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Top 24 Graphic Novels, Comics & Manga:
July 2025
Good to have you back as we explore another bountiful batch of forthcoming international comics in print and in English. This month they range across genres, themes, styles and origins. I’m especially pleased that Saga de Xam, one of the pivotal missing masterpieces of the 1960s revolution in bandes dessinées is finally arriving in English after nearly 60 years.
Also arriving and much-anticipated, the complete translation of The Solitary Gourmet, an essential manga masterpiece illustrated by Jiro Taniguchi. The others range from biographies of a Tudor Queen, Walt Disney and his brother and sequential art genius Will Eisner to memoirs, further manga, a massive BD best-seller for kids and much more besides. Take a look below and see what piques your interests!
10,000 Ink Stains: A Memoir
by Jeff Lemire
Dark Horse
$54.99
The publisher says:
Dark Horse Books proudly presents this hardcover memoir collection showcasing the work of the legendary Eisner Award-winning comic book creator Jeff Lemire, who has created some of the most iconic stories in modern comics. Featuring his brilliant work from Sweet Tooth, Essex County, Black Hammer, Descender, and so much more. Lemire takes the reader book-by-book, writing essays about the making of each project, showcasing artwork from all of them, details about his personal life during the creation of each book, sharing some never-before-seen process material on each book, and unpublished stories as well. This is the ultimate book for Jeff Lemire and modern comic book fans. 192pgs colour hardcover.
The Age of Video Games: A Graphic History of Gaming from Pong to VR and Beyond
by Jean Zeid & Emile Rouge, translated by Jen Vaughn
Andrews McMeel
$19.99
The publisher says:
Press Start on an immersive journey revealing the pixels, polygons, and people that revolutionised entertainment forever. Join journalist Jean Zeid, artist Émilie Rouge, and their console pal Roby to learn how digital dreams built an industry now worth hundreds of billions of dollars. This engaging and comprehensive graphic novel is a knowledge power-up for hardcore gamers and curious noobs of all ages! Time travel to pivotal moments in video game history with a wistful millennial Jean Zeid, extremely online zoomer, Émilie Rouge, and their robot sidekick Roby in a lively, action-packed conversation all generations of gamers will enjoy. Émilie’s massive portal cannon takes the team from era-to-era, lab-to-lab, revealing the real people, inventions, and breakthroughs in gaming. Go right with them as they clear levels in 8-bit sidescrollers, combat games, simulators, multi-player RPGs, and more—but watch your step! Includes a full index and acknowledgements. 240pgs colour paperback.
Bloody Mary: A Graphic Biography of Mary Tudor
by Kristina Gehrmann
Andrews McMeel
$22.99
The publisher says:
An elegant, intimate graphic novel retelling of Mary “the Bloody” Tudor’s infamous life and evolution from loyal subject to royal tyrant. The story of Mary Tudor––oldest child and daughter of Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon, sister to the famous Elizabeth I––as never told before. A chronological telling of Mary’s life as “told” by her spans her magnificent life, starting from her “first memory” at the age of two to becoming the first queen to inherit the throne of an England in disarray. Once rejected at birth, Mary was certain the cause of suffering was her subjects’ rejection of the one true faith: Catholicism. Her zealous campaign to re-Catholicise England was unrelenting in its brutality, re-christening her, “Mary, the Bloody.” The Tudors famously used fine art to define their reign. Using expressive line work and lush watercolour, German graphic novelist fittingly teases the painterly allure of royalty as she reveals the stark loneliness of the crown. Gehrmann pulls from real quotes from historical documents and letters along with dramatisations of known historic events. These details immerse us in Mary I’s epic life from her volatile childhood to her tragic demise, rendering a stunning portrait of a “bastard queen” losing her grip on power. Kristina Gehrmann is an illustrator and graphic novelist, exploring historical and fantasy subjects in a detailed painterly style. Her preferred tools are a Wacom tablet and Photoshop, and her clients are book publishers. Her graphic novel/comic debut Im Eisland tells the story of the lost Franklin Expedition in a trilogy of three comics, the first of which won the German Children’s Literature Award in 2016. She is deaf since birth, and currently lives in Hamburg, Germany, with her husband. 336pgs colour hardcover.
