Skim


Mariko Tamaki - 2008
    When Skim's classmate Katie Matthews is dumped by her boyfriend, who then kills himself, the entire school goes into mourning overdrive. As concerned guidance counselors provide lectures on the "cycle of grief," and the popular clique starts a new club (Girls Celebrate Life!) to bolster school spirit, Skim sinks into an ever-deepening depression.And falling in love only makes things worse...Suicide, depression, love, being gay or not, crushes, cliques, and finding a way to be your own fully human self—are all explored in this brilliant collaboration by cousins Mariko and Jillian Tamaki. An edgy, keenly observed and poignant glimpse into the heartache of being young.

Heart and Brain: An Awkward Yeti Collection


Nick Seluk - 2015
    From paying taxes and getting up for work to dancing with kittens and starting a band, readers everywhere will relate to the ongoing struggle between Heart and Brain.Heart and Brain: An Awkward Yeti Collection illustrates the relationship between the sensible Brain and its emotionally driven counterpart, the Heart.Boasting more than one million pageviews per month, TheAwkwardYeti.com has become a webcomic staple since its creation in 2012.

Crowded, Vol. 1


Christopher Sebela - 2019
    A world where anyone with enough backers and the money they contribute can kill anyone else.Like Charlie Ellison, who up until now has lead a quiet, normal life, until she wakes up to find herself the target of a Reapr campaign with a million dollars on her head. Hunted by all of Los Angeles, Charlie hires Vita, the lowest rated bodyguard on the Dfend app. As the campaign picks up speed and Vita takes out incompetent civilians and aspirational assassins on their tail, she and Charlie will have to figure out who wants Charlie dead and why before the campaign's 30 days or their lives are over.Collects CROWDED #1-6

The Gigantic Beard That Was Evil


Stephen Collins - 2013
    By which we mean: orderly, neat, contained and, moreover, beardless.Or at least it is until one famous day, when Dave, bald but for a single hair, finds himself assailed by a terrifying, unstoppable... monster*!Where did it come from? How should the islanders deal with it? And what, most importantly, are they going to do with Dave?The first book from a new leading light of UK comics, The Gigantic Beard That Was Evil is an off-beat fable worthy of Roald Dahl. It is about life, death and the meaning of beards.(*We mean a gigantic beard, basically.)

Britten and Brülightly


Hannah Berry - 2008
    I don't get out of bed much...Until today.''Private Researcher' Fernández Britten is the messenger who would view being shot as a blessing. The years spent uncovering people's secret dramas and helping to confirm their darkest suspicions have taken their toll. Battered by remorse over the lives he has ruined, he clings to the hope of redemption through delivering, just once, a truth with a positive impact. It's a hope he has been clinging to for a long time.And so Britten and his 'unconventional' partner, Brülightly, take on the case of suicide Berni Kudos. At least, suicide was the official verdict. His fiancée, Charlotte Maughton, believes his death was something more sinister.Blackmail, revenge, murder: desperate acts are exposed, and this is no tree-lined avenue to justice. Each new revelation stirs the muddy waters of a family's dark secrets, and each fresh twist takes them further from that elusive redemption.There are murder mysteries and there are murder mysteries, but this is a noir where nothing is black and white.

How I Paid for College: A Novel of Sex, Theft, Friendship & Musical Theater


Marc Acito - 2004
    Seventeen-year-old Edward Zanni, a feckless Ferris Bueller–type, is Peter Panning his way through a carefree summer of magic and mischief. The fun comes to a halt, however, when Edward’s father remarries and refuses to pay for Edward to study acting at Juilliard.Edward’s truly in a bind. He’s ineligible for scholarships because his father earns too much. He’s unable to contact his mother because she’s somewhere in Peru trying to commune with Incan spirits. And, as a sure sign he’s destined for a life in the arts, Edward’s incapable of holding down a job. So he turns to his loyal (but immoral) misfit friends to help him steal the tuition money from his father, all the while practicing for his high school performance of Grease. Disguising themselves as nuns and priests, they merrily scheme their way through embezzlement, money laundering, identity theft, forgery, and blackmail. But, along the way, Edward also learns the value of friendship, hard work, and how you’re not really a man until you can beat up your father—metaphorically, that is.How I Paid for College is a farcical coming-of-age story that combines the first-person tone of David Sedaris with the byzantine plot twists of Armistead Maupin. It is a novel for anyone who has ever had a dream or a scheme, and it marks the introduction to an original and audacious talent.

Goldie Vance, Vol. 3


Hope Larson - 2017
    Luckily, she lives at a Florida resort with her dad, who manages the place, and with a rotating roster of guests and events, there’s bound to be some mystery afoot! With the Prescription One race in town, Goldie and her biggest rival, Sugar Maple, find themselves in an unlikely alliance to find who is sabotaging the drivers before the big event. Eisner Award-winning writer Hope Larson (A Wrinkle in Time: The Graphic Novel) and artist Brittney Williams (Patsy Walker, A.K.A Hellcat!) are joined by writer Jackie Ball and introducing artist Noah Hayes in another exciting whodunnit adventure!

