This week we’ve looked at upcoming comics releases from DC, Marvel, Image, and manga publishers. Now it’s time to look at everyone else. Check out some fascinating titles slated to come your way this April 2021!
10. Life Before the Pussycats
Apparently Josie existed before the Pussycats. Archie provides one of their signature compendiums of classic sixties comics featuring the chipper bandleader. It’s a relic, sure, and it ignores the turbulent and trying times people who weren’t white and weren’t straight constantly faced during this swinging era, but it also provides some of the zaniest, most imaginative old school cartooning around.
She’s Josie
Published by Archie ComicsBefore she was a part of Josie & the Pussycats, she was just Josie! See how this world-famous rock star started out-as an average high school teen! With her BFFs, the ditzy Melody and the quick & witty Pepper, Josie gets caught up in all sorts of misadventures. Check out this collection and meet her boyfriend Albert, the rotten Cabot twins Alex & Alexandra and many more in this chronological collection of the classic 1960s series!
9. Night City Blights
If Dark Horse really wanted to evoke the feeling of playing Cyberpunk 2077, they’d leave several pages blank, several others in their pencil sketches, and all the rest upside down and out of order.
Cyberpunk 2077: Your Voice
Written by Aleksandra Motyka & Marcin Blancha
Illustrated by Danijel Zezelj
Published by Dark Horse ComicsDuring a routine shift, a lonely maintenance worker encounters an altercation between a mysterious woman and the Maelstrom gang. As the woman attempts to escape, she hands him a chip. To find her and uncover the data, he sets off on a wild journey through the city’s seedy mecca and dangerous wastelands where he meets a sly new client, crazy cyberpunks, and the infamous Johnny Silverhand. He’ll finally discover what true love is and why it’ll never be possible, not in a place like Night City.
8. Chibiusa
Stan Sakai crafts a story of his nominal creation for younger readers with Julie Sakai. It looks bright. It looks colorful. It looks exciting. It looks like everything we’ve come to love about Usagi Yojimbo, except with a higher threshold for goofy antics. I will say, though, I misread the title originally and thought they were making a book for Chibiusa and I was ready to throw my computer across the room while screaming, “Fucking Chibiusa!”
Chibi Usagi: Attack of the Heebie Chibis
Written by Julie and Stan Sakai
Illustrated by Julie Sakai
Published by IDWThe rich world of Usagi Yojimbo, now more accessible to readers of all ages in this chibi-style original graphic novel.
Stan Sakai’s beloved rabbit samurai has won countless fans (and awards!) over his 35-year history, thanks to a clever blend of thrilling action, heartwarming characters, and a realistic portrayal of Japanese culture. Chibi-Usagi brings these fun and thoughtful stories to middle-grade readers as an original graphic novel packed with adorable art and captivating energy.
While fishing for freshwater eels, Chibi-Usagi, Tomoe, and Gen rescue a Dogu, a clay creature from Japan’s prehistory. The Dogu’s village has been enslaved by the Salamander King and his Heebie-Chibi minions and forced to work in their mines. Chibi-Usagi and his friends must rescue the Dogu people and eliminate the threat of the Salamander King forever in this feature-length story of adventure, humor, and slippery eels.
7. Bulky Chomp
If this book is as adorable and charming as its title, it’ll be a treat.
Continued belowHippopotamister
Written and Illustrated by John Patrick Green
Published by First SecondThe zoo isn’t what it used to be. It’s run-down and falling apart. Hippo hardly ever gets any visitors. So he decides to set off for the outside with his friend Red Panda. To make it in the human world, Hippo will have to become a Hippopotamister: he’ll have to act like a human, get a job, and wear a hat as a disguise. He’s a good employee, whether he’s a construction worker, a hair stylist, or a sous chef. But what he really needs is a job where he can be himself.
6. Nervous Breakdowns and Revelations
Austrian cartoonist Regina Hofer’s work is sparse, rich with blacks, and heavy on its impact. She explores her relationship with food and body image while doing whatever she can to bury her disorders. This is sure to be an uncomfortable read, but one that nevertheless can evoke a lot of feeling and understanding.
Fat
Written and Illustrated by Regina Hofer
Published by Graphic MundiAt sixteen, Regina began cutting back on meals to the point where her hair started to fall out. Later, she began to secretly binge at night while her family slept. For a long time, she was able to keep her eating disorder a secret, though hiding her problem didn’t stop it from harming her emotional and physical well-being. The pressures of wanting to succeed as an artist led her to a nervous breakdown and finally a strong desire to start from scratch. Regina Hofer documents her battle with anorexia and bulimia.
5. A New Adventure
Matthew Clarke and Nigel Lynch present this fantastic adventure set in an Afro-Caribbean inspired world. Vibrant and colorful, as encompassing and engrossing as a folktale, this looks like a gripping, entertaining read.
Hardears
Written by Matthew Clarke
Illustrated by Nigel Lynch
Published by Abrams ComicartsHardears is an Afro-Caribbean fantasy-adventure graphic novel. A superstorm of unprecedented strength obliterates the Jouvert Island, leaving it totally defenseless. As the island reels from the devastation, Mr. Harding, the head of the Merchant Guild, charges in and promises to rebuild the economy of the island by creating jobs in his giant corporation. However, Harding is a parasite and is capturing people from the island and using their life essence or vibes to feed his factories. Bolo, a local hero, saves his love Zahrah from Hardin and cronies but the lovers are then framed as rebels against the state. If Bolo, Zahrah, and their allies don’t take down Harding and the corrupt government, all will be lost!