Brain Damage
by Shintaro Kago
Fantagraphics
$29.99
The publisher says:
In 2018, manga artist Shintaro Kago made his [U.S.] English debut with Dementia 21 (Fantagraphics), a collection of absurdist manga short stories. Readers found themselves delighted and disgusted by his penchant for body horror, black comedy and the surreal paired with his emphatic, kinetic art style. Kago returns at the height of his powers with Brain Damage, where he dials up the gore and absurdity to new heights. Brain Damage collects four new short manga stories, a tantalising blend of the hilarious and the macabre. In ‘Labyrinth Quartet,’ four identical young women trapped in an eerie building must solve the mystery of why they’ve been gathered there - while being hunted by a knife-wielding stalker. In ‘Curse Room,’ a plucky health aide is tasked with keeping zombies peaceful, lest they go on a brain-eating rampage. In ‘Family Portrait,’ people throughout town are strangely disappearing without a trace, and the key to it all is a senile and perverted old man. Finally, in ‘Blood Harvest’ a series of gruesomely mangled bodies are found in pristine cars - and it appears something sinister lurks within these masses of glass and steel. 200pgs B&W hardcover.
The Disney Bros.: The Fabulous Story of Walt and Roy
by Alex Nikolavitch & Felix Ruiz
NBM
$19.99
The publisher says:
After the bankruptcy of his first two companies, the young Walt Disney decides to call on his older brother Roy to start a new business: the Disney Brothers Cartoon Studios. The combination of their opposing talents, one artistic, the other managerial, will give birth to an entertainment giant despite the difficult nature of Walt. Little by little, Walt will push his brother into the shadows and sink into chronic depression and excessive consumption of alcohol… But all this will not prevent him from producing the greatest masterpieces of animation. The authors have chosen a cartoon style, worthy of Mickey Mouse comics, to tell a very serious story of creation, money and politics, but also of family. Alex Nikolavitch is a translator, essayist on pop culture, and a scriptwriter for many historical graphic novels, including biographies. Felix Ruiz is a versatile Spanish artist and colourist who’s primarily known for the Savage Wolverine series.
112pgs colour hardcover.
Dry Cleaned
by Joris Mertens
Jonathan Cape
£25.00
The publisher says:
In the rain-slicked, neon glowing streets of a 1970s continental metropolis, a man called François makes a snap decision that will change his life for good François, in his fifties, living alone and low on cash, does not have the life he dreams of. With a cigarette stuck to the corner of his mouth and wearing his perpetual black suit, he has carried out the same morning routine for 17 years: entering the lottery with his lucky numbers, then knocking back a beer at Café Monico before his shift as the delivery driver for a dry cleaners. His days are brightened only by newsagent Maryvonne and her young daughter. He dreams of winning the lottery to give them a better life. When a routine delivery leads him to knock on the door of a countryside mansion, he enters the scene of a crime whose remains consist of a dozen bodies and a bag full of banknotes. What François chooses to do next could change his fate for good… Visually stunning, atmospheric and replete with the smoking irony of European noir, Dry Cleaned is a masterful tale about an anti-hero radically stepping out of his routine. Joris Mertens is a Belgian graphic novelist, living in Flanders, Belgium. He trained as a graphic designer in Brussels, and worked for years in the advertising, film and television industry as a set designer, art director, illustrator and storyboard artist. His debut graphic novel, Beatrice (2019) won multiple international prizes and accolades. 152pgs colour hardcover.
Heaven, West Virginia
by Ravi Teixeira
Oni Press
$19.99
The publisher says:
Lamont’s father was not a good man. And now Lamont’s father is dead. When Lamont arrives in the tiny Appalachian town of Heaven, West Virginia, its lush landscape feels stubbornly at odds with the roiling anxiety that’s come to define his inner life. Living there and learning the art of foraging and tea-making from his kind, stoic aunt LaToya should be idyllic―even a paradise. But in the shadows of Heaven’s woods, Lamont sees a dark, hulking figure, long, glimmering teeth, and piercing red eyes. No one else seems to see this beast . . . not his aunt, and not the handsome cowboy, Coyote, whose gentle voice evokes the comforting, electric aroma of LaToya’s brews. Escaping its voraciously hungry pursuit feels impossible, and Lamont will have to face more than the darkness of the woods to do so. A singular and seductive meditation on the complexity of grief, healing, and the power of the natural world by cartoonist Ravi Teixeira (A Quick & Easy Guide to Coming Out). Ravi Teixeira is a Cape Verdean American transgender cartoonist living abroad in Canada. Their work has been nominated for the prestigious GLAAD Awards. In 2019, their work was featured in the Prism Award winning Dates anthology, published by Margins. In 2024, Oni Press published their acclaimed graphic novel A Quick & Easy Guide to Coming Out and their work was featured in the Becoming Who We Are anthology (AWBW), which was recommended by the New York Times. Ravi Teixeira’s comics tackles trans and gay sexuality and grief during tough times. They love cowboys, gothic horror, and telling stories about gay sex. 172pgs colour paperback.
