Science journalist Funneman (Electric Context) partners with Dutch children’s book artist Brouwers for an appealing and informative comics primer on the omnipresence of electricity. They approach the phenomenon not simply through lightning and magnetism, but from the unexpected charge between bees, trees, and within the human body (and up to the cosmos). At the outset, Funneman’s friendly avatar roams across fields as he discusses the communication patterns of insects, including bees’ ability to detect and influence electric fields. He goes on to delve into how electricity is “like currency for bacteria” and can be used to cure infections, and explores the “neurobiology” of the slow electrical connection running between tree roots. Additionally, dogs can sniff out buried bar magnets, seals have a kind of “radar mustache” in their whiskers to “unerringly” navigate sharp turns in the water, and chickens can see magnetic fields. As for humans, “we have more than 37 trillion cells in our body [and since] 1933, the electric activity of cells has been well-documented.” While the account is dense with information, the concepts are clearly explained through the combination of Funneman’s snappy voice and the cartoony but still artful comics, diagrams, and visual metaphors by Brouwers. This will appeal to fans of such pop science comics as The Hidden Life of Trees and Insectopolis. (Nov.)

Reviewed on 11/07/2025 | Details & Permalink

Teixeira (A Quick and Easy Guide to Coming Out) combines folksy wisdom, queer romance, and a touch of horror into this affecting drama. Lamont, a young closeted gay man of color, returns to his rural hometown after the death of his father, a right-wing, fearmongering motivational speaker whose grim empire Lamont has no desire to inherit. Instead, he moves in with his kindly aunt Latoya, who raises chickens and brews herbal teas, and flirts with a blonde horseback-riding goat farmer named Coyote. But getting back to nature is hard for Lamont, who was raised to believe that “basically everything in the forest wants to kill you.” His fears take the symbolic form of wolves that stalk him in the woods and in his room at night, and he comes to realize that if he wants to build a future, he can’t run away from the past they represent. Teixeira’s simple, chunky-lined art lays out scenes with the flattened perspective of murals or stained-glass windows. The darker passages are lightened by romance, whimsical scenes of nature, and illustrated recipes for Auntie Latoya’s teas that use the fruits of the land. The result is an intimate and thoughtful tale about working up the courage to face one’s fears. (Nov.)

Reviewed on 11/07/2025 | Details & Permalink

The buddy cop trope gets a sizable makeover—literally—in this playful series opener by Rose (the Corollary series) and King (Jenny Zero). The narrative takes place in an alternate present where giants emerged from below Earth’s surface 40 years prior. After a short but bloody war, they now live in the sovereign state of Brobdingang, strictly segregated from humans. As the story kicks off, detective Gyant must partner with Captain Tamaki, an irascible human, to solve murders that target both the giant (Huge) and human (Doll) communities. Gyant discovers a giant’s body deep below a dark lake, and he and Tamaki realize they’ve stumbled into something more than a murder case—someone’s trying to start a new war. Then a giant skeleton emerges from the surface of the moon and begins falling toward Earth, setting off fears of a global extinction event. Through intricate and imaginative worldbuilding, Rose fashions a truly sinister crime and motive, while King’s art cannily juxtaposes the massive and tiny members of the cast, with rich, earthy color work across expansive panels and double-page spreads. Fans of the Fables and the Dresden Files series will get a kick out of this. (Nov.)

Reviewed on 11/07/2025 | Details & Permalink

An ad hoc cadre of militant cinemaniacs register their distaste for the consumer-capitalist status quo in this hilariously snarky collection of the Instagram webcomic by Gelgud (House in the Jungle). The slightly daft crew of an arthouse theater in an unnamed small town include a self-proclaimed witch, a humanoid duck, and the manager, who hasn’t been outside in seven years. The workers banter about Francis Ford Coppola’s Megalopolis and kvetch over customers and critics—until, led by Bertie, a firebrand who issues Marxist-Leninist diatribes like a late-1960s Jean-Luc Godard character, they storm the booth to “seize the means of projection!” (The pun neatly encapsulates the book’s goofy, knowing humor.) The thin strand of plot follows the chipper revolutionaries as they argue over how best to avoid “zombie consumerism” while staying “devoted to Brechtian principles,” but the narrative mostly bops between escapades—which is no bother because it’s all so funny. Film critic-turned-cartoonist Gelgud’s looping caricatures achieve an appropriate mix of ardent and self-satirizing. This one will be snapped up by cinephiles who might, in between Agnes Varda retrospectives and complaining about Letterboxd, wonder if they could hijack the Criterion Closet van. (Nov.)

