This month\u00a0Beneath the Trees Where Nobody Sees<\/em> returns, Tillie Walden and James Stokoe have new graphic novels, and\u00a0Dogs on Dates\u00a0<\/em>makes a run at becoming my new favorite graphic novel of the year.<\/p>\n To get these picks sent directly to your mailbox every month, sign up here for free<\/a>.<\/p>\n To see the full year\u2019s list, check out the best comics of 2026<\/a> (updated monthly!).<\/p>\n Investigators: Weather or Not<\/strong><\/a> \/ A Mighty Marvel Team-Up: Spider-Man Vol. 4 \u2013 Mighty Mayhem!<\/strong><\/a> \/ Aurora and the Orc<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n In the last month, my kids have *raced* to grab our newly arrived copies of each of these graphic novels, and honestly that\u2019s the coolest feeling in the world for me. Both John Patrick Green\u2019s Investigators and Mike Maihick\u2019s Spider-Man graphic novels are already among my picks for the best comics for kids<\/a>, and the latest, already dogeared copies just reinforces that.<\/p>\n As much as the kids love to read, getting them to try *new* graphic novels is always a trick. I dropped a copy of Lewis Trondheim\u2019s Aurora and the Orc on my son\u2019s pillow (this is my go-to trick, with an approximate 82.4% success rate), and within hours he was quoting mischievous battle-ready orc quotes back to me. Out now from First Second, and translated from the original French by Montana Kane, Aurora and the Orc is a Calvin and Hobbes\/Big Nate esque series of cartoon vignettes where young schoolchild Aurora is the only one who recognizes an Orc has suddenly been dropped into their class! It\u2019s cute, charming and full of exactly the kind of goofball antics the middle-grade reader crowd finds hilarious.<\/p>\n Heartstopper Vol. 6<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n Alice Oseman\u2019s Heartstopper is so damn sweet. Given its gravity and Netflix-infused popularity, it\u2019s hard to reconcile that this gorgeously crafted young romance is actually ending, but good on Oseman for observing that all good stories end. I\u2019ve been impressed too not only by Oseman\u2019s cartooning and respect for rendering young queer love, but by her willingness to blend the challenging with the saccharine. Because at the end of the day, Nick and Charlie\u2019s is a storybook romance, and that could feel\u00a0too easy\u00a0<\/em>without the realism Oseman applies. Is she out to break hearts too as the boys prepare for college? You\u2019ll have to finish Heartstopper\u00a0<\/em>to find out.<\/p>\n Record Journey Vol. 1<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n Ryoichiro Kezuka\u2019s Record Journey defies expectations in all the right ways. The first chapter of this \u201cI Love Albums!\u201d anthology feels like a rather route, predictable passage on the power of music (I know, I know, my cynicism is showing!). The remainder turns in deeply interesting directions to reflect on this power, though, from an imagined alt-Beatles secret concert recording to literal pirate radio aired on the open seas to avoid censorship (the most dangerous ship on all the seas!). Kezuka works in that Jamie McKelvie on Phonogram or Dave Chisolm on, well, anything mode of bringing the transformative magic of audio to a soundless medium. It\u2019s an extremely cool manga, and I\u2019m greatly looking forward to volume two from Titan.<\/p>\n Orphan and the Five Beasts: Bath of Blood<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n Sometimes you just need to step away from a comic and take the pressure off. I loved James Stokoe\u2019s first entry in his gory kung-fu throwback, but the first issue of the sequel, \u201cBath of Blood,\u201d just did not hit any of the buttons I thought I was looking for. Stokoe is a the modern Geoff Darrow, one of my absolute favorite hyperdetailed ultra-action cartoonists, and his work on Sobek or Alien: Dead Earth remain some of my favorite comics. So, correctly, I put the issues down, walked away (to read different comics), and a few weeks later remembered that I should give \u201cBath of Blood\u201d another shot.<\/p>\n Turns out, Stokoe still rules! If anything, \u201cBath of Blood\u201d only exaggerates the cartoonist\u2019s affinity for ubergore body horror disrupting the classic kung-fu tradition. We\u2019ve got corrupted iron pregnant bellies (there\u2019s a metal band name in there somewhere), floating krang-brain viscera (same), and a wifeguy so deluded he starts experimenting on patients and misses all the red flags (shouts to the wifeguys).<\/p>\n Anyway, I\u2019m glad I walked away. Orphan and the Five Beasts is the best ongoing Kung-Fu saga in comics and I\u2019ll read anything Stokoe does.<\/p>\n Charity & Sylvia<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n This summer\u2019s award for graphic novel that made me cry while my kids enjoyed the backyard slip n\u2019slide in front of me goes to Tillie Walden\u2019s Charity and Sylvia (jokes on you, Tillie, I was sweating so much the tears blended right in!). Walden became one of the youngest Eisner winners ever with the back-to-back-to-back graphic novel knockouts of Spinning, On a Sunbeam and Are You Listening?, then took an unexpected but welcome detour into the Walking Dead universe with the Clementine trilogy. Walden continues to defy expectations, channeling all that goodwill into her latest passion, a meticulous historical biography of 1800s Vermont lesbian couple Charity Bryant and Sylvia Drake.