We’ve looked at upcoming offerings from DC, Marvel, Image, and manga publishers. Now it’s time to check out everyone else. Here’s some choice comics selections slated to drop this May 2022.
1. Down the Blind Alley
Sevillian artist Israel Gómez Ferrera, aka IRRA, presents this dark and gritty urban drama about a guy just trying to make good by his girlfriend. I’m getting a lot of “100 Bullets” vibes from this, with its harsh designs to match its harsh realities. “Blind Alley” is sure to be a trip, a descent deep into devastation.
Blind Alley #1
Written and Illustrated by IRRA
Published by Behemoth ComicsJes s returns to the neighborhood where he grew up, La Esquina del Gato, a Sevillian suburban neighborhood where violence and the constant struggle against life’s adversities meet. His goal is to resume his relationship with Irene, his former girlfriend, and start a project together. With the help of Fae, his childhood friend, he tries to escape crime and marginalization, carving a niche for himself in the world of work and in society. But Vargas, the exalted brother of Fae, fans the flame of something that has been cooking for a long time.
2. The Long Game
Here’s a book that hides its dark interior under layers of crisp cartooning and the broadest physical comedy. Identities erode. Friendships are tested. Two boys who thought they had everything together, thought they had a plan, watch it all unravel out of their control.
The Con Artists
Written and Illustrated by Luke Healy
Published by Drawn & QuarterlySelf-assured and utterly entitled, Giorgio has always seemed like “Frank, but better.” Moving in with and caring for his estranged childhood friend quickly starts to chip away at Frank’s sense of self, as well as Giogio’s carefully curated online persona. The further Frank is pulled into Giorgio’s orbit, the quicker his existential dread blooms. Expectation and reality soon collide in a singular tale about trust and confidence.
3. Take a Swipe
This new series takes a little bit from Dead Like Me, a little bit from The Good Place, and a little bit from Deadman. Stephanie Phillips is definitely a star in the industry, and I dig that she’s cashing in from her superhero work to get this off the ground. What drew me to it most of all, though, were Rico Renzi’s colors, at least from the preview, which explore the wild possibilities of a limited palette.
Grim #1
Written by Stephanie Phillips
Illustrated by Flaviano
Published by BOOM! StudiosJessica Harrow is dead. But her journey has only just begun!
Discover the world of the afterlife, where Jessica has been recruited as a Reaper, tasked with ferrying countless souls to their final destination.
But unlike the rest of the Reapers, she has no memory of what killed her and put her into this predicament.
In order to unravel the mystery of her own demise, she’ll have to solve an even bigger one – where is the actual GRIM REAPER?
From acclaimed writer Stephanie Phillips (Harley Quinn) and fan favorite artist Flaviano (New Mutants) comes a bold new vision of what comes after, and the nature of death itself!
4. Down and Out in Apple Valley
James Spooner has built his career exploring Black identity within the punk scene. He released the documentary Afro-Punk in 2003 and the film White Lies Black Sheep, a couple years later. He now brings those themes into his first comic, about a young man whose own culture has no interest in his passions and whose chosen culture greets him with a series of microaggressions and outright derision. This is bound to be powerful.
Continued belowThe High Desert
Written and Illustrated by James Spooner
Published by Mariner BooksApple Valley, California, in the late eighties, a thirsty, miserable desert. Teenage James Spooner hates that he and his mom are back in town after years away. The one silver lining-new school, new you, right? But the few Black kids at school seem to be gangbanging, and the other kids fall on a spectrum of micro-aggressors to future Neo-Nazis. James doesn’t know where he fits until he meets Ty, a young Black punk who introduces him to the school outsiders-skaters, unhappy young rebels, caught up in the punk groundswell sweeping the country. A haircut, a few Sex Pistols, Misfits and Black Flag records later: suddenly, James has friends, romantic prospects, and knows the difference between a bass and a guitar. But this desolate landscape hides brutal, building undercurrents. Everything and everyone are set to collide at one of the year’s biggest shows in town.
5. Who’s There to Call?
Originally self-published in 2021, G. Davis Cathcart’s weird and wild story is getting a much bigger spotlight through Fantagraphics. There are art thieves. There’s music. There’s time travel. There’s innovative and bonkers designs and cartooning at work on each and every page. This book is a trip and here’s to hoping it finds a wider audience.
One Eight Hundred Ghosts
Written and Illustrated by G. Davis Cathcart
Published by FantagraphicsOne Eight Hundred Ghosts is a graphic novella about the internal and external conflicts of a team of art thieves – the protagonist Cedric and a collection of peers that he assembles – who moonlight as astral projecting time travellers. They lead the typical life of eighties art going socialites on the scene – attending art shows, making appearances at fine dining institutions and artworld hangouts. They also undertake a fantastical heist by using otherworldly technology to enter the future and repurpose the intellectual property of a popular evil artist in order to change its cultural trajectory.
The story’s heroes realize that society will face a conundrum in the future that only they can rectify: accept the work of a sonic genius despite his abusive tendencies or release the masterpiece themselves, stripping the artist of his pivotal success that would later enable his power and crimes. Ultimately, the group of thieves seek to improve the artworld that they endorse by saving the decade’s defining cultural touchstone… Michael Jackson’s Thriller.