He Rolled Me Up Like A Grilled Squid
by Yoshiharu Tsuge
Drawn & Quarterly
$29.95
The publisher says:
A manga icon’s most perplexing, transgressive, and astounding work of horror and surrealism. By the mid-1970s, Tsuge Yoshiharu was a man changed by circumstance—something his work from 1975 to 1981 boldly reveals. After settling into married life with fellow artist Fujiwara Maki (author of Eisner-winning My Picture Diary), Tsuge would return to the narrative formulas that he knew best: tall tales exchanged between fellow travellers, macabre parables tinged with magical realism, and the enduring comedy of the domestic everyday in a Japan rebuilding itself in the decades following the Second World War. And yet the confusion and mental illness simmering beneath the surface of his more surreal works come to a rolling boil, reaching an unsettling and horrific crescendo in a series of nightmarish delusions. He Rolled Me Up Like A Grilled Squid captures a mid-career author taking stock of his anxieties and suspicions while connecting the dots between his seemingly monotonous present and his complicated past. Confrontations between both periods in his life are explored through the lens of his deteriorating mental state, expressed directly through experiments with different visual styles collected in this volume. Translated by prolific art and comics historian Ryan Holmberg, He Rolled Me Up Like A Grilled Squid is a remarkable catalogue of creative experiments alongside a veteran storyteller’s most compelling observations about people at their most human. 304pgs B&W hardcover.
Howl
by Alisa Kwitney & Mauricet
Ahoy Comics
$17.99
The publisher says:
Science fiction meets family memoir in 1950s Greenwich Village, home of artists, musicians, writers—and the extraterrestrial spores that are secretly taking them over! Marry a science fiction writer, become science fiction! That’s the law of Greenwich Village in the late 1950s, home of poets, artists, musicians, writers, their put-upon partners—and the extraterrestrial spores that are secretly taking them over! Novelist/comics writer Alisa Kwitney (The Sandman Presents) mixes science fiction with period drama, featuring stunning art by Mauricet (Star Wars Adventures). Alisa Kwitney was an editor at DC Comics/Vertigo and is the Eisner-nominated author of graphic novels, romantic women’s fiction, and urban fantasy. She was one of the authors of A Flight of Angels, which made YALSA’s Top Ten List for Great Graphic Novels for Teens, and the YA graphic novel Token, named a highlight of the Minx imprint by PW. Alisa has an MFA from Columbia University. Her thesis, Till the Fat Lady Sings, a comedy of manners about college and eating disorders, made The New York Times’ new and noteworthy in paperback list. Her latest novel, Rogue: Untouched, was published with Aconyte Books in May 2021. Mauricet is a Belgian artist/cartoonist, best known in the USA for IDW’s Star Wars Adventures and various books at DC, including Dastardly and Muttley and a bunch of Harley Quinn books, most recently co-creating Old Lady Harley. He collaborated with Image, Crossgen and Ahoy for whom he co-created Major Ursa with Tyrone Finch. He’s also worked for the European market drawing several graphic albums for Casterman, Dupuis and Bamboo. 128pgs colour paperback.
Kool Kieth: Krossover into the Flower Kosmic!
by Seamus “Esoteric” Ryan & Sean Von Gorman
Z2 Comics
$29.99
The publisher says:
He is the hip-hop legend with a million monikers. Now Kool Keith rallies his myriad personas together for the first time in The Krossover of the Flower Kosmic, an original graphic novel. Strap in for a universe-hopping journey as Keith uses the Flower Kosmic to unite the legendary alternate incarnations of himself to defeat the sole incarnation that threatens the very fabric of reality, GERBIK! Written by Seamus “Esoteric” Ryan of CZARFACE and illustrated by Sean Von Gorman of Comics, this book includes Dr. Octagon, Dr. Dooom, Black Elvis and many more Keiths in an adventure that brings the surreal and eccentric nature of Kool Keith to psychedelic life on every page. ?pgs colour hardcover.