Reviewed on 11/07/2025 | Details & Permalink

Castro’s whimsical debut blends art and magic to unspool the tale of a student trying to find her path. Claire, a self-taught witch who specializes in enchanted paintings, hopes to get accepted into the exclusive training program at Ridgewood Coven, even though her foster mom, a protective Eye Beast, urges her to seek a solo apprenticeship instead. The Coven application comprises three magical trials, and the competition is fierce. Claire and her familiar, a snack-loving cat named Edgar, are particularly intimidated by Swan, a popular potion-making influencer who seems to breeze through life. “I’m just the weird homeschooled one who doesn’t really know how to use a wand,” Claire sighs. Castro’s ink-washed art starts out wobbly but develops an affable children’s-book vibe, with the characters visiting charming locales like a tree-house coffee shop, a magical farmers’ market, and a mushroom forest as they fret over their artists’ statements. Though Claire’s mystical world contains hints of darkness, it’s mostly filled in with amusing details like a poetry-spewing spider and a spell activated by sacrificing a jelly donut. Those looking for cozy fantasy with a cute goth touch should take note. (Oct.)

Reviewed on 10/31/2025 | Details & Permalink

With snarky humor and rollicking curlicue art, Eisner nominee Hayden (The Story of My Tits) crafts a food memoir that doubles as a tongue-in-cheek cookbook. Faced with the task of getting family dinner on the table every night, Hayden admits she doesn’t always cook with love: “Jesus, didn’t I feed you freaks last night? How can you be hungry again?!” Her recipes, which are interspersed with autobiographical comics flashing back to her troubled history with home-cooked meals since childhood, include “A Nauseating 1960s Buffet,” “Get Stuffed Zucchini” (made from a disappointing home garden harvest), and “Personal Power Burgers with the Caramelized Snakes of Your Own Failure.” The instructions for “Spaghetti and Musketballs” include “don’t forget to garnish with fresh homegrown anger, impatience, bitterness, and plenty of resentment, to taste.” Her attempt at 1970s hippie cuisine goes up in flames, a home pizza kit blows up her oven, and embracing Wicca does nothing for her inner earth goddess at the kitchen hearth. Still, she continues to be seduced by beatific women on the covers of trendy cookbooks who promise, “I am just so enfierced to help women like you become... women like me!” Hayden’s panels burst with energy, and she fills her margins with vegetables, herbs, pots and pans, and ornery kids. It’s Erma Bombeck by way of Julie Doucet. Readers’ stomachs will ache with laughter. (Nov.)

Reviewed on 10/31/2025 | Details & Permalink

Hollywood director Coppola collaborates with veteran comic creators Ryall (Zombies Vs. Robots) and Phillips (That Texas Blood) on a melodramatic graphic novel adaptation of his 2024 film that falls short of its grand ambitions. Cesar Catilina, a revered and reviled architect and inventor from an elite clan, holds fast to a utopian vision of reshaping the allegorical city of New Rome with his revolutionary material “Megalon.” His foil, Mayor Franklyn Cicero, is the pragmatic protector of the status quo, champion of casino revenue and “traditional values.” Complicating this otherwise straightforward battle of ideals are Cesar’s conniving relatives, his love affair with the mayor’s daughter, his apparent ability to stop time, and a power-hungry television reporter. Coppola personally directed the effort to reimagine the script, and the backstory of his reaching out to Ryall about his ideas is itself fascinating material. But the task of adapting here seems to diminish the intended spectacle, as scenes, sequences, and soliloquies that might be impactful on the big screen get crammed into close panels, overly dense dialogue, and often stiff character art. On-the-nose visual gags (like a Make Rome Great Again hat) don’t help matters. Coppola completists may find something of interest, but as a standalone comic this falls flat. (Oct.)

