My Favorite Graphic Novels of October 2024 - Comic Book Herald (2024)

We’re officially approaching “time to finalize those best of the year lists” season, yet the good comics keep coming! This month, I give two of the best superhero books their due, before formally announcing my indie small press era.

Don’t hesitate to let me know any of your favorites I may have missed via dave@comicbookherald.com!

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Dracula: Book One – The Impaler

I went deep on Dracula this month (phrasing, David) as I prepared to interview Matt Wagner and Kelley Jones about their kickstarted work on Dracula’s origins (Book Two – The Brides has been funded on Kickstarter throughout October ’24). This meant reading the novel for the first time (woot!), reading Alberto Breccia’s Dracula for the first time (woot woot!), and watching Nosferatu in full for the first time (silent woots!).

All that intense fascination with the lord of Vampires (not to mention full reads of Wagner’s Grendel and Jones’ work on Batman: Red Rain) led to a deep appreciation for what the beloved comics creator’s are doing here with their planned 4 book series. Dracula’s origins is a tricky beast to tackle, but Wagner and Jones are perfectly suited to take the enigmatic references from Stoker’s novel (Van Helsing talks about Dracula going to Satan’s school like it’s flippin’ Oxford!) and transform them into a fully fleshed (so fleshy!) journey. It’s a damn good time for a damn bad monster, and pairs neatly with Tynion IV/Simmonds Universal Monsters: Dracula from earlier this year, as well as the new J.H. Williams III Dracula storybook that just released from Image Comics!

The Winter King

I’ve officially entered my “I will support any small press comics” era, although it started off with real disappointment when I finally got a break to check Matt Emmons table at C2E2 only to find he’d sold out in the first couple days! I’m catching up with the Council of Frogs master of supernatural ecology comics, and recently got my hands on this year’s The Winter King, a wordless tale of a coyote navigating everything from hunting wabbits, to ghost funeral processions to encroaching haunted skeleton monsters. It all makes a strange sense under Emmons careful hand, blending the animal world with the fantastic in these beautiful self-printed short works. If I ever need to vote on an award for “Best Bramble Artist,” it’s a no-brainer.

Emmons self-publishes through Second At Best Press, and they’re currently running a Kickstarter for two new comics (including a choose-your-own-adventure!) which I’ve eagerly backed. I’d recommend getting your hands on a copy of Council of Frogs first to see if you’re into it. I suspect you will be.

UM Volume One

I mentioned my interview with Matt Wagner and Kelley Jones above, and one of the most resonant thoughts they shared with me is the value of allowing eccentricity in comics. How the artform tends to fall flat when you’re working under corporatized constraints and trying to fit into expectations of how a comic is supposed to look/read/feel.

If you want pure eccentricity, in its most complimentary form, look no further than Buttercup’s UM Volume One, out now from Radiator Press, and edited by Jamilia Rowser (Wash Day Diaries) and Steenz (Heart of the City). Trying to define UM is a fool’s errand, but seeing as I’m a fool, let’s try: what if four black, queer friends got caught in ancient cycles of magic surrounding midwifes, in a comic that merges the slice-of-life humor of John Allison with the unencumbered magical fantasy of Dandadan anime.

It’s a work that refuses to play by the rules of comics, and thank god. Strange, funny, gorgeous and uncomfortably sad, all at once.

Somna

“Could Stanly Kubrick make an artistic porn?,” is one of my favorite faux-intellectual college dorm conversations because it’s mostly an excuse to talk about your favorite sex videos while remaining oh so high-minded. It also gleefully overlooks the robust history of erotic literature, cinema, and yes, comics, that quite clearly illustrate sex and art can be pals! Becky Cloonan and Tula Lotay are the latest to prove the peanut-butter/chocolate symbiosis (speaking of erotic!) with Somna, a supernatural renaissance horror burning with demon-lust.

New Vertigo-void aiming comics publisher DSTLRY (I can’t believe I didn’t think to call it CMCBKHRLD) walked into their first Eisner for Best New Series behind Cloonan and Lotay’s Somna, featuring colorists Lee Loughridge and Dee Cuffiffe, and letterer Lucas Gattoni. It’s not hard to see why. This is a gorgeous hardcover collection, with Cloonan and Lotay trading storytelling depending on the surreal nature of the scene (until, of course, the dreamworld and reality begin to collide and there’s no telling if the demon-sex is pure fantasy or hard reality). Much was made about Mitch Gerads and Doc Shaner sharing interiors on the Tom King-written Strange Adventures, but Somna is a much smoother integration, backed by a couple of incredible talents who can truly do it all.

Somna is not subtle about its point-of-view on how male-dominated societies repress female sexuality for their own sad grasps at power, and it doesn’t need to be. The conversation is as relevant today as it was during a time when the new hot thing could be named Sigurd. It’s why The Handmaid’s Tale had such a strong second-life on Hulu, and why comics awards are able to recognize the power of a work like this. Nonetheless, just because witchhunts are familiar doesn’t make them any less real, or any less applicable, and it still takes a great deal of power and control to sell what makes this one different. For me, that comes down to the swirling ambiguity of Lotay and Cloonan’s underworld, and their unique bond as creative voices.