Land Vol.1
by Kazumi Yamashita, translated by Kevin Gifford
Yen Press
$40.00
The publisher says:
In a village where all residents die upon reaching fifty lives a girl named An, whose older twin sister was sacrificed to the “other world” that lay beyond the mountains. This village, called “our world” and governed by people wearing animal skins, is watched over by deities. When An seeks the truth about the mysterious inhabitants of the mountains, hope and despair await her… Land was serialised in Kodansha’s seinen manga magazine Morning from March 2014 to July 2020, with its chapters collected in 11 ‘tankōbon’ volumes. 656pgs B&W hardcover.
Planetary Expansion Vol.1: Lift Up and Take Off
by Christopher Reda & Alonso Molina Gonzales
Critical Entertainment
$29.99
The publisher says:
Abandoning their lives being stuck on earth, one thousand hand selected passengers aboard a Starship head to repopulate a new habitable planet. In another Solar System exists a planet just like Earth. With fresh air, clean water, and sustainable life. They will brave the dangers of space and push themselves past the limit to get there. Christopher Reda is graduate of the Cinema and Television Arts program at California State University Northridge and a seasoned writer who has published several comic books: Zombie Zero, Planetary Expansion, Space Dragon, The First Americans, and The Cowboy with Many Hats. 240pgs colour paperback.
Punycorn and The Princess of Thieves
by Andi Watson
Clarion Books
$15.99
The publisher says:
A misfit crew of heroes-in-training contend with a crafty ogre and a cunning thief—neither of whom are quite who they appear to be—in a fun and funny world dubbed “hilarious, whimsical epic adventure” by Hilo creator Judd Winick. High-stakes action blends with laugh-out-loud humor in a story with themes of self-acceptance, betrayal and forgiveness, and the power of friendship. Punycorn—the world’s clumsiest unicorn—is officially an apprentice hero, complete with the laminated membership card to prove it! Together with a dragon who can’t breathe fire and a dung beetle with delusions of grandeur, Punycorn is on a mission to save a friend. Along the way, the trio battle a vain and decidedly dimwitted warlord and their own self-doubts, and they find an unexpected ally in a legendary female robber who secretly feeds the poor. Big heroes come in small packages in this comedic and heartwarming delight by multi-Eisner Award–nominated graphic novelist Andi Watson. 208pgs colour hardcover.
The Rabagoo Race
by Garresh
Living the Line
$20.00
The publisher says:
The Rabagoo Race, the most famous boat race in the world, sees contestants face certain death throughout its frantic stages, all in the impossible hopes of reaching that mythical finish line, and winning everything their hearts desire. Only three ships have survived the 100 brutal stages of boat racing. Having fought mega sea monsters, riptide hell storms, and whip smart competitors, they must now face each other in the final sprint to the finish line. Does the humble sailboat the Boulie Bear have what it takes to beat the Slick Van Vex and the Indestructible Solid Slope? The Rabagoo Race is the first graphic novel by the mononymous Garresh, a young Scottish artist who leverages complex gallery-worthy abstraction and impeccable colour and figurative work into comic pages of unsettling power. This debut puts Garresh square in the centre of an international graphic tradition that stretches from Moebius to Cam Kennedy to contemporaries like Linnea Sterte, Taiyo Matsumoto, and beyond. 102pgs colour paperback.
Rebel Adele in the Land of Unwritten Tales
by Mr Tan & Diane Le Feyer
Ablaze Publishing
$14.99
The publisher says:
Meet Rebel Adele! Precocious and unpredictable, Adele is a young girl who keeps both her friends and her parents on their toes through her experiments and antics. When she finds herself propelled into the Land of Unwritten Tales, she immediately seeks to shake things up, not content to simply play princess in this supposed dream-come-true setting. Always one to bring rebellion, Adele’s goal becomes writing a new sort of story altogether. Born in Marseille, Diane Le Feyer studied at the Émile Cohl art school from 1998 to 2002. She started out working for the Lyon-based video game company Étrange Libellules as a character designer, 3D modeler and animator. She left the videogames industry in 2003 and headed for Kilkenny, Ireland. Through Cartoon Saloon, she has made illustrations for children’s books and animated shorts for TV shows and the web. She left Ireland for Canada in 2004, where she has worked on Irish children’s books, French TV shows and animated videos. Back in France since 2005, she has done character designs and storyboards for animation series like Stellina, while continuing to work on animation and illustration projects from Ireland, France and the UK through Cartoon Saloon. She succeeded Miss Prickly as the artist of the comic series about sadistic little girl Mortelle Adèle at Éditions Tourbillon in 2014 (scripts by Mr. Tan, nom-de-plume of Antoine Dole). 112pgs colour hardcover.