6. They Glow
Cyrielle Evrard, or Cy, published “Radium Girls” in France in 2014. It tells the true story of several factory women in New Jersey forced to paint watch faces with radioactive material; they also ingested it when their company told them that to get a finer point on their brushes, they needed to lick the tips. There have been a few versions of the Radium Girls story floating around, but comics feel like an ideal medium for the story. And Cy’s soft colors and abstract shapes carry so much weight and power to this story. They say the women all still glow in their graves.
Radium Girls
Written and Illustrated by Cy
Published by Iron CircusIt’s 1918 in Orange, New Jersey, and everyone knows the “Ghost Girls.” The proud holders of well-paying jobs at the local watch factory, these working-class young women gain their nickname from the fine dusting of glowing, radioactive powder that clings to their clothes after every shift painting watch dials. The soft, greenish glow even stains their lips and tongues. It’s perfectly harmless… or so claims the watch manufacturer. When teeth start falling out, followed by jawbones, the dial painters become the unprepared vanguard on the frontlines of the burgeoning workers’ rights movement. Desperate for compensation and acknowledgement from the company that has doomed them, the Ghost Girls must fight, not just for their own lives but the future of every woman to follow them.
7. AMITOUFU!!!!!!
Geoff Darrow is one of those few artists who can include a significant amount of detail in his drawings but never lose the story’s momentum or energy. He’s a master and every time a new one of these comes out, it’s worth a look.
The Shaolin Cowboy: Cruel to Be Kin
Written and Illustrated by Geoff Darrow
Published by Dark Horse ComicsIn Phase 4 of the SCU, the Shaolin Cowboy finds his parenting skills being tested when he is forced to homeschool during a pandemic of unparalleled violence, in this story torn from yesterday’s viral twitter feeds.
Can he get a kung fu grip on the situation before a horde of .45 loving human monsters and not so human monsters send him to the ICU?
Only guns, swords, and flying guillotines will tell!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
8. Live the Riot
The further we are from 1969, the more we need a reminder of what happened that fateful night. Archie Bongiovanni and A. Andrews’s book explores the event through their own character, and it doesn’t look like they’re trying to downplay the role of trans people of color in the narrative, unlike a certain movie. It’s easy to forget how much progress the queer movement has made, especially when Republican governors are doing everything in their power to just be mean to people, but it’s always worth checking to see how far we’ve come.
Continued belowThe Stonewall Riots: Making a Stand for LGBTQ Rights
Written and Illustrated by Archie Bongiovanni and A. Andrews
Published by First Second BooksTurn back the clock with History Comics! In this volume, three teenagers-Natalia, Jax, and Rashad-are magically transported from their modern lives to the legendary Stonewall Inn in the summer of 1969. Escorted by Natalia’s eccentric abuela (and her pet cockatiel, Rocky), the friends experience the police raid firsthand and are thrown into the infamous riots that made the struggle for LGBTQ rights front-page news.
9. Hear the Roar
Margaret Atwood goes the Michael Chabon route with this story about aspiring cartoonists at the dawn of the Toronto comics scene. The stories-within-stories structure, the ability to experience the fictional world these fictional characters create falls much more in line with Atwood’s fiction. The book is illustrated by Ken Steacy, who hopefully has a chance to let his imagination sore.
War Bears
Written by Margaret Atwood
Illustrated by Ken Steacy
Published by Dark Horse ComicsFrom the Booker Prize-winning author of The Handmaid’s Tale, comes this historical fiction graphic novel tracing the Golden Age of Canadian comic books.
Oursonette, a fictional Nazi-fighting superheroine, is created at the peak of World War II by comic book creator Al Zurakowski who dreams of making it big in the early world of comics publishing.
A story that follows the early days of comics in Toronto, a brutal war that greatly strains Al personally and professionally, and how the rise of post-war American comics puts an end to his dreams.
Internationally and New York Times best-selling novelist Margaret Atwood and acclaimed artist Ken Steacy collaborate for one of the most highly anticipated comic book and literary events! Collects War Bears issues #1-3.
10. Tales from the North
Iron Circus assembles this collection of indigenous folk stories. Part of their “Cautionary Fables and Fairy Tales” series, the anthology features the work of Elijah Forbes, Jordaan Arledge, Mekala Nava, Rhael McGregor, Milo Applejohn, Alice RL, Mercedes Acosta, and Izzy Roberts. All these artists come from a variety of backgrounds and identities. Considering how well Iron Circus has done these collections in the past, this is also sure to be a diverse and fascinating exploration of culture. Edited and organized by Kate Ashwin, Kel McDonald, and Alina Pete.
The Women in the Woods and Other North American Stories
Edited by Kate Ashwin, Kel McDonald, and Alina Pete
Published by Iron Circus ComicsIn this exciting and historical comics collection, some of storytelling’s finest talents reimagine folklore from North American tribes with a modern twist. Loup Garrou, trickster rabbits, and spirits with names that can’t be spoken – the plains and forests of North America are alive with characters like these, all waiting to meet you in this collection of folklore retold in comics! This volume of the Cautionary Fables and Fairytales anthology series features updated takes on ancient stories from tribes spanning the continent, bursting with bedside tales that are thrilling, chilling, and most of all inspiring.
Let us know what you’re excited for in the comments.
Until next time, con amistad.
