2026 sequential art (comics, manga, bande dessinée, graphic novels, funnybooks, etc.)

Picked a poncey title to indicate all of it is welcome.

As usual, posting my reads from last year:

Ninja Saratobi Sasuke, Sugiura Shigeru
Les Petits Hommes - L'Integral, Vol.1, Seron
Justice Warriors, Bors, Clarkson, et al
A História do Tesouro Perdido, Nuno Artur Silva, António Jorge Gonçalves
Neijishiki, Yoshiharu Tsuge *
Dawnrunner, Ram V, Cagle et al
The N Word Of God, Mark Doox
DC Archives: Sugar & Spike, Sheldon Mayer
Tokyo These Days, Vol.1, Taiyo Matsumoto *
O Mangusto, Joana Mosi *
Black Phoenix #13, Rich Tommaso
Question Ominbus, Vol.1, O'Neill, Cowar, et al
Boody: The Bizarre Comics Of Boody Rogers **
Suzanne, Tom Humblestone
Boy Wonder, Juni Ba *
Time Waits, Zdarsky, Brothers et al *
Godzilla: The Marvel Years, Moench, Thimpe et al
Ashita No Joe, Vol.1, Tetsuya Chiba, Asao Tokamore
DJ Cat Gothic World Tour, Harukichi
Last Chance To Find Duke, Shang Zhang
It's Lonely At The Centre Of The World, Zoe Thorgood *
Asterix In Lusitania, Fabcarro, Conrad
Absolute Martian Manhunter, Camp, Rodriguez *
Bowling With Corpses, Mike Mignola
Oh Josephine, Jason
DC X Sonic, Flynn, Thomas, et al
DC Archives: Shazam, Vol.1, C.C. Beck
Reel Politik, Nathan Gielgud

* loved this one a lot
** reread

I got the Francisco V Coching bio/gallery book by Andrea Peterson, it's print on demand, only about 90 pages, in a series called Fifty Shades Of Philippine Art which has all kinds of artists

I read lots more floppies last year than GNs. It was great to have a new R Crumb comic after all this time, and I'm still buying most of the facsimile editions that Marvel and DC are putting out. The Golden Age DC ones are especially fascinating, they often give off an eerie, slightly unwholesome vibe that's somewhat at odds with DC's wholesome brand image. Also addicted to collecting Marvel's 70s horror reprint titles, full of great Atlas-era strips with strong new covers by ppl like John Romita and Ron Wilson.

Latest Rabbi's Cat is up to Sfar's usual quality. Love to hear that cheeky feline comment on the torah.

I seen someone (I think he was a comic shop owner) say there is a looming apocalyptic crisis with serialized comics selling so poorly and collected editions selling so well. I'm guessing this would just cause a shift to more original graphic novels, the transition might be difficult but I don't see why mass casualties would be inevitable. Anyone else hear anything about this?

Maybe he's just wrong

What's your Joe Kubert opinions? I think I favor his work from 1945-1970s but he never really lost it in a bad way. A shame that Kubert Archives series from Fantagraphics didn't get past one volume. His work around that period has wonderful textures at times. I love how rough and worn everything looks.

My Joe Kubert opinion is that he's one of the all-time great top ten American comic book artists - such an utterly distinctive ink style. His Hawkman strips have to be among the most elegant and sublimely drawn superhero comics ever, even if the stories are fairly ho-hum. Love this character sketch by Kubert, so much suggested with just a few brush strokes:

https://external-preview.redd.it/179mnI1y4qmokMcuzNDh4xsr439w4NzgXmFoIQKGVMg.jpg?auto=webp&s=d32fdd374e8482610e372aab841f0f2418eb1658

Slightly late, I read Kate Beaton's Ducks, and thought it was amazing.

Didn't read many comics last year, except for the Brink series (fabulous), whatever Ed Brubaker points out (I... think he's losing it), and I read all the Hilda books with my daughter, which are a total delight.

This year I'm planning to catch up on some of the big classics I've never read, like From Hell, Moore's Swamp Thing, Miller's Daredevil run, Airtight Garage...

I see that DC has been reprinting Kubert's war comics recently

Yeah Ducks is a truly major work.

I seen someone (I think he was a comic shop owner) say there is a looming apocalyptic crisis with serialized comics selling so poorly and collected editions selling so well. I'm guessing this would just cause a shift to more original graphic novels, the transition might be difficult but I don't see why mass casualties would be inevitable. Anyone else hear anything about this?

Kinda weird theory imo. As far as I know superhero comics sales have been in decline for ages (if I am wrong about this I am sure to be corrected), collected editions "sell well" compared to floppies maybe but they ain't doing manga or YA graphic novel numbers.

The comics retailer Brian Hibbs often posts interesting things about the state of the American comic book market, at The Beat and elsewhere:

https://www.comicsbeat.com/tag/brian-hibbs/

Thirded on Ducks. I thought I was p much done with autobiographical comics, but I was wrong.

https://www.retrofabrik.de/alfredo-p-alcala-voltar/
I got this very large (as in tall/wide) German collection of Voltar. Might be the best thing Alfredo Alcala did. I think this has more pages than the other Voltar collections I've seen but I don't know if it's complete.

Seeing the pages of the recent Snafu reprint, some of the most lavish art I've seen from 50s Marvel artists

RAG, you were interested in Trimpe I believe? Some mention here:

https://www.tcj.com/lost-marvels-volume-3-savage-tales-old-fashioned-machismo-in-the-ec-tradition/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=lost-marvels-volume-3-savage-tales-old-fashioned-machismo-in-the-ec-tradition

Thanks. I think I'm overdue a bigger dive into John Severin's work too.

Unrelated to this book: it breaks my heart to see artists drawing generically cartoonier faces when they used to have a far more distinctive approach, it's like seeing a model you liked using awful face filters.

Juliette by Camille Jourdy - Lovely watercolour based work about a woman returning to her hometown and dealing with her dysfunctional family. Kind and warm in the manner of a Kaurismaki film. I read in French but an English language version is available.

Really perplexes me that Neal Adams worked with artists the way he did on Continuity Comics and further projects, sometimes his and other artists styles shine through but a lot of the time it looked like they were working towards a house style, like the way a lot of animators and manga artists work. I genuinely like some of this junk but it's hard to tell who is doing what. Michael Netzer/Nasser claimed that Adams stole some of his work and only credited him later but the feud about them co-creating the character (or not) never ended.

Ms Mystic was the character, originally intended as a DC Comics character and even made a cameo in a Superman story but nobody would know who it was because the Ms Mystic project was delayed for years