Yikes, did last year ever fly by fast! 2025 sounds like a date that should be appearing in some futuristic sci-fi movie rather than the digits on my new wall calendar. But time waits for no man, and I was faced with the terrible choice of narrowing down an entire year’s worth of new-to-Comics Plus titles to my top six favorites I think curious readers should check out.
This wound up being much harder than I expected, and while I’m not saying these selections constitute a prestigious award or anything, I honestly kept finding myself considering that level of criteria when deciding between my top picks. This month’s “honorable mentions” could and should all be considered worthy runner-ups, and a solid list of recommended titles in its own right.
My top selections probably won’t come as a surprise for anyone already familiar with these titles, especially anyone who has regularly read my monthly advisories, but if this is the first time you’re hearing about any of these books, I hope you’ll be properly motivated enough to check them out for yourself. Each one is definitely worth your time, personally and professionally, as the potential readers you can connect them with will definitely thank you. Reading and enjoying them yourself is thanks enough for me, though!
Middle Grade
While my top picks skew towards teens and older readers, I have at least one recommendation that can (and really should) appeal to readers of any age. I know I’ve already heaped tons of praise on the work of the very talented K. O’Neill, and while I certainly encourage checking out her entire catalog, if she’s new to you, then you should definitely start with Tea Dragon Society (Oni Press). I’d previously alluded to it feeling like Hayao Miyazaki imagining the Pokemon universe; a world populated with adorable little dragons who each produce their own kind of magical memory-inducing tea leaves. And, when l wrote about Tea Dragon Festival — really more of a companion book than a sequel — I remain taken with O’Neill’s gentle touch throughout the book, even in the action sequences, always thematically striving towards peace, community, and understanding.
It’s a book I would almost call “harmless”, but in a good way — much like how the Hippocratic oath is to “do no harm”, ultimately the Tea Dragon material has healing in mind. Comics have frequently been at the forefront of confronting challenging social subjects, and to see O’Neil embrace many of them so effortlessly and wholeheartedly in a book that has become beloved by so many is really encouraging. And for a bemused and aging nerd like me, it’s a statement of how far comics have really come over the decades that it has been my job(s) to read them.
Teen
Another creator who continues to impress me is the savvy Kid Toussaint, whose catalog shows he has his finger on the pulse of what readers really want out of the genres he explores in his work. While I’d love to cite a few examples, I don’t think you’re going to find a book with broader appeal than his quirky coming-of-age teen drama, the “multi-faceted” Elle(s) (Ablaze). Toussaint taps into the happy place in your brain Pixar’s films frequently occupy, and like I mentioned a few months ago, Elle(s) reads like Inside Out meets Split — with the stakes set slightly more at the “high school” level, I guess. Every teenager (every human really) struggles to integrate the different aspects of their personality, but the titular Elle’s problem is really on a whole other level. Try keeping a circle of friends when each time they see you you are literally a completely different personality! The friends you do manage keep wind up being extra tight — so now there’s just the challenge of befriending all the different aspects of yourself. Phew! It’s a great story that I’m glad we finally have collected all in one volume.
While books like Elle(s) could easily function as proof-of-concept storyboards for an animated movie, the masterfully melancholic storytelling achieved in the Sheets trilogy (Oni Press) is the sort of immersive experience you can really only achieve in comics. I’m not saying it doesn’t “deserve” to be turned into an animation, or I wouldn’t love to see it happen, but sequential art is its own medium, with its own unique powers of communication. With the addition of Delicates and Lights to Comics Plus last year, we now have an incredibly fine example of just such a uniquely successful use of the art form. This beautifully somber work is definitely a popular title here at LibraryPass, and if you want to hear me gush some more you can always check out my initial write-up, too.
Out of all the picks on this “best of” wrap-up, the Sheets series is the one that is the absolute must-read, no matter who you are. You owe it to yourself, and to every new reader you’re sure to recommend it to afterwards.
Young Adult
If you read my Advisory last August, you will probably not be at all surprised to see The Library Mule of Cordoba (Ablaze) in the spotlight again. While the Sheets trilogy is my “if you only read one…” pick, Comics Plus lets you read all the comics, and this brilliant piece of historical fiction could be the “poster child” for what that really means.
I went on at length about it already, so the quick pitch is that it’s probably one of the finest illustrations of the importance of the consolidation, preservation, and dangers inherent in the ultimate curation of knowledge — whether through surfacing or censure. It’s also some top notch “info-tainment”, managing to be exciting, funny, smart, and heartbreaking all at the same time — exactly the sort of book you feel smarter for having experienced.
