imogen is living the life she always dreamed of: she’s a stay-at-home mom with four kids and a ponytail-sporting husband, Jonathan, who handles the family’s finances (“It’s OK babe... because I’m the one who makes the money”). But when edgy queer cellist and single mom Alex moves in next door, Imogen catches an unexpected crush. Then she catches her husband mismanaging their bills, and decides to dig deeper—only to find his sultry texts with a coworker. But heartbreak quickly turns into a new beginning—Imogen and the kids move in with Alex, she goes back to college (with a fresh short haircut), divorces Jonathan, and slowly falls in love with Alex. As the two women each grapple with their own baggage, they realize that life is better together with their boisterous blended family. Ishihiro’s colorful, animated style is at once cute and cleanly rendered, with dynamic movement from panel to panel, and welcome representation of LGBTQ+ characters and diverse body types. It’s a refreshing, inviting, and much-needed take on remaking traditional ideas of family. Readers will fall for Imogen and Alex just as they fall for each other. (May)

Reviewed on 05/09/2025 | Details & Permalink

Mazars’s sparkling English-language debut depicts the thrill of dance in graceful color and linework. In late-1950s Germany, young dancer Uli diligently studies classical ballet but adores American movie musicals. A tryst with Anthony, a Black American dancer, convinces him to move to New York City and pursue his dream of making it on Broadway. There, he befriends live-wire Patty, an aspiring playwright, and hooks up with Patty’s cousin, Jacob—while still trying to reconnect with Anthony. Mazars captures the era in blazing watercolor and details the nuances of midcentury bohemian New York, including the discrimination Anthony and Patty face as a Black dancer and a woman writer, respectively, and the open secret of gay culture in the theater world. Her loose, elegant figures recall Jules Feiffer’s cartoon dancers, and she mixes up art styles to suggest different forms of dance: classical and experimental ballet, Broadway hoofing (a style of tap dancing), or partiers dancing to rock music in clubs. The visual fluidity provides the right look for the story of a man who seeks freedom through his art and declares, “I never want to be rigid.” It’s a showstopper. (May)

Reviewed on 05/09/2025 | Details & Permalink

Through vivid renderings of once lush landscapes devastated by industry, and intimate profiles of those who fight to protect their land, climate organizer and cartoonist Nalamalapu’s bracing debut centers the thriving spirit of environmental activism. When backers of the Mountain Valley Pipeline proposed a destructive route through Appalachia, Nalamalapu joined what would become a decade-long fight. Here, they dedicate a chapter each to six advocates they met through this work. Photographer Paula Mann walked the pipeline’s proposed route, taking pictures of the land that would later inspire the Forest Service to “change their plans” given “what was at stake.” Researcher and nurse Karolyn Givens wrote reports for Congress and “took my homemade brownies with me” to court. Science teacher Becky Crabtree, who says “Appalachia is in my blood,” chained herself to her Ford Pinto to stop construction; single mom Crystal Mello joined Virginia’s famous Yellow Finch tree sit; and “seedkeeper” Desiree Shelley worked to connect herself and her children to their Indigenous homeland. Nalamalapu’s accessible portraits of everyday resistance capture the impact of what a single person can do in the face of corporate greed. Fans of eco-comics like Climate Changed will find hope in this energizing call to action. (May)

Reviewed on 05/02/2025 | Details & Permalink

In 2013, in Western Uttar Pradesh, India, two Hindu cousins killed a Muslim man, and an angry crowd killed them in retaliation. This is the conflict Sacco (Paying the Land) investigates in his meticulous and beautifully crafted account of religious and territorial strife. Massive riots ensue; every eruption is connected to a previous event, with Sacco tracing it all the way back to the 1947 partition. He talks to civic leaders and local journalists, as well as to ordinary Jats—a relatively well-off Hindu ethnic group—and Muslims, who are mostly poor. He often expresses cynicism about the stories he hears: “Individual recollections must give way to what can be asserted as the collective truth.” In the absence of meaningful intervention by the state, mob-rule rules, the poorest suffer the most, and women become “a battlefield.” Though the intricate narrative requires careful reading for the uninitiated (and arguably for those who are deeply entangled, as well), the comics format allows readers to slow down and consider each moment in Sacco’s muscular, finely detailed art. As the title implies, Sacco is not particularly hopeful about the future, and he proffers a convincing thesis about how politicians leverage violence to fan the flames of old conflicts that then beget new violence. Paying homage to the importance of seeking truth, however elusive, this timely work is as powerful as it is artful. Agent: Nicole Aragi, Aragi, Inc. (Oct.)

