Graphic Novels

Find me another poetry book that begins with a Spice Girls quote. Go ahead. Try. You can’t. This collection is a beautiful little treasure. Reading Adrienne Chung’s stories is like holding a microphone to one’s head—all of these modern problems about confusing feelings that have been around since humans realized they were feeling things. It’s bright yet haunting.

—Nikole

Zoe and Dani have been best friends forever. They’ve planned an elaborate sightseeing trip to New York City during one of their college breaks, but Dani’s classmate Fiona comes along and throws off the whole dynamic. The Tamaki cousins Jillian and Mariko remind us how insufferable and painfully earnest we all were while we were trying to figure out our true selves. The storytelling in Roaming is deft and the artwork is beautifully sparse and dynamic. Such a triumph! 

—Ivy

Award-winning New Yorker cartoonist Roz Chast is already whimsical, but she hits another level when she dives into the world of dreams. While humorously tackling history and theories, most of I Must Be Dreaming is of Chast’s own dreams, illustrated in her immediately recognizable style and immediately recognizable as genuine dreams to anyone who has ever tried to describe their own upon waking. Read it through or open at random for a quick hit of humor and surrealism—any which way, it’s a needed antidote to everyday reality.  

—Jocelyn

Here’s the painful honest truth: I haven’t read much of Haruki Murakami’s work. He’s one of those authors that I’ve been meaning to get to for ages, but there are just too many choices when it comes to books. This collection of reimagined stories, though, has convinced me it’s time. Each one is delightfully weird and poignant. PMGL’s artwork has an incredible amount of movement to it, enhancing each story’s oddity. What an incredible way to experience Murakami’s work.  

—Ivy

Transitions, based on the true story of a mother learning to understand her transgender son, is eye-opening. In addition to her perspective as a mother, Durand includes observations on the animal kingdom, references to gender nonconformity in other cultures, and poignant letters from her son. The book has a restrained palette and minimalist, abstract illustrations that burst exuberantly into joyous rainbows as Anne grows to accept her son for who he is.  

—Yves

Emily Carroll’s stunning work always takes my breath away and her adult debut is no different! The selective use of vivid color becomes a character in itself as it separates main character Abby’s drab real life from her twisted fairy tale dreamscape. Her obsession with the ghost princess haunting her and the truth behind the wife who came before her has her asking herself (and us): Who can you trust if you know you can’t trust yourself?

—Mo

Emily Carroll’s stunning work always takes my breath away and her adult debut is no different! The selective use of vivid color becomes a character in itself as it separates main character Abby’s drab real life from her twisted fairy tale dreamscape. Her obsession with the ghost princess haunting her and the truth behind the wife who came before her has her asking herself (and us): Who can you trust if you know you can’t trust yourself? —Mo
 

Are you getting hyped for the next Spider-Verse movie? I think there’s no better way to do so than by catching our favorite webslinger at the start of this new series that might be the end not just for Peter Parker, but for the Spider-Verse itself. Headed by an amazing team, including the illustrator of the first Miles Morales comics, this one’s sure to get you swingin’. 

—Jax

This delightfully hilarious manga is a beautiful lampoon of modern masculinity. Ken Kanashino is a yakuza lifer, a dedicated soldier who has little time for anything outside his gang...until he has to take his boss’s daughter to a K-pop concert. Enraptured by the glitz and glam of K-pop, Ken instantly becomes the world’s biggest fan of the biggest band in ways that only a yakuza foot soldier can. 

—Ed

From the talented Ajuan Mance comes a journey of learning to feel like yourself that will inspire, educate, and disarm. Gender Studies includes bits of memoir and light-touch history lessons (Mance is a professor of English and ethnic studies at Mills College and a lifelong artist and writer). Her probing is gentle, the tone is humorous and expansive, and each expressive panel has a purpose, but the book doesn’t feel spare. 

—Chorel