Through luscious watercolors, Albon (The Delicacy) spins a slow-burning international love story. Sarah moves from England to France for an anxiety-inducing office job. Grappling with disrespectful male coworkers and a language she minimally understands, she is alone and lonely—until she meets Ping during a chance collision (literally) with a mime. An au pair from Hong Kong, Ping is kind, generous, and eager to befriend Sarah. Despite understanding only bits and pieces of the other’s English, French, and Cantonese, the two use the “strange patchwork of languages” to learn about each other and connect. With translation dictionaries as their aids, they soon fall in love. Then Ping is forced to return to Hong Kong, and Sarah is left with a choice: continue in France or travel the world for the woman she adores. Albon’s sensuously painted pages reveal the unspoken way people communicate, small acts of devotion that transcend language barriers and cultural traditions. He layers English on top of Cantonese and French speech balloons, drawing readers into the rapid translation that forms the foundation of Sarah and Ping’s relationship. It’s a captivating cross-cultural queer love story that’s perfect for Shing Yin Khor fans. (May)

Reviewed on 05/23/2025 | Details & Permalink

Historian Lemire (Jerusalem: History of a Global City) compresses millennia into a nimble graphic chronicle of the holy city, drawn by Gaultier (Dungeon). Narrated by Zeitoun, a 4,000-year-old olive tree, the story of Jerusalem’s founding is told first through archaeological relics, then across the fates of successive conquering empires. Key moments are highlighted by profiles of major figures, such as Arculf, a Frankish bishop in the 600s, and mid-1800s mayor Yousef Al-Khalidi. Lemire proves adept at balancing myth and scriptural accounts with secular history, uncovering how the city was reconceptualized by Jews, then by Christians who remapped it to create “a new Christian topography of Jerusalem,” and next by Muslims who conquered it and launched an uneasy pluralism, until the Crusades “devastated, stripped, [and] depopulated” the city. An accounting of more recent history shows the ways in which Protestants reshaped pilgrimage to the holy city and how Zionism reframed the contest over control. The focus remains tightly on the city itself (rather than the global political and religious forces outside its borders), and Lemire maintains a brisk pace. Gaultier’s stylized European comics art offers distinct character designs that immediately telegraph eras, balanced against clarity of detail in architecture and backgrounds, all rendered in natural colors. This sweeping yet digestible account showcases a city with many overlapping meanings. (May)

Reviewed on 05/23/2025 | Details & Permalink

Makee’s wide-eyed and insightful semi-autobiographical debut centers on a teenage immigrant whose adolescence is as hard to navigate as her new home in New York City. Yixuan emigrates from China with her family at age 14. At her high school, she adopts the Anglified name Emma and struggles to adapt to the enormous differences between U.S. and Chinese teen culture. “American classmates are useless!” she thinks as her lab partners slack off and flirt. Gradually, she finds her place, developing a passion for art, a crush on a schoolmate, and a grasp of the complex racial issues at her multicultural school. At the same time, her home life grows strained as her parents and sister have more trouble acclimating. “America is for young people like you,” her father tells her. “Not me.” Makee’s artwork has the simplicity of a teenager’s notebook sketches but bursts with telling details: school cafeteria lunches (“free but not so tasty”), vegetables grown in Chinese American yards, Yixuan’s first Thanksgiving dinner. The result is both a painfully candid coming-of-age tale and a warts-and-all portrait of America. (May)

Reviewed on 05/23/2025 | Details & Permalink

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