I really do endeavor to be the sort of person who “lives in the now” and tries to appreciate what’s right in front of them, but I daresay the particulars of the past year has me thinking a lot farther ahead (and farther behind) than is usually my custom. The future remains uncertain for all of us — certainly for some more than others — a prospect that can be equal parts exhilarating and terrifying, while (at least for me) the past continues to slowly mature into some sort of bittersweet blend of the occasional really nice win coupled with plenty of hard-learned lessons.
But, the farther I look back, the more I see how all that good and bad stuff was secretly leading (or perhaps preparing?) me for where I am now. Chances are you can relate to that idea, at least in part.
I’ve been a comics reader practically all my life, and I’ve experienced my own share of highs and lows over the decades that it’s also been my privilege to professionally review and curate comics in different ways. Even before that, whether it was in art school, high school, or all the way back in middle school when I’d have to wait “forever” for my turn to check out the next available bandes dessinées collection I still hadn’t read yet, Comics Plus is the tool I’d secretly been wishing for all my life. Now, I’ve dedicated more than half my career to helping build it, and it really is humbling to see how far it has come since its initial inception more than a decade ago, as well as amazing to imagine how much potential it still has to grow — not that my hunger for new comics could ever truly be satiated!
At this point, I even have a few years worth of ”Rob’s Advisory” articles for anyone looking to take a deeper dive into the plethora of new/notable releases we’ve added over that time, and similar to last year’s annual review, this year I’m highlighting my personal Top 10 Picks of 2025. I highly encourage you to familiarize yourself with each one; while they all struck a personal chord for me, I’ll wager there’s a pretty good chance they’ll appeal to a fair selection of comic readers you may know. Hopefully, yourself included!
While I’m loath to repeat anything I’ve already said about any of these books in a past review, I’m also certainly not trying to turn this advisory into some larger homework assignment or anything. I’ll still touch on why I feel they’re each definitely worth your time, of course, but for those who’d like a bit more details on any selection, I’ve also included links back to my original advisories for anyone who wants a little more context before diving in.
As always, my “honorable mentions” should all be considered worthy runner-ups, and just like years’ past, it’s a solid list of recommended titles in its own right, too. Now, let’s put any lingering bitterness behind us as we take a look back over the past year and focus on just the sweetest of the sweet stuff.
Young Readers
Those of you who read my Summer retrospective likely won’t be surprised to see this biographical picture book on my list, and while it’s really a great read for the little ones, it’s just the sort of book that can wind up inspiring readers of any age.
The title really does say it all as Miss Betti, What Is This?: How Detroit’s School Lunch Lady Got Good Food on the Menu by Lela Nargi and Kristen Uroda (Cherry Lake) is a slice-of-life look at a “real life superhero” who helped make her community (and thus our world) a better place. Certainly a greener one!
I’m a big fan of upcycling and urban gardening, and the many examples set by the titular trailblazer can plant the seeds for all manner of positive choices — the kind of simple contributions we all could be making to nurture a healthier future.
Plus, again, the art is just seriously really good!
Middle Grade
My next pick is a book you simply cannot ignore, and chances are your readers may have already found it on their own. There’s absolutely more than a few good reasons for this super-accepting book’s popularity, but I suspect it may have become one of those comfort titles readers regularly return to… almost like a security blanket. I’d even venture to say it’s even joined the ranks of the (still incomparable) Milk & Mocha Comics Collection: Our Little Happiness (Andrews McMeel) in that regard. I take back anything unkind I ever even implied about this book, because these days I feel like I could really use a warm cup of joe and a relaxing seat at the Cat’s Cafe counter.
I mean, who can resist a charming array of adorable animals who try to make each other’s lives a little more joyful?
The second volume in the series, All Are Welcome: A Cat’s Café Collection by Gwen Tarpley (Andrews McMeel) was a highlight of my October advisory, and while I can’t give the book all the credit, since I can at least finally admit to now “getting it” on a personal level, maybe it really has helped make me a better person than I was before I read it. It really is the sort of book you could recommend to practically anyone, but will almost certainly find a special place in the hearts of those who discover their previously heavy spirits lifted by this terrific book.
Remember, not only can you always #readallthecomics on Comics Plus, you can also re-read them as many times as you like. My middle school self would have practically killed for that reading opportunity… figuratively, of course!