Hirayasumi Vol. 1 & 2

I bristle at the use of cozy to describe art. Even knowing full well that I often seek genres of comfort-food relaxation in music and comics, it bothers me to reduce art to a warm cup of tea. This is especially prevalent in slice-of-life manga, where stories and mangaka are allowed the space for introspection. Enter Keigo Shinzo’s – *clenches with rage* – cozy Hirayasumi, a Viz Signatura manga about a 29 year-old former actor living with his college-aged would-be manga artist cousin.

Where certain publishers (What’s up Seven Seas!) would have turned this into I’m Falling In Love With My Would-Be Manga Artist Cousin!, Shinzo instead focuses on the challenges and social anxiety of getting older, and how the beautiful zen outlook of Hiroto Ikuta helps those around them find purpose in their day. On the surface, yes, I can see how the laconic set-ups of Hirayasumi could be considered cozy, but dig a little deeper, and the feelings of inadequacy and imposter syndrome are tremendously relatable and thought-provoking. Shinzo isn’t here to hide the stressful realities of life, so much as spotlighting how they are realities for everyone. It’s a manga filled with wonderful characters you’ll want to spend time with, sure, but more than that, it’s an inspiring meditation on a purpose-driven life beyond the day-to-day grind of work, money, and power that it’s so easy to get swept in.

Reading volume 2 on the heels of Tatsuki Fujimoto’s Look Back, I was also struck how effectively Shinzo captures Natsumi’s internal pressures of creating, and how the feelings that you’ll never measure up to some impossible standard can prevent so much breathtaking creation. Shinzo avoids the Bakuman-style focus on manga-about-manga, but the addition of Natsumi’s journey to become a published manga-author is obvious catnip for readers like myself.

Return to Eden

I had the strange experience of reading Paco Roca’s Return to Eden, a new graphic novel out from Fantagraphics, shortly after learning that my grandfather-in-law had passed. As we’ve known this moment was coming for some time now, my wife had thoughtfully been collecting stories from her grandpa’s past, and I had the chance to read and edit. Following a loved one’s memories is an intimate journey, informative, surprising, tear-jerking and humorous. As he passes, the deep feelings of loss are augmented by this unexpected retention of his story. I’ve never known him better and now he’s gone. His story remains.

Paco Roca channels similar feelings into a moving portrait of his mother, with a focus on her early teen years in post WWII Francisco Franco Spain. Roca’s central question is why a beach photo of his mother’s family remains so essential to her in her final years, and uses this framing to effectively explore the family tree, complete with the awareness that the happy days of the past were never quite so true. It’s a masterful, careful consideration of the author’s lineage and the context that shaped those he calls family.

I’ve had more of Roca’s work sitting on my to-read shelf for too long, and this is precisely the kick needed to explore more of what this brilliant cartoonist has to offer.

Ultimate Spider-Man Vol. 1: Married With Children

I went into Jonathan Hickman and Marco Checchetto’s Ultimate Spider-Man, the launch series of the Ultimate 2niverse, and one of the most successful Marvel Comics of the last decade, with grand dreams. This is, after all, the Jonathan Hickman who wrote the best Marvel event of all time, and redefined what X-Men comics could be, if only fleetingly in the grand scheme. What sci-fi twist would Hickman unleash upon the Spidey mythos to do something no one had ever tried before? The surprise, then, is not any particular high concept, but the subversive approach of telling the grounded story of a Peter Parker getting his powers not at 15 but at 35. When Peter first gets his powers he’s married to Mary Jane Watson, with two young children, and well-ensconced at the Daily Bugle as a working class professional. It’s Miracleman by way of The Incredibles, and what it lacks in freshness it more than makes up for in a playfully earnest desire to recapture everything we love about Spider-Man, but with 60 years of those experiences under our belts.

The “mic drops” here are all rooted in the familiar – If Peter Parker doesn’t get his powers at 15, Uncle Ben is still alive and kicking, as a gloriously charming journalist-in-arms with his best friend (and perhaps more) J. Jonah Jameson. We get to experience the Ditko / Lee / Romita classics – Peter meets Harry, Peter meets Gwen, Peter meets what may well be this universe’s Venom (ok that came later) – in a world controlled by the Maker’s hand-chosen Shadow elites, who eagerly count down the 18 months until this Universe’s Maker is freed. Hickman and Checchetto – fresh off an excellent stint on Daredevil, and born to draw web-slinging – approach the big picture from a distance, with Peter first going up against Wilson Fisk, involved but a mere pawn in the schemes of the Maker. There’s the thrill of the original Ultimate Universe comics attempting to truly recreate the OGs for a modern era – how will Hickman and Checchetto do the Sinister Six is pure plain spider-fun – alongside the thrill of delivering the Spider-Family fans have clamored for since 2007’s One More Day. At the end of the day, though, it’s fan-service with purpose, behind the hands of two comics creators (alongside David Messina filling in on art for issues 4 and 5 of the first volume) who are among the best working regularly in the Big 2 superhero landscape. For my money, the work has only gotten better into the second volume, and Ultimate Spider-Man has been one of my favorite monthly reads of 2024.