Ripperland
by Steve Orlando, John Harris Dunning & Alessandro Oliveri
Dark Horse
$19.99
The publisher says:
Gore spatters and unlikely romance blossoms in a near future revenge thriller that’s From Hell meets Westworld! The year is 2188 and Jack the Ripper has returned to London. For the last century, a shattered post-Brexit England has operated as a massive Victorian theme park in exchange for American military and financial protection. But when an American mogul’s grandson is killed in the heart of London, the delicate status quo is threatened. Is the killer a brilliant maniac? Americans taking advantage of their superior technology? Or the English Underground Resistance, wishing to throw off the yoke of American oppression and re-join the modern world? American Special Agent Jesse Holden and local British Police Detective Edwin Fogg must overcome their clashing ideologies in order to find the truth in the foggy streets of 22nd Century London. Collects Ripperland #1–#4. 136pgs colour paperback.
Rosalie Lightning: A Graphic Memoir
by Tom Hart
Street Noise Books
$23.99
The publisher says:
A new updated paperback edition of the #1 New York Times bestselling graphic memoir about a father dealing with the sudden death of his young daughter. Tom Hart’s two-year-old daughter Rosalie was a bundle of energy: always running, exploring, and fascinated by the world around her. But one night, when Tom went to check on her in her crib, he found her silent, still, and unbreathing. Without a sign that anything had been wrong, she had passed away in her sleep. This touching and beautiful graphic novel memoir tells the heartbreaking story of the untimely death of the author’s young daughter, and the solace that Hart finds in nature, philosophy, literature, and art. Rosalie Lightning is a graphic masterpiece chronicling a father’s undying love, and a tribute to much-missed baby girl. This new high quality paperback edition of a beloved classic features a new foreword from bestselling author Lucy Knisley, along with a letter from Tom Hart giving a view into the role the book has played in his grief process, and how he has found a way forward into life. 272pg B&W paperback.
Saga de Xam
by Nicolas Devil & Jean Rollin
Anthology Editions
$60.00
The publisher says:
Nicolas Devil and Jean Rollin’s 1967 graphic novel opus, a cult classic of high psychedelia available in English for the first time. In the annals of alternative comics, few works are as venerated, or as underseen, as Saga de Xam, the legendary French graphic novel by Nicholas Devil and Jean Rollin. Originally published in 1967 in limited quantities, the book earned a devoted cult following for its innovative psychedelic visuals and avant-garde sensibilities, even as it spent decades out of print. Saga de Xam chronicles the adventures of Saga—a blue-skinned female alien on a mission to Earth—as she encounters both the cruelties and the possibilities of human civilisation, from prehistory to the Middle Ages to the radical 1960s, but no synopsis could do justice to the book’s explosive graphic style, its narrative and linguistic complexity, and its countercultural fervour. Anthology Editions is honoured to reintroduce Saga de Xam, a visionary landmark of comics storytelling, in its first-ever English translation. Nicolas Devil was born Nicolas Deville in 1943 in French-occupied Vietnam, but moved back to France with his family as a child. In his twenties, he steeped himself in the Parisian countercultural art scene, presiding over a communal studio and partnering with celebrated writers and artists, including Philippe Druillet and the filmmaker Jean Rollin, his best-known collaborator. After having begun Saga de Xam in 1965 as an outline for a science fiction film, Devil and Rollin released the finished story as a comic in 1967 with Éric Losfeld, a Belgian-born publisher known for his commitment to edgy and controversial work. Though he followed the celebrated Saga de Xam with several other works over the next two decades, Devil left France for Quebec in the 1980s, where he became a Green Party activist and philosophy professor. Jean Rollin (1938–2010) was a French film director and writer renowned for his work in the low-budget horror and fantastique genres. Rollin’s career spanned over five decades and featured work in film, comics, and literature, but he is best known for his genre movies, which including Le viol du vampire (1968), Requiem pour un vampire (1971), and La morte vivante (1982), among many others. He received the Lifetime Achievement Award at the Fantasia International Film Festival in 2007, and remains a central figure in the history of cult cinema. 120pgs colour flexibound.
