Looking back, I read so many amazing comics this year, most of them new releases - below are my favourites I really recommend!
SIDEBAR IF YOU’RE AN AUDIBLE PERSON: my favourite Book Thing of the year was LIBRO.FM!! It’s an Audible alternative that works almost exactly the same but gives money to local bookshops. It’s now available in the UK (and US & Canada), the switch was extremely easy, I strongly recommend it as an easy thing you can do right now to make positive change!
Probably my favourite book of 2023
Boys Weekend - by The Nib editor and cartoonist Mattie Lubchansky
Our transfeminine main character gets invited on a "boys" stag weekend on a lawless vegas-like island in the already-happening near-tech-dystopian slight-future. With the same satirical, witty energy of the The Nib and its non-fiction comics (RIP), this book is extremely funny while also being very real about transness imo, couldn't recommend it more!!
Fun lesbian romance comics. Both about sports, now I think about it
Belle of the Ball - by Mari Costa (I also really liked her demon/bodyguard comic The Demon of Beausoleil)
This luso-brazilian artist describes themself as an ‘unhinged lesbian' and just does extremely well-executed, fun, queer, easy to read comics. This book is a YA lesbian romance - it's in a high school and has a love triangle, both tropes I usually hate, but in this case the author has made actually really good somehow. What a magic trick.
Grand Slam Romance - by Hicks (artist of various horny butch comics) and their wife!
Messy, silly, funny, everyone's-lesbians (magical girl?) baseball romance with a non-binary butch lead. Definitely 18+ humour. Honestly just very cool to see a mainstream publisher going for an adult romance like this, and I think there's more in the series to come...
Thoughtful and beautiful
Salt magic (2021) - Technically children's, very beautifully drawn with dark and emotional themes and a winding Ghibli / strange fairytale energy.
LIBERATED - A short, nonfiction graphic novel that simply tells the life of Claude Cahun, a genderqueer jewish artist active in anti-Nazi circles in 1920s-30s Paris.
The story is very movingly portrayed by Kaz Rowe, who is also non-binary and Jewish and makes comics. Kaz is probably better known for running an amazing and massively popular history youtube channel - they do really understandable (but wonderfully nuanced and researched) videos, and also helped with my next book's historical research!
Adult GNs about women with haunted energy
Daughters of Ys (2020) - a beautiful, dark retelling of an ancient celtic legend from Breton France. It may look like gorgeous kids' art, but the themes here are adult, dark and weird (and I loved them.)
A Guest in the House - by Emily Carroll, master of queer horror comics. A previous dead wife's presence seems to haunt Abby's life with her new husband - alternates between daily life in B&W and fragments of her vivid, unsettling dreams. I found the ending too abrupt, but otherwise this is truly a masterpiece of comics storytelling. Panels are so full of weight and emotion and dread. I would love for my panels to have half as much emotion as Emily Carroll's.
Cuckoo - I WAS OBSESSED WITH THIS BOOK. A girl develops weird abilities in an extremely stylish, graphic format that makes the most incredible use of comics as a visual medium. The panelling itself and use of shape lends itself beautifully to the emotions and dreamlike sci fi of the story.
The Many Deaths of Laila Starr - the avatar of death is sent to live in Mumbai and forced to live with mortality. A gem from the world of traditional comics (ie floppies, collected in a TP) which is not usually my area, but I tried out since I slightly know the writer (Ram V) from doing a book event together, and I'm SO glad I did. There's also a great review/ essay here by Ritesh Babu about mythic portrayals of death in comics and across Indian cultures!