Reviewed on 05/02/2025 | Details & Permalink

Eisner winner Kuper (Ruins) delivers a lyrical graphic history of the relationship between insects and humans. From griffonflies the size of hawks that “ruled the skies” during the Carboniferous era to how malaria impacted conquerors worldwide (Hannibal lost an eye to it), insects—all 10 quintillion of them—have constantly fluttered and crawled their way through history. The narrative opens with a brother and sister heading to an exhibit on insects at the New York Public Library. Then a disaster wipes out humanity, and insects reign. “Much, much later,” talking monarch butterflies, dung beetles, and other insects explore the building (“Wow! An entire library filled with exhibits about us!”). From bees to ant farms, how humans tolerate and even sometimes deify (“I was sacred, damnit” the dung beetle shouts) the ubiquitous life-forms is rendered in acrobatic storytelling. In addition to profiles of scientists like Rachel Carson, other human notables, including novelist Vladimir Nabokov—a dedicated butterfly enthusiast—get their due. A visual tour de force, the page layouts juxtapose myriad insects against the majestic architecture of the library, and the highly detailed drawings of the exhibits contain countless Easter eggs, including QR codes that lead to supplemental audio. Kuper’s visuals are breathtaking and many moments, like a monarch suddenly perceiving the magnetic field that will guide her home, are magical. It’s a stunning achievement. Agent: Judith Hansen, Hansen Literary. (May)

Reviewed on 05/02/2025 | Details & Permalink

“The last time we spoke, I was 14 and terrified,” writes journalist and artist Mechanic at the outset of his deeply moving and visually innovative debut about his mother’s death, at age 49, of cancer. Afterward, Jesse’s grief unleashes a torrent of mental struggles, the cruelest of which are intrusive thoughts that tell him, “You wanted her to die. Be honest.... You’re happy, overjoyed even.” His OCD is a “stone-hearted internal bully,” represented by a giant rendered in scribbled lines. The narrative employs spacious, architectural, and often cannily symmetrical illustrations to depict his “cascading” psychological landscape. After feeling nearly suicidal, he discovers punk and hip-hop and “storytelling and pain” in music that helps him escape the torments of his own mind. Looking back now that he’s a parent himself, Mechanic realizes how hard it must have been for his mom to leave her family unwillingly and too soon. The way he currently lives—urgently, artistically—is, he writes in tribute to his mother, “because of all the things you taught me while you were here, and what your absence has taught me as well.” Such reflections will ring painfully familiar to anyone who has stumbled around in the darkness of grief. This vulnerable graphic memoir cuts deep. (Sept.)

Reviewed on 05/02/2025 | Details & Permalink

Revoy (Animus) serves up more unnerving supernatural horror in this uneven collection. In a frame narrative, three spooky storytellers gather in the bathroom of a mysterious old house—“In this place, time is all that matters,” a boy lounging in the bathtub explains to a newcomer—to trade tales of terror. Whoever tells the scariest story wins the right to leave this strange purgatory. The stories take readers from modern New England, where animals are stolen from a college museum’s “laboratory of the living” to feed a nefarious pet, to ancient Egypt, where a group of young explorers goes too deep underground. A shared Lovecraftian tone links the tales, as does the presence of Ümic, a demonic entity who offers ill-advised deals to mortals. Revoy’s dense, faintly old-fashioned linework, reminiscent of alt cartoonists like Tony Millionaire but with elements of manga, evokes the feeling of a vintage storybook. He excels at drawing grotesque horror but also renders people, animals, and insects with an exaggerated realism that makes his monsters all the more disturbing. The stories tend to be better at building tension and mood than providing satisfyingly scary endings; the resolutions are often disappointingly abrupt. Even so, fans of sophisticated horror will enjoy soaking in the atmosphere of elegant dread. (May)

Reviewed on 05/02/2025 | Details & Permalink