Whether you’re an established fan of graphic novels or a reader looking for a new experience, this year has seen a wide variety of books to try, from historical novels to horror to fantasy to fictionalized biography. Here are a few suggestions.
Sugar & Other Stories by Joy San (Silver Sprocket, Feb. 22): You might want to start out with a collection of graphic stories, such as San’s debut, which are “loosely connected by their sense of the uncanny and macabre, full of monsters both literal and psychosocial,” according to our review. “San’s art is clean and confident and deftly captures a story’s essential beats, whether that’s a character’s growing anxiety or the return of a meaty hell spawn whose face is a ring of needlelike teeth.”
Last on His Feet: Jack Johnson and the Battle of the Century by Adrian Matejka; illustrated by Youssef Daoudi (Liveright, Feb. 21): Johnson became the first Black heavyweight boxing champion in 1910; Daoudi and Matejka have used that title bout to frame what our starred review calls their “evocative and entrancing” graphic novel, which covers Johnson’s “rise in sport and culture and his undoing by the virulence of American racism…. With red ink luridly accentuating the brutal black-and-white tale, Daoudi’s exceptional sense of anatomy, expressions, and choreography combine with the snap of Matejka’s text to vividly depict this defiant and flawed man’s struggle against a culture built to dehumanize him and equipped with laws to break him….A knockout.”
The Man in the McIntosh Suit by Rina Ayuyang (Drawn & Quarterly, May 2): Bobot was a lawyer back in the Philippines, but now he’s a migrant farm worker in Depression-era California. He hasn’t heard from his wife in months and heads to San Francisco to seek her out. “This graphic narrative is several things at once,” according to our review. “A noirish mystery, a vibrant work of historical fiction, and a tale of immigrant dreams and adversity.…The expressionistic artwork is washed in blue, green, red, or amber hues signaling a scene’s setting and mood.”
The Gull Yettin by Joe Kessler (New York Review Comics, May 2): This graphic novel has no words, depending entirely on Kessler’s art—“a striking mix of heavy, kinetic lines; simple but expressive faces and bodies; and a riot of mostly primary colors,” according to our starred review—to tell the “mesmerizing” story of a young boy who’s both tormented and comforted by a supernatural creature.
Boys Weekend by Mattie Lubchansky (Pantheon, June 6): Sammie Kavalski is not excited to spend the weekend at their best friend Adam’s bachelor party, now that it’s clear they’re not one of the guys. But they certainly weren’t expecting the straight-up horror that awaits them at El Campo, a resort built on a garbage island. Lubchansky “uses science fiction, horror, and the comic book form to explore the terrors of coming out as transfemme in a world dominated by dudes,” and while the combination doesn’t always work, our review calls it an “undeniably original adventure.”
Parallel by Matthias Lehmann; translated by Ivanka Hahnenberger (Oni Press, June 13): Lehmann’s novel, translated from German, follows Karl Kling from World War II to the 1980s as he refuses to sacrifice his desire for men in order to lead a more comfortable life in his repressive time and place. “Karl’s story is handled with delicacy and restraint,” according to our review. “Lehmann’s gorgeous black-and-white artwork establishes the melancholy tone with its depiction of bombed-out cities and gray East German streetscapes.”
Laurie Muchnick is the fiction editor.
