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Apr 15, 2024 | 
publishersweekly.com | Solomon Brager |Anna Härmälä |James Loewen |Nate Powell
Chad Bilyeu. Scratch, $29.95 (176p) ISBN 978-94-93166-80-6Bilyeu’s eclectic debut graphic memoir proves full of thoughtful and introspective vignettes. Raised in Cleveland, Bilyeu came to Amsterdam in 2009 for the weed but stayed for the city’s “palpable” history. He touches on many subjects in Harvey Pekar–inspired asides, each of which is given its own look by a different artist.
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Apr 15, 2024 | 
publishersweekly.com | Solomon Brager |Anna Härmälä |James Loewen |Nate Powell
Boum, trans. from the French by Robin Lang and Helge Dascher. Pow Pow, $22.95 trade paper (228p) ISBN 978-2-925114-30-7“Miss, you have a jellyfish in your eye,” an optometrist tells 20-something Odette in the opening pages of this quietly courageous slice-of-life graphic novella from Boumeries cartoonist Boum.
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Apr 15, 2024 | 
publishersweekly.com | Solomon Brager |Anna Härmälä |James Loewen |Nate Powell
Atsushi Kaneko, trans. from the Japanese by Ben Applegate. Fantagraphics, $14.99 trade paper (224p) ISBN 978-1-68396-932-7Kaneko (Bambi and Her Pink Gun) outdoes himself with this gonzo sci-fi reimagining of Osamu Tezuka’s classic manga series Dororo. In Kaneko’s hands, the feudal Japanese setting of Tezuka’s original becomes a futuristic dystopia with a Soviet brutalist aesthetic.
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Apr 15, 2024 | 
publishersweekly.com | Solomon Brager |Anna Härmälä |James Loewen |Nate Powell
Siobhán Gallagher. Andrews McMeel, $19.99 trade paper (336p) ISBN 978-1-5248-6768-3Part graphic memoir, part self-help manual, Gallagher’s accessible debut draws on examples from her own life to explore how women are taught to see themselves. “To be a girl is to go from being an observer to being observed,” she writes, recalling the negative body image she developed at a young age (“If I were a Pokémon, I bet I’d be one of the ugly ones...
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Apr 5, 2024 | 
publishersweekly.com | Solomon Brager |Anna Härmälä |James Loewen |Nate Powell
Dave Lapp. Conundrum, $30 trade paper (540p) ISBN 978-1-77262-094-8Vignettes from the unsupervised fringes of a 1970s Ontario suburb comprise this wistful graphic memoir from Lapp (Drop-In). Over a languid summer off from elementary school, David explores the abandoned fields near his family home. Tagging along behind Edward, his slightly older next-door neighbor, David combs the grassy landscape for mice, frogs, and insects.
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Apr 5, 2024 | 
publishersweekly.com | Solomon Brager |Anna Härmälä |James Loewen |Nate Powell
Sig Burwash. Drawn & Quarterly, $29.95 trade paper (236p) ISBN 978-1-77046-711-8Burwash’s confident debut aches with joy and pain. Drew, a tough and suspicious “bushwacker,” is determined to build a cabin in the woods on their own. Flanked by their dog Pony, Drew cuts down trees, salvages wood from an abandoned house, swims and fishes in the nearby lake, and accepts coffee, chats, and chain saw lessons from a local lumberjack.
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Apr 5, 2024 | 
publishersweekly.com | Solomon Brager |Anna Härmälä |James Loewen |Nate Powell
Noah Van Sciver. Uncivilized, $24.95 (120p) ISBN 978-1-941250-59-4A budding comic artist undergoes trial by bully in Eisner Award winner Van Sciver’s deeply vulnerable and darkly comic graphic novella, which marks a return to the intimate style of his memoir One Dirty Tree. One of nine kids in an impoverished Mormon family in “New Jersey 1992ish,” young Noah is a panicky, dorky eight-year-old whose only respite from the chaos of his filthy home and nearly friendless life is comics.
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Apr 1, 2024 | 
publishersweekly.com | Anna Härmälä |James Loewen |Nate Powell |Maurice Vellekoop
Solomon J. Brager. Morrow, $25.99 trade paper (336p) ISBN 978-0-063-20595-6Pinko cartoonist Brager’s eye-opening graphic memoir debut recounts their wealthy Jewish family’s escape from Nazi Germany. The heavyweight of the title refers to Brager’s great-grandfather, boxing champion Erich Levi, as well as the collective weight of history.
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Apr 1, 2024 | 
publishersweekly.com | Anna Härmälä |James Loewen |Nate Powell |Maurice Vellekoop
LySandra Vuong. Oni, $24.99 trade paper (240p) ISBN 978-1-63715-281-2Fans of the Locked Tomb series will dig this sleek print collection of Vuong’s popular action Webtoon with a boys’ love angle. Ezra, an exorcist with the Church of Providence, struggles to harness his full powers—because he does not actually believe in God. Complicating matters, his church is under suspicion of demon sympathizing.
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Apr 1, 2024 | 
publishersweekly.com | Anna Härmälä |James Loewen |Nate Powell |Maurice Vellekoop
Christi Furnas. Street Noise, $21.99 trade paper (240p) ISBN 978-1-951491-28-4Furnas skewers the mental healthcare system in her sharp-edged graphic novel debut, which interweaves candid autobiographical moments into the story of aspiring artist Fox Foxerson and a bevy of other anthropomorphic critters. Desperate for friendship after moving to the big city—“It’s not Oz, but at least it’s not Kansas”—Fox crashes a house party hosted by the lovable Teddy (a bear).