Kim & Kim Vol. 1


Magdalene Visaggio - 2016
    A day-glo action adventure that's bursting with energy and enthusiasm, Kim & Kim puts queer women and trans women front and center in an adventure that's bright, happy, punk rock, sci fi & queer as all get-out. "One of the breakout debuts of 2016." -Comics Alliance

My Brother's Husband, Volumes 1 & 2


Gengoroh Tagame - 2020
    Their lives suddenly change with the arrival at their doorstep of a hulking, affable Canadian named Mike Flanagan, who declares himself the widower of Yaichi's estranged gay twin, Ryoji. Mike is on a quest to explore Ryoji's past, and the family reluctantly but dutifully takes him in. What follows is an unprecedented and heartbreaking look at the state of a largely still-closeted Japanese gay culture: how it's been affected by the West, and how the next generation can change the preconceptions about it and prejudices against it.(Please note: This book is a traditional work of manga, and reads back to front and right to left.)

Bubble


Jordan Morris - 2021
    Humans like Morgan, who’s Brush-born and Bubble-raised and fully capable of fending off an Imp attack during her morning jog. She’s got a great routine going—she has a chill day job, she recreationally kills the occasional Imp, then she takes that Imp home for her roommate and BFF, Annie, to transform into drugs as a side hustle. But cracks appear in her tidy life when one of those Imps nearly murders a delivery guy in her apartment, accidentally transforming him into a Brush-powered mutant in the process. And when Morgan’s company launches Huntr, a gig economy app for Imp extermination, she finds herself press-ganged into kicking her stabby side job up to the next level as she battles a parade of monsters and monstrously Brush-turned citizens, from a living hipster beard to a book club hive mind.

Patsy Walker, A.K.A. Hellcat!, Volume 1: Hooked on a Feline


Kate Leth - 2016
    As she goes from living a double life to a triple, what the hell is Patsy Walker supposed to do? There'll be friendship and burgers, monsters and rent checks and a ghost from the past with questionable motives! Comics' most flexible heroine has been a provisional Avenger, a Defender, Satan's daughter-in-law and a dead woman–but she's never been anything like this!Collecting: Patsy Walker, A.K.A. Hellcat! 1-6

Lost Girls


Alan Moore - 2006
    Now, like us, these three lost girls have grown up and are ready to guide us again, this time through the realms of our sexual awakening and fulfillment. Through their familiar fairy tales they share with us their most intimate revelations of desire in its many forms... revelations that shine out radiantly through the dark clouds of war gathering around a luxury Austrian hotel.Drawing on the rich heritage of erotica, Lost Girls is the rediscovery of the power of ecstatic writing and art in a sublime union that only the medium of comics can achieve. Exquisite, thoughtful, and human, Lost Girls is a work of breathtaking scope that challenges the very notion of art fettered by convention. This is erotic fiction at its finest.Similar to DC's Absolute editions of Watchmen and The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Lost Girls will be published as three, 112-page, super-deluxe, ovesized hardcover volumes, all sealed in a gorgeous slipcase. It will truly be an edition for the ages.

Life Sucks


Jessica Abel - 2008
    Life sucks for Dave Marshall.  The girl he’s in love with doesn’t know he exists, he hates his job, and ever since his boss turned him into a vampire, he can’t go out in daylight without starting to charbroil. Undead life in its uncoolest incarnation yet is on display in this cinematic, supernatural drama told with gallons of humor and hemoglobin.  In striking, colorful, B-movie style artwork and light-hearted, intelligent writing by Jessica Abel, Gabe Soria, and Warren Pleece, Dave Marshall’s story comes alive – in a vampiric kind of way.

Marbles: Mania, Depression, Michelangelo, and Me


Ellen Forney - 2012
    Flagrantly manic and terrified that medications would cause her to lose creativity, she began a years-long struggle to find mental stability while retaining her passions and creativity.Searching to make sense of the popular concept of the crazy artist, she finds inspiration from the lives and work of other artists and writers who suffered from mood disorders, including Vincent van Gogh, Georgia O’Keeffe, William Styron, and Sylvia Plath. She also researches the clinical aspects of bipolar disorder, including the strengths and limitations of various treatments and medications, and what studies tell us about the conundrum of attempting to “cure” an otherwise brilliant mind.Darkly funny and intensely personal, Forney’s memoir provides a visceral glimpse into the effects of a mood disorder on an artist’s work, as she shares her own story through bold black-and-white images and evocative prose.

My Brain Hurts, Volume One


Liz Baillie - 2007
    It's like they were your actual high school peers - pissing off the administration and taking care of each other when they get beat up by skinheads. Liz Baillie has a real talent for dialogue, characters, storytelling, and capturing New York - especially those moments that we all live, awkwardly making out, pulling pranks, and drinking beer. This graphic novel collects the first five (out of 10) issues of the comic My Brain Hurts.