Reviewed on 10/24/2025 | Details & Permalink

Todd (Buttertubs) infuses this cryptic yet cutesy modern feminist folktale with an outsider-art vibe. Urfi, a “witchcat” drawn with big eyes like Garfield, defies magical law and summons Urbina, a birdlike angel, to help her have a child. The two fall in love and produce eggs, though Urbina warns her, “If you break my heart, the world will end.” The pressures of impending motherhood turn Urbina neurotic, insane, and destructive, forcing Urfi to flee and raise their three magically gifted daughters alone. The girls secretly befriend the Worm King, a child born of Urbina’s madness and vengeance, but even these family bonds dissolve as an apocalyptic conflict brews. Some readers may find the narrative leaps confusing, but those willing to set aside logic will happily follow along as Todd creates an original mythos out of historical magical practices, patchwork scraps of fairy tales, and dreamlike visions. The naive art is sometimes awkward but other times disarmingly beautiful, especially in page layouts inspired by illuminated manuscripts. Like Junko Mizuno, Todd is fond of visual symbols (rainbows, mushrooms, cats, etc.) that signify both psychedelic mysticism and dolled-up femininity. Rough around the edges and impenetrable to its core, this will appeal to lovers of esoteric cartoonists like Ron Regé Jr. (Oct.)

Reviewed on 10/24/2025 | Details & Permalink

This rousing celebration of Fela Aníkúlápó Kuti (1938–1997)—Afrobeat star, truth-teller, commune leader, and frequent “rascal”—blends brisk biographical storytelling with urgent cultural and political history, gorgeous evocations of the power of music and dance, and bursts of bloody violence both factual and fantastical. Nigerian Canadian debut artist Fagbamiye and writer McCreery (Kill Shakespeare) mix documentary realism with a touch of the mystic even in staple music bio scenes of Fela playing to empty clubs in his early days or alienating key collaborators. More showstopping scenes capture Fela’s reclamation of funk as an African expression when booing Nigerian crowds would have preferred to hear James Brown; his late 1960s radicalization in L.A., inspired by the Black Power movement and a lover; and his denunciations of corrupt Nigerian politicians from the stage of his polygamous commune in Lagos—which the Nigerian army eventually invades in a scene of nightmarish violence. Between the colorful escapades unfolds a layered exploration of cultural exchange between people of the African diaspora, and a robust portrayal of a charismatic yet flawed artist whose revolution kept dozens of “Queens” on a planned “sex schedule.” Fagbamiye’s Fela is a force for Pan-African unity and an all-too-human icon. The result is a graphic biography as outraged, outrageous, and swaggering as its subject. Agent: Tanya McKinnon, McKinnon Literary. (Oct.)

Reviewed on 10/24/2025 | Details & Permalink

Superb hardboiled storytelling and killer mid-century design power this noir from Eisner nominees Cantwell (Plastic Man No More) and Crook (Harrow County). The twists and betrayals start with the eponymous escape in 1962, as three felons bust free from the infamous prison in San Francisco Bay, though only two seem to survive the harrowing raft trip to Marin County. The fugitives—cold schemer Frank Morris and shattered, childlike Clarence Anglin—make their way to Modesto to meet up with their contact, a young Black woman who often passes as white and quickly loses her cool as she tries to shepherd the escapees to a Canadian work camp. On their trail are an FBI agent and a U.S. Marshal whose heated argument over jurisdiction is cover for their clandestine queer romance. The fugitives kill recklessly yet also feel conflicted about bloodshed (in one bitter dilemma, a local rancher, IDing them as on the run, demands they murder his wife) as they evade the law and a surprise pursuer. Cantwell’s script is sharp, both in its thriller jolts and surprising empathy. Bleakly gorgeous art by Crook evokes Alfred Hitchcock, Edward Hopper, Badlands, American Graffiti, and vintage crime paperbacks. The effect brilliantly imbues wide-open West Coast vistas with grim beauty and, in the end, a touch of welcome warmth. This will certainly win over noir fans—and may make new ones. (Oct.)

Reviewed on 10/24/2025 | Details & Permalink