The other new addition last year that should be on every middle grade reader’s shelf, Amy’s Big Brother by BonHyung Jeong (Yen Press), is technically the prequel to the popular Kyle’s Little Sister. As previously stated, while I still maintain they can technically be read in either order, it does actually make sense to start with the “newer” Amy’s Big Brother first. In either case, both books are terrific and definitely punch well above their weight, as earnest readers of all ages are certain to find these coming-of-age dramas quite enjoyable (if not downright relatable)… regardless of how distant in age they actually are from these adolescent characters at this point.
I know these books are already quite popular, so apologies if I’m preaching to the choir here, but this really is another “can’t miss” recommendation. For fans of budding school romances, there’s probably no closer readalike to the wildly popular Crush by Svetlana Chmakova (Yen Press) than Amy’s Big Brother.
Teens
While I’m absolutely repeating myself, my next pick still remains an important one, if for no other reason than it highlights the importance of library access as a tool for self-education. The future of libraries (to say nothing about free speech, in general) somehow seems even more under threat than when I’d first written about this book less than a year ago, so continuing to have access to it (and books just like it) seems all the more important.
If you’ve ever wanted to know what it’s like to have to reason your way out of a cult’s brainwashing (trust me, you don’t), the survivor memoir Occulted by Amy Lee, Ryan Estrada, and Jeongmin Lee (Iron Circus) will give you the closest thing to that experience you’re likely to find anywhere. I gushed over this amazing book more than enough the first time around, yet remain just as impressed as ever with how successfully (almost “unintentionally”) the larger points concerning the ties between education and liberation come across.
This is about as close as I’ll get to calling a book “required reading”, but as Orwell’s 1984 is starting to feel less and less like fiction, books like this that can help with some of that mental “heavy lifting” around intellectual freedom in other, possibly more accessible, ways.
Young Adults
After reviewing our selection of great YA picks from my advisories last year, I still stand by what I said all the way back in February, and that is Navigating with You by Jeremy Whitley and Cassio Vinicius dos Santos Ribeiro (Mad Cave) definitely remains one of my top picks of 2025.
I certainly had a lot of positive things to say about it the first time around, but the tl;dr version is it’s a sweetly simple yet surprisingly poignant LBGTQ teen romance between two young ladies of color and love letter to both manga and libraries. In the same vein as Cheer Up: Love and Pompoms (Oni Press), it also has the potential to broaden all sorts of horizons, and in all manner of effectively surprising ways. That means that while it’s a great recommendation for any avid reader of books centering LBGTQ experiences, the folks who wouldn’t typically reach for a book like this potentially have the most benefit to gain by actually reading it.
I’ve said my piece… it really is just that eye-opening of a book, and another proud addition to your readers’ advisory toolkit.
It’s no secret that plenty of folks love manga. We all owe a great deal to manga’s ever-widening popularity, and we certainly have our fair share of great choices (especially for the YA crowd), but this year we added what arguably still remains one of the shiniest crown jewels in our entire manga collection: Fullmetal Alchemist by Hiromu Arakawa and Akira Watanabe (Yen Press).
Naturally, you’re already familiar with the series, and if not… then you can start pretending you are (cool) right now! This is a no-brainer of a YA recommendation that can just as easily serve as a tentpole title for a wider (and occasionally lifelong) love of the medium. It’s one of those titles that can even help you bridge the gap with the hardest-to-reach teens who have lost interest in reading. Society’s come a long way where now, finally, nobody’s “too cool” for manga/comics!
And I can remember (way back in the 90s) carefully hiding copies of Battle Angel Alita (Kodansha) in my high school backpack so people wouldn’t think I was a (bigger) nerd. I’m not sure how much of a cultural victory that actually constitutes, but it feels like progress to me!
Speaking of manga, another string of precious jewels in our collection is certainly the myriad works of the great mangaka, Gou Tanabe, and his brilliant adaptations of classic H.P. Lovecraft stories. While there’s not a single title of his that isn’t well worth your time, the arguable lynchpin (read: most widely recognized) of them all landed on our platform this year… so now we can boast offering the seminal The Call of Cthulhu (Dark Horse).
I’m tempted just to restate all the great things I first said about it back in January, but this is a book that doesn’t really need anybody’s help (least of all mine) as his art quite sublimely speaks for itself. While it’s manga, there are panels within any of Tanabe-san’s books that feel more to me like a Gustav Doré etching than “mere pop culture”. All you have to do is turn to any one of hundreds and hundreds of glorious pages and there’s at least one or two that’s sure to live on in your memory long after you’ve closed the book.