Second Shift
by Kit Anderson
Avery Hill
$18.99
The publisher says:
From the time when the station wakes her up, Birdie Doran is on the clock. It’s just her and one or two others on Terracorp’s isolated outpost, processing comets. So she slips into virtual reality, with the station creating adventures for her as she does repairs, routine maintenance, and checks the status on all the systems. But when Birdie discovers another abandoned station just within walking distance of her own, she begins to question her isolation, and her own memories of what her job-and her life―really is. And at every turn, she starts finding the things the station has been hiding from her. Ignatz Award-nominated author Kit Anderson presents a psychological science fiction exploration of the lines between reality inside and outside the mind. 160pgs colour paperback.
Simplicity
by Mattie Lubchansky
Pantheon
$29.00
The publisher says:
From the acclaimed author of horror sensation Boys Weekend, a vibrant new graphic novel about a timid academic sent out from the walled dystopian security territory of New York City to investigate a cult in the wilds of the Catskill Mountains. In 1977, a group called The Spiritual Association of Peers decamps to the woods of the Catskills, taking over an abandoned summer camp. They name their new home Simplicity. In 2081, scholar Lucius Pasternak, a fastidiously organised trans man, tries to keep his head down living in the New York City Administrative and Security Territory, which was founded after the formal dissolution of the United States in 2041. Then, he’s offered a job by the mayor, billionaire real estate developer Dennis Van Wervel, to complete an anthropological survey of the people of Simplicity for a history museum he’s financing. A wary Lucius is nevertheless drawn in by the people of the small wooded community, intrigued by its strange rituals and in particular by the charming acolyte Amity Crown-Shy. Born and raised on the compound, Amity is comfortable in their own skin, a striking contrast to Lucius’ repressed reserve. But Lucius’ control starts to slip when he begins to suffer visions both terrifying and sensual—visits from beautiful but nightmarish creatures. Then, just as Lucius discovers that Van Wervel’s project is more sinister than it seemed, members of the community begin to disappear, leaving behind grisly signs of struggle. The denizens of Simplicity believe that a being they call “The Lamentation” is responsible for the attacks. Amity and Lucius set out to hunt for the creature in the dangerous Exurb Zones, a wild wood full of libertarian doomsday preppers, wealthy isolationists, and worse. There, they’ll finally discover the true threat to their way of life—and what they’re willing to do to stop it. Mattie Lubchansky is a cartoonist and illustrator. They are also an Ignatz winner, a Herblock Prize finalist, and the author of Boys Weekend and The Antifa Super-Soldier Cookbook. They live in beautiful Queens, NY, with their spouse. 272pgs colour hardcover.
Society is Nix: Gleefull Anarchy at The Dawn of The American Comic Strip: 1895-1915
edited by Peter Maresca
Fantagraphics
$100.00
The publisher says:
“Mit Dose Kids, SOCIETY IS NIX!” So said The Inspector about the Katzenjammer Kids. But he could have been speaking of all comic strips in their formative years in the early 1900s. From the very first color Sunday supplement, comics were a driving force in newspaper sales, offering a wild parody of the world and the culture found in the surrounding pages. Society didn’t stand a chance! These are the origins of the American comic strip, born at a time when there were no set styles or formats, when creators had the freedom to experiment, when artistic anarchy helped spawn a new medium. The genesis of comics is laid out in a dozen essays by the greatest in their field—historians like Thierry Smolderen, Brian Walker, Alfredo Castelli, Bill Kartalopoulos, Paul C. Tumey and others. And in the second, revised edition of this seminal collection: over 200 comic strips. The earliest comics by acknowledged greats like R. F. Outcault, George McManus, Winsor McCay, and George Herriman, along with creations of more than fifty other superb cartoonists, known and unknown. The classic strips, most not printed in over 100 years, are presented in their original colors at the incredible oversized format Sunday Press is known for: all the better to see the comics that would inspire the next century of comics to come. 168pgs colour oversized hardcover.