Adult
Back in September, I said that I hadn’t been able to stop thinking about the true crime epic Did You Hear What Eddie Gein Done? (Dark Horse) since I finished reading it, and that remains totally true months later. It’s another favorite among LibraryPass staff and I wound up personally recommending it to a number of friends myself. My wife even asked for a copy for the holidays, yet another example of the power of libraries to drive discoverability! If this is the first you’re hearing about this amazing analysis of the real life serial killer who inspired some of pop culture’s most notorious characters, know that while this book has some worthwhile contemporaries — most obviously, From Hell (IDW) — it still stands alone in its singular achievement of journalistic accuracy blended with insightful speculation. It was also a bold statement to claim earlier that the illustrious Eric Powell was the perfect artist to tackle this immensely unnerving subject matter, and while I’ve since had some time to think about it (and figured Richard Corben is probably a close second), it’s a statement I still wholeheartedly stand by. Whether you get what I’m saying here, but perhaps especially if you don’t, you’d best prepare to steel yourself for one hell of a descent into darkness, but giving this book a chance is the only way to see what all the fuss is about.
Looking back, none of these picks should really come as a surprise to anyone following along each month, but my final selection for older readers was definitely a sure-fire pick for anyone keeping score. My excitement for us finally getting “caught up” on the collected editions of Brian K. Vaughn and Fiona Staples’ Saga (Image Comics) was probably palpable to anyone who read about it in my advisory a couple of months ago. I gushed extra hard that time around, and while I still highly recommend diving right into this sex-positive space opera, you should probably understand what you’re getting into first — although “sex-positive space opera” is a pretty good summary, if I do say so myself. It’s the ultimate in “don’t worry about it” science fiction meets “sure, that makes sense” fantasy — where it’s totally not weird that rocket ships can grow on trees and the robot-people get just as horny as the rest of us. Think Hitchhiker’s Guide meets Star Wars (Dark Horse) meets Game of Thrones (Dynamite), and that comparison becomes extra apt when you consider that in Saga, no character is ultimately safe. By the time you’re caught up with Volume 11 you may be shocked to learn which main characters are no longer along for the ride — and the voracious reader in me can’t wait to see where things go from here.
Considering the monumental feat of distilling an entire year’s worth of releases to just my top six picks, I actually feel pretty good about my selections. I hope you’ll consider reading and/or recommending them (since you have now officially “heard it’s really good…”), but more importantly, check out my past (and future) advisories to find out more about what’s to love about these and the many other great titles we have on Comics Plus.
Honorable Mentions
Until next time, here are my honorable mentions/runner-ups that (entirely for space reasons) didn’t make the final list, but you may also enjoy checking out:
- Alex + Ada: The Complete Collection Deluxe Edition (Image Comics)
- The Awl Vol. 1 (Ablaze Publishing)
- Becoming Who We Are: Real Stories About Growing Up Trans (A Wave Blue World)
- Beneath the Trees Where Nobody Sees (IDW)
- The Day the Klan Came to Town (PM Press)
- Disney Manga: Donald Duck Visits Japan! (Tokyopop)
- H.P. Lovecraft’s The Shadow Over Innsmouth (Dark Horse)
- The Hard Switch (Avery Hill)
- Haru: Book 1: Spring (Andrews McMeel)
- The Impending Blindness of Billie Scott (Avery Hill)
- Isabel and Her Colores Go to School (Cherry Lake)
- The Metabarons: The Complete Second Cycle (Humanoids)
- Moebius Library: The Major (Dark Horse)
- The Most Important Thing (Red Comet Press)
- Our Common Shores (Europe Comics)
- Princess Princess Ever After (Oni Press)
- Shepherdess Warriors Vol. 1 (Ablaze Publishing)
- Step By Bloody Step (Image Comics)
- Their Blood Got Mixed: Revolutionary Rojava and the War on ISIS (PM Press)
- What We Don’t Talk About (Avery Hill)
- Yellow Butterfly (Red Comet Press)
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Rob Randle is the Production Director for LibraryPass, and has worked in and around the comic book industry in various capacities, including as a book reviewer for the NY Journal of Books, and a judge for various comic book industry awards—the 2006 Eisner Awards, among others. Before joining LibraryPass, he had been the Director of Publishing for iVerse Media LLC since 2010, and prior to that was a purchasing manager for Diamond Comic Distributors where he helped to manage the monthly Previews catalog for close to a decade starting in 2002. Additionally, Rob occasionally does freelance work as a comics creator, and is the author of the critically acclaimed graphic novel Serial Artist. Rob holds a B.A. of Illustration from the Maryland Institute, College of Art (MICA).
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