Thanks to Tanabe-san and Dark Horse, you now have what is possibly the finest gateway into the realms of classic eldritch horror ever conceived.
Adults
Speaking of things you can’t unsee… what horror graphic novel has been said to have “the only jumpscare in the history of comics”?
Well, if you’re one of the cool kids who’s already read my October advisory, you’d know the answer is the supremely creepy Infidel by Pornsak Pichetshote, Aaron Campbell, José Villarrubia, and Nate Powell (Image Comics). If you’re one of the extra cool kids who’s actually read the book itself, you’ll already have the terrifying panel in question burned into your retinas. Don’t let its unsettling artwork overshadow the deeper social commentary that’s earned this graphic novel such high acclaim, though
I’ll spare you a rehash of all my high praise, or an explanation of why this particular book strikes a personal chord with me… all you need to know is there’s a very, very good reason NPR named it one of their Top 100 Horror Stories of all time. It’s time to go find out why for yourself…
While we’re on the topic of horror, there are few graphic novels that have lingered on in my psyche long after I finished reading quite like Beneath the Trees Where Nobody Sees- Collected Edition by Patrick Horvath (IDW). I’ve been raving about this title for a while now, but since my February advisory, we’ve added the full collected edition, and it’s since remained one of the most oddly compelling mature readers titles to cross my desk all year.
I still can’t think of a better way to summarize this unsettling anthropomorphic thriller than “Dexter meets Blacksad (Dark Horse)”, but just know the book ventures into some truly chilling territory, and more than a few scenes that aren’t easy to forget. And if you think directing terrible violence onto anthropomorphic characters somehow undercuts its impact, I’m sorry to inform you that I think just the opposite may actually be true!
I know it honestly hasn’t been all that long, but I still maintain that the outrageously inventive Kill Six Billion Demons Book 1 by Tom Parkinson-Morgan (Image Comics) is technically still my new favorite comic. I stand by everything I said last time about this dark religious fantasy, yet I don’t want to pass up this chance to heap just a little more praise on this “epic’s epic”.
Yey, what more can I really add, I haven’t said already? It’s freaking great! Surprisingly, unimaginably, unabashedly great! Defying even the wildest of your most outlandish expectations great! And absolutely, definitely, and without a doubt worth the risk to try it out for yourself… great!
While that might be my new favorite comic, the fact that readers on Comics Plus finally have access to The Moon and Serpent Bumper Book of Magic by Alan Moore, Steve Moore, Ben Wickey, John Coulthart, Kevin O’Neill, Melinda Gebbie, Rick Veitch, and Steve Parkhouse (IDW) certainly marks an important milestone for me (both personally and professionally). I highlighted a number of details in my Summer retrospective so I’ll spare you the agony of unpacking them again here, just know that a strange synchronicity has punctuated a number of odd milestones associated with this title, and if ever there was a book any of my previous reading incarnations (middle/high/art school) would have secretly wished for, unanimously it would have been this one!
While it definitely utilizes plenty of sequential art, this work transcends a “mere” graphic novel to become history’s first grimoire actually intended for the masses.
Did the legendary Alan Moore just make magick open source? That’s probably an overly glib explanation, but as far as actual repositories of occult knowledge are concerned, there’s honestly nothing out there nearly as comprehensive, or even half as entertaining. And if this was the unknown book my younger self secretly wished for, and Comics Plus the tool I secretly longed to read it on, then I guess it’s fair to actually say that as of now “my wishes have come true”!
When you consider these ten books, the young art school punk I was definitely would have killed for Comics Plus as well… probably not literally, but… you know, probably. Regardless, the younger me certainly would have gone nuts for it, and I’m sure there are plenty more readers out there who are just as voracious as I was when I was at whatever age they are currently.
Somehow the future has become the present, and with full, unlimited access to literally thousands of comics continually at all of our fingertips, the next lifelong super-reader (like me) truly is just a few clicks away. Welcome to the club!
Honorable Mentions
That wound up being a somewhat emotional look back on the highlights of an already very notable year, and yet there are still so many more books I didn’t get to. Remember, there’s always more to read every week on Comics Plus! With literally thousands of titles to choose from across a wide range of genres, I could keep writing forever.
Be