The Solitary Gourmet
by Masayuki Kusumi & Jiro Taniguchi, translated by Kumar Sivasubramanian, ably assisted by Chotoku Teshima
Fanfare / Ponent Mon
$35.00 / £30.00
The publisher says:
This is the book in which nothing happens but everything is consumed! Like The Walking Man at lunch!! What do we learn about Mister Inogashira? He’s a sole, independent trader importing household and fashion goods from France. He is always busy but never rushed as he travels around Japan selling his wares. He’s a private person who, whilst he enjoys the company of women, prefers to remain a bachelor. He smokes cigarettes but never touches alcohol. But above all, he enjoys his food! He is The Solitary Gourmet! Each of the thirty-two chapters explores another dish in another restaurant in another part of town from Tokyo to Tottori, from Osaka to hospital (yes!) and even ventures to an Algerian restaurant in Paris, eating and observing. This volume collects all 32 chapters created over two decades and includes the hospital chapter. Like an exquisite meal, this book should be savoured over and over again. 344pgs B&W hardcover.
Trapped
by Joe Stapleton, Neil Gibson, Felipe Chunhu & Sandro Pizziolo
Twisted Comics
£22.99 / $24.99
The publisher says:
Joe is a professional poker commentator—till he gets fired. He’s also a good player, but is increasingly frustrated by how the game is changing- it used to be about people, but now it is all about mathematics.It’s become boring, hard to win, and Joe wants out. But when Joe unintentionally gets tangled up with some drug dealers, he realizes he is going to have to play poker as if his life depends on it… Based on Joe Stapleton’s real-life experience playing and commenting on poker, Trapped is a roaring ride about a man trying to reconnect with the passion of his life. Neil is the founder of Twisted Comics, a renowned comic publisher. He came to comics late in life and fell in love with the medium. Never planning on being a writer, he started making comics for fun and was surprised by how much people seemed to like his work. He enjoyed writing, but loves editing and producing comics for other people. He believes that the comic book medium is one of the most efficient ways to communicate stories. 163pgs colour paperback.
Trouble! At Coal Creek
by Austin Sauerbrei
Haymarket Books
$22.95
The publisher says:
This gripping graphic novel tells the story of the 1891 Coal Creek War—one of the most significant yet overlooked labor and abolitionist uprisings in the history of the United States. Told through the eyes of a young Welsh immigrant, Trouble! at Coal Creek is the epic story of a cross-racial struggle to abolish the system of convict-leasing in the mines. Austin Sauerbrei’s evocative black-and-white illustrations and masterful storytelling show the personal battles and motivations that led thousands of miners to repeatedly take up arms against the powerful companies, their militias, and politicians. Lured by coal companies’ promises of good pay, stability, and opportunity, the narrator’s father brought their family across the Atlantic Ocean for work in the mine. The job, however, was deadly, and life grew unbearable as the coal companies immiserated miners and their families. Meanwhile, slavery, the Civil War, Reconstruction, racist terror, and the birth of the Ku Klux Klan were still fresh memories for most. Coal companies relied increasingly on the forced labor of mostly Black prisoners who were loaned out from the state, an extremely profitable continuation of the old system of racist brutality. As Ida B. Wells noted at the time, “The Convict Lease System and Lynch Law are twin infamies which flourish hand in hand.” The miners of Coal Creek, however, set fire to the edifice of convict-leasing and inspired similar rebellions throughout the South. In this captivating graphic novel, Sauerbrei brings their overlooked story to life for new generations of organisers. 124pgs B&W paperback.
True Colors: Growing Up Weird in the 90s
by Drawn & Quarterly
$18.95
The publisher says:
Growing up is always just a little too much for a kid to handle, but taking your time is all it takes. Tweeny-bopper Elise knows she’s different, but kind of just chalks it up to being a weirdo. And in the 90s, who isn’t? Other girls might be shifting their attention to boys, but Elise is putting the freeze on all that adult stuff to get lost in play with her besties and pour her energy into making her art. Besides, what’s the point in rushing when being a kid is such a blast? In True Colors: Growing Up Weird in the 90s, Elise invites readers into the pages of her diary and takes them back to a radically different time before smartphones and home computers. It’s a world where fun means going to the mall and making mix tapes on cassette, and where imagination reigns supreme! It’s also a world where making new friends can be confusing, nerve-wracking, and utterly mind-boggling. Creative and curious kids, anybody dealing with anything from not fitting in, to anxiety―or even an ADHD diagnosis―will see themselves in the pages. And through it all, Gravel shows the power of art and creativity to transform, as we see Elise turning her differences into her superpower in this funny and encouraging artistic origin story. Elise Gravel is an author illustrator from Montreal, Quebec. After studying Graphic Design, Gravel pursued a career writing and illustrating children’s books, where her quirky and charming characters quickly won the hearts of children and adults worldwide. In 2012, Gravel received the Governor General’s Literary Award for her book La clé à molette. A prolific artist, she has over thirty children’s books to her name which have been translated into a dozen languages, including The Disgusting Critters series, The Mushroom Fan Club, The Bug Club, The Worst Book Ever, and If Found…Please Return to Elise Gravel, her challenge to young artists to keep a sketchbook. Elise Gravel still lives in Montreal with her spouse, two daughters, cats, and a few spiders. 188pgs colour paperback.
Wake Up, Pixoto!
by Weng Pixin
Drawn & Quarterly
$24.95
The publisher says:
An admonishment, a command, a mantra. Weng Pixin revisits herself at her most vulnerable, in her art school days. She tries on various identities trying to understand who she is. Is she a sexual libertine? A fine artist? A sensitive friend? Just then, in steps a charismatic art instructor who helps her see her true worth. She joins his tight-knit group of artistic seekers and begins her real education. But…is something sinister lurking beneath the surface? Rivalries develop, friends disappear or are cast out, her instructor’s words take on a caustic edge. Pix becomes unmoored and less sure of herself than ever before and she begins to suspect she’s entered into a cult. Dream-like floral collages shift to more stripped-down, character-based cartooning. Weng’s bright colors and rubbery people persist as her writing becomes more diaristic and detailed than her previous collections Sweet Time and Let’s Not Talk Anymore. Wake Up, Pixoto! is an interrogation into how groomers operate and how we can allow ourselves to be coerced into a world we DON’T want simply because we’re unsure of what we DO want. “Was I manipulated? Was I tricked?” The insidious thing is maybe we can never be certain. 252pgs colour paperback.
Will Eisner: A Graphic Biography
by Stephen Weiner & Dan Mazur
NBM
$29.99
The publisher says:
Explore the life of Will Eisner, one of the most influential artists in the history of comics through the most appropriate medium: a graphic novel! From his immigrant roots and childhood in New York, starting his own comics studio and business, and the creation and publication of his beloved comic, The Spirit, through inventing the term “ graphic novel” to convince a general trade publisher to publish the groundbreaking A Contract with God, you’ll follow along in Eisner’ s life journey. With the most prestigious comics awards named after him, Will Eisner is forever celebrated not only in what he created but his unerring belief in comics’ capacity to be better, to reach higher, to be a full art form in its own right. This is the life of this man of vision who helped to put comics on the map. Stephen Weiner has been writing about graphic novels since 1992 and spearheaded the movement to bring graphic novels into public libraries. His books include: 100 Graphic Novels for Public Libraries, The Will Eisner Companion, Will the Real Will Eisner Please Stand Up & Other Adventures in Comics, The 101 Best Graphic Novels, The Rise of the Graphic Novel (Introduction by Will Eisner), Analysis of BONE: a Closer Look at the Jeff Smith Graphic Novel Masterpiece, and Hellboy: the Companion. He is co-editor of the 7-volume series, Graphic Novels: A Critical Survey, and lives outside of Boston. Dan Mazur’ s previous graphic novels are Lunatic (2020) and Hannabell Hobb and Her Horrible Heads (2021). His comics have appeared in numerous anthologies. His history book, Comics, A Global History: 1968 to the Present (2014, co-written with Alexander Danner) has been translated into seven languages. As a screenwriter, his credits include Brave New World (1998), Night of The Scarecrow (1995) and Virtual Nightmare (2000), as well as uncredited writing on John Carpenter’s Vampires and K-9. He is co-founder of MICE, the Massachusetts Independent Comics Expo and the Boston Comics Roundtable. 300pgs B&W hardcover.