<\/p>\n The first thing that jumps out from Walden\u2019s approach is the care put into this telling, with nearly every page a 4\u00d73 12 panel vignette. In a 250 page graphic novel that is an absurd number of panels! As a historical story, Charity and Sylvia\u2019s relationship is a juxtaposition of a completely average couple in love and a time-and-place where that was, in theory, entirely unheard of and made unacceptable. Walden eschews any fictionalized drama for the perhaps mundane but ever present fight these women must undertake to make their love last in plain sight of scandalized, heavily religious community.<\/p>\n Queens of the Crypt Vol. 1<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n Get enough emails from people trying to get you to read a new comic, and you start to see some embarrassing hyperbole. \u201cWatchmen meets Game of Thrones by way of Kendrick Lamar in this debut graphic novel!\u201d \u201cOne must imagine a young Philip K. Dick writing a love letter to a time-displaced Kurt Vonnegut in this queer YA sci-fi thriller!\u201d Leave the overreaching comparative references to hack reviewers like yours truly, please!<\/p>\n Of course, my teasing belies the fact that this type of sales-pitch almost always works on me, which makes it doubly exciting when the hyperbole proves true. For Queens of the Crypt by Dom&Ink, Penguin opted for E.M. Carroll (huge fan) meets Buffy the Vampire Slayer (eat a rock, Joss!) by way of the Rocky Horror Picture Show (LET\u2019SSSS GOOOOO!). And dammit, they\u2019re *right*. Dom&Ink\u2019s fearlessly evocative, non-conforming cartooning evokes Carroll\u2019s When I Arrived at the Castle, the narrative itself is full of the not-quite-scary-if-we-joke-our-way-through-it ethos of Buffy\u2019s supernatural world, and dammit, Janet, it\u2019s one fine young debut graphic novel!<\/p>\n Gigs<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n What if Mark Zuckerberg bought the Minority Report tech and used it to acquire ZipRecruiter? Wait no, what if comics creators imagined a near-future quasi-dystopia that forecasted the emergent trends of late-stage capitalism and AI in the workplace? Wait, no, no, no\u2026.<\/p>\n What if a new sci-fi graphic novel was smart, heartfelt, and really, really good? That\u2019s the one!<\/p>\n Gigs is a new graphic novel from Mark Mosedale and Si Smith, via Top Shelf, where a series of interconnected short stories paint an altogether believable future look at the way technology and corporate mergers are consolidating the way we work, and the very nature of humans as cogs in algorithmic job-machine. Fortunately, the comics are a lot less like the semi-interesting LinkedIn post I seem to be describing (jeez, this guy\u2019s even criticizing himself!), and find a deeply felt human heart at the center of this just-out-of-reach future.<\/p>\n For the majority of the graphic novel, Mosedale and Smith offer a bleak yet\u00a0resisted\u00a0<\/em>future, whether it\u2019s a gig-working woman developing an unlikely relationship with an old tech-punk, or an anti-gig graffiti artist sisyphean fight against the tech oligarchy. The ending is the most controversial decision for me, as it falls into the sci-fi trap of feeling like it needs to\u00a0answer\u00a0<\/em>the dilemma lest we all fall into a pit of despair. Regardless,\u00a0Gigs\u00a0<\/em>is an of-the-moment win, even if it means we\u2019re all losing.<\/p>\n Beneath The Trees Where Nobody Sees: Rites of Spring<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n The single biggest surprise in putting together my guide to the most popular comics of the 2020s<\/a> came from seeing just\u00a0how big<\/em> Beneath The Trees Where Nobody Sees actually got. I knew I loved Patrick Horvath\u2019s vision of\u00a0Dexter\u00a0<\/em>by way of the\u00a0Berenstain Bears\u00a0<\/em>but it\u2019s\u00a0extremely cool\u00a0<\/em>that this IDW miniseries exploded in collection edition sales and via a Webtoon expansion. In the aftermath of \u201cHoly cow, it\u2019s a hit!,\u201d the most pressing question facing Horvath (and Eisner-award winning letterer Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou) is whether Beneath The Trees Where Nobody Sees demands *more story* or if sequels are simply the byproduct of such overwhelming success that everyone involved had no choice!<\/p>\n \u201cRites of Spring\u201d easily answers in the affirmative, with a sequel that jumps serial-killing Samantha Strong from 1980s Woodbrook to 1990s Woodbrook and the advent of the internet. It\u2019s a compulsively readable cold-case where we know all the answers, told in dark noir captions and Horvath\u2019s gorgeously inventive of storybook grotesqueries. It would have been easy to simply sit in Woodbrook and reap the rewards of a hit, but Horvath seems unwilling to take the easiest road, allowing a significant passage of time and escalating surprises that ensure \u201cBeneath The Trees\u201d never lies stuck buried in a paint can of its own making. Given the announcement that the story will conclude with a 2027 release, we can rest assured we\u2019re getting the best version of a well-deserved indie hit.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.comicbookherald.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/heartstopper-6-669x1024.jpg\")
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