A found family of New York City bohemians finds strength through art in this affirming if somewhat simplistic outing from Zanfardino (You Never Heard of Me). Guerilla artist Rebecca, aka Hecate, despairs at her inability to reach an audience through her admittedly roundabout method of putting up cryptic murals around the city. Resolving to drop la vie boheme and become a “normal person,” she internally monologues about how vapid such normies are. Despite her aims to go mainstream, her friend Mateo drags her into the local queer arts community to volunteer on a production of Rent (the script from which Zanfardino draws this comic’s themes and plot beats). As the troupe’s costumer, Rebecca kicks up romantic sparks with motorbike enthusiast-chanteuse Naomi and helps a trans actor decide whether to conceal his chest scars. Zanfardino’s dynamic, flowing art, tinted in a limited palette of diluted earth tones, adds visual appeal to the slight story. Her views of New York landmarks, streets, and crowds are as eye-catching as her cast of stylish artistes. Despite Rebecca’s lofty pronouncements, the plot doesn’t run deeper than the philosophy offered by the pot-dealing owner of a vintage clothing shop: “Isn’t art just proudly showing your scars to the world?” Those in need of such reassurance will find this worth a look. (May)

Reviewed on 05/16/2025 | Details & Permalink

New Zealand–based animator and cartoonist Wenlock’s edgy debut captures adolescence’s melancholy and rage. Awkward teen Peter quietly navigates his relationships with his bickering parents and a group of bullies led by his cocky classmate, Gus. Despite Peter’s gentle demeanor, his impulse to seek justice makes his situation worse. When new girl Charlie arrives at school, her bravado and snark put Gus and his gang in their place. She draws Peter in, and out of his shell, but also awakens something reckless in him, telling him, “You’re a badass, Peter.” With Charlie’s coaching, Peter begins provoking his tormentors, daring Gus into a cycle of retaliation that ends in tragedy. Wenlock renders his characters in a minimalist, cartoony black-and-white, which belies the complex storytelling. Bullies become more sympathetic characters, families fall apart, no one learns their lessons, and the guy doesn’t get the girl. In a rare moment of introspection, Peter confesses to Charlie, “I’m scared.” He is right to be. Fans of Charles Forsman’s The End of the Fucking World will want to pick up this coming-of-age tale filtered through the lens of a Robert Bresson film. (May)

Reviewed on 05/16/2025 | Details & Permalink

This adept memoir, the solo debut in English from Czech artist Jislová (Bald), chronicles her history of dysfunctional dating with humor and heart but little resolution. From her first school crushes, Stephanie (as the English translation renders her name) falls into a pattern: obsessing over crushes, then losing interest as soon as she starts dating them. In art school, her friends pair off, and she feels pressure to settle into a serious relationship. But the closest she gets to a long-term partner is Mike, an aloof repeat hookup who doesn’t want his friends to know they’re sleeping together. (“It’s like he liked me only when no one was looking.”) Stephanie studies psychology, confronts the childhood traumas that shaped her attachment issues, and learns to set boundaries but remains unsure of what she really wants. It can be frustrating to observe repeat missteps, but Jislová’s crisp art, enlivened with pops of rosy color, gives a smart gloss to her foolish choices. The narrative’s wry moments include a tour through Stephanie’s gallery of unattainable love interests, her disastrous Tinder dates (“rude to the waitress,” “doesn’t recycle,” “Axe body spray”), and her wary first look at Mike’s bedroom: “Most true crime podcasts begin like this.” Readers may sigh over Stephanie’s mistakes, but they’re likely also to sympathize. (May)

Reviewed on 05/16/2025 | Details & Permalink

Boyd’s understated yet deeply moving second graphic memoir (after Chicken Rising) recounts her experience as a shy girl entering junior high in late 1970s Canada. Dawn’s mom, a bridge- and bingo-playing paragon of small-town decency, thunders against sex in movies, declares that the Legion hall where her husband enjoys a drink is a “den of iniquity,” and leans against the door of the bathroom while Dawn bathes, admonishing her that “Jesus sees everything you do.” Dawn turns these proclamations into a song, “Denniveniquity,” that she sings to herself as she heads to the wood-paneled basement to wild out on a precious night alone: smoking like her parents, tippling from their musty bottles, and blasting Barry Manilow. Boyd’s achingly funny vignettes follow Dawn from 1977—the year of seeing Star Wars four times, which gets spoiled when a group of boys at the theater call her “Tits Almighty”—to 1980 and her first kiss, with one of a series of boys she pursues, flees from, gets bored with, and panics over. Boyd crafts scenes that are piercingly precise and scraped of sentiment, with expressive, detailed art that illuminates how Dawn’s face reveals her joys, disappointments, confusions, and occasional bursts of insight. It’s a poignant and prickly blast from the past. (May)

Reviewed on 05/16/2025 | Details & Permalink

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