4. Get Into the Groove
Moody and atmospheric and filled with an underlying sense of dread, Facundo Percio and Diego Arandojo’s takes a look at the Argentine beatnik scene during the ’60s. Cool and percussive, the dialogue rat a tat tats through wondrously illustrated charcoal pictures. It’s an experience, an ode, a look back at a bygone era with all the fascination, violence, degradation, and fulfillment of the movement.
Beatnik Buenos Aires
Written by Diego Arandojo
Illustrated by Facundo Percio
Published by Fantagraphicsblossomed. Writer Diego Arandojo and illustrator Facundo Percio come together to weave the rich tapestry of Buenos Aires in the time of the beatnik. Arandojo’s dialogue lends a poetic quality to these lively characters, while Percio’s charcoal drawings perfectly capture the rough charm of this eclectic community of artists and the seedy, smoky locales they inhabit.
3. Eat Your Heart Out
James Albon’s illustrative work is colorful and expressive, with a sketchy, jittery line that instills this sense of movement. I bet he’ll come up with some fun ways to depict fun, the sensation of eating, and the pleasures of taste. Likewise, I bet his work will find an engaging and captivating way to show a character gradually unraveling.
Continued belowThe Delicacy
Written and Illustrated by James Albon
Published by Top ShelfRare and delicious fungi spell trouble for an ambitious restaurateur in this sumptuously painted graphic novel from one of Scotland’s most imaginative young cartoonists. This thrilling page-turner, a fascinating glimpse into the high-pressure world of big-city restaurants, is a must-read for foodies, Anglophiles, Food Network fans, and those with a taste for beautiful, terrible people.
Tulip and his brother Rowan have left the simple comforts of their remote Scottish island with a plan: to grow succulent, organic vegetables in an idyllic market garden, and to open a restaurant serving these wholesome culinary delights to the busy sprawl of London.
The world of fine dining seems impossibly competitive… until they discover a deliriously scrumptious new species of mushroom. The dish brings diners in droves, catapulting their small restaurant to success beyond their wildest dreams.
Now, pressured by the demands of a hungry city, Tulip is desperate to crack the secret of their new ingredient’s growth. But just how much will he sacrifice to feed his own insatiable ambition?
2. Da-Da-Dum-Da-Da-Dum-Da-Da-Da-Da-Dada-Dum
Zander Cannon goes big and wild for the final arc of “Kaijumax.” Which is what you would want for a story with monster prisons and Eder Gods and extra-terrestrial wardens all dealing with the harsh realities of existence. “Kaijumax” remains one of the best monthly comics being released today and while it’s sad to see it go, it’s exciting to see how Cannon plans to bring it to a close.
Kaijumax Season 6 #1
Written and Illustrated by Zander Cannon
Published by One PressFrom across the galaxy, a terrifying alliance of alien warships enters our atmosphere. Luckily for the Earth’s human leaders, they have a prison full of monsters (whose lives they don’t give a damn about) that they can strong-arm, blackmail, and guilt-trip into battling for free. Inmates of both Kaijumax prisons suit up for the filthy, dangerous work of digging radioactivity lines, dropping saucer-retardant liquid, and proactively destroying small cities before the aliens can, all in a bid to lessen their sentences.
Zander Cannon’s Kaijumax is an incisive, darkly satirical take on just about everything-including the prison-industrial complex, drug abuse and addiction, deadbeat dads, regret, the lies we tell ourselves, and…Kaiju! Giant bug-eyed cops! Memes! Combiner-mechs! Satan! Pocket Monsters! Elder Gods! And a LOT more
1. Onward and Upward with the Arms
A new Alison Bechdel book is about as big a comics event you can get. A pioneer of the comic memoir, her stories are filled with empathy and compassion, trauma and desperation, life and hard-wrought beauty, all presented with vivid and energetic illustrations. “The Secret to Superhuman Strength” documents her experiences trying to improve herself, through fitness, through exercise, and the existential crises she throws herself into along the way. Expect the deft observations, the perfectly employed detail, and the assured control over the medium we’ve come to expect from Bechdel.
The Secret to Superhuman Strength
Written and Illustrated by Alison Bechdel
Published by Mariner BooksComics and cultural superstar Alison Bechdel delivers a deeply layered story of her fascination, from childhood to adulthood, with every fitness craze to come down the pike: from Jack LaLanne in the 60s (“Outlandish jumpsuit! Cantaloupe-sized guns!”) to the existential oddness of present-day spin class. Readers will see their athletic or semi-active pasts flash before their eyes through an ever-evolving panoply of running shoes, bicycles, skis, and sundry other gear. But the more Bechdel tries to improve herself, the more her self appears to be the thing in her way. The gifted artist and not-getting-any-younger exerciser comes to a soulful conclusion. The secret to superhuman strength lies not in six-pack abs, but in something much less clearly defined: facing her own non-transcendent but all-important interdependence with others.
Well that was fun. Let us know what you’re looking forward to in the comics!