The King’s Warrior

Speaking of my small-press indie comics era, Huahua Zhu’s The King’s Warrior is my favorite comic yet from Bulgilhan Press, like Berserk by way of Zelda, as a young warrior seeks their lost brother with the aid of a Lionsteed (a Lion-horse companion they bested in gladiator-esque combat, of course!). Zhu’s vision is pure indie fantasy, with a tactile, textured style and coloring that feels like your picking up the pieces of an epic quest directly off the artist’s workspace floor. The work alternates modes of supernatural grotesquery, sword-and-shield action, and monster-hunter warzones, but it’s in Zhu’s understanding of pacing and perspective that I found myself actively dreading the end of a mere 74 pages. Whether through coloring, layout, or angles, Zhu finds a way to cram (complimentary!) a full graphic novel’s worth of framing into a novella.

Batman Detective Comics 3: Gotham Nocturne: Act II

It’s not like Detective Comics slipped under my radar. DC’s Batman comics are among the most familiar works in the American direct market, and Ram V is one of my favorite modern writers (see last month’s Rare Flavours write-up for proof!). Nonetheless, I certainly whiffed on seeing the totality of vision, scope and craft in Ram V’s Detective Comics. The literal operatic structure, tone-cementing Evan Cagle covers and all-around style oozes ambition, but it wasn’t until the run ended this month with Detective Comics #1089 that a full read-through revealed the aims of that ambition to me. And in sinking into Ram’s vision for Batman more fully, I realized a truth about myself: I’d completely lost sight of what I desire in superhero comics.

I didn’t know you could make a long run like this any more.

Detective spans 2 and a half years, and over 30 issues, including annuals (plus, note here that single issues of Detective all include relevant backup features written by Si Spurrier and Dan Watters). In its totality, Detective Comics reveals a truly remarkable case for the long-form ongoing comic book, and the value of empowering a wide variety of creative voices to fulfill their visions. Yes, Ram V is directing, but it’s the astonishing blend of so many artists – Stefano Raffaele, Ivan Reis, Dustin Nguyen, Francesco Francavilla, Caspar Wijngaard, Hayden Sherman, and on and on and on… – that embodies a refusal to pursue anything less than creative excellence (not to mention a herculean feat of editorial scheduling!). In a Batman run in conversation with the greats of the past – including Grant Morrison first and foremost – you have a spiritual successor to early Vertigo Hellblazer, or Mike Carey, Dean Ormsten and Peter Gross’s Lucifer. It’s a gloriously patient work that reminds me: Ongoing superhero comics can be this good!

The most recent volume collects Detective Comics #1071 to #1075, but again, I would highly encourage a read-through the run as a whole, which is clearly how it’s meant to be read. This is why comic book fans clamor for the days of the years-long ongoing, and reject the obsession with the 5 issue miniseries. Artists giving themselves to a meal this satisfying is simply why I read these stories in the first place. And in the struggle of Bruce Wayne and the Orghams a second truth emerges too: There are long-term benefits to the corporate overlords when a run builds new characters, designs and plot so successfully. Crass commercialism and authentic art intersect to make everyone happy!

Do Geese See God

Let me start you off with a Flash Fact so you don’t feel as dumb as I did: Do Geese See God is a palindrome. In fact, it’s a pretty well known one, to the point that if you search the name, you’ll get an anthology of palindromes! Cartoonist Nicholas Offerman is aware of this as well, structuring this heartfelt, inspiring, cathartic graphic novel with a palindromic color chart, and at times what seems to be a palindromic layout, although seeing as I wasn’t looking for that at all, I suspect there are more formalistic secrets that I missed!

Of course, none of that is really critical to getting Offerman’s Do Geese See God (and no, as far as I can tell, there’s no relation between this Offerman and Parks and Rec‘s woodsman). This work is a deeply felt meditation on loss, both in the death of a friend, but also in the death of a friendship, in becoming adults and growing apart and sacrificing those eternal bonds of insane bike rides through the rain for the adulthood you think you’re supposed to achieve. Despite that heaviness – and make no mistake, it’s an emotional journey, and one that resonates intensely – Offerman finds a sly humor, particularly in the lunatic bus driver, Bob, that helps keep the work afloat in would could become a lake of despair. Offerman’s cartooning is paced with great care and his character’s expressions are clear and engrossing. With a shifting two or three-tone color palette, Offerman completely controls Otto’s journey looking to reshape his life following the suicide of his best friend. It’s a critical darling indie film waiting to happen, and it does so with a full embrace of comics as a medium.

I went into Do Geese See God with no idea what to expect, pursuing it solely based on inclusion in the New York Public Library’s list of favorite 2024 graphic novels for adults. I leave it having enjoyed one of my favorite graphic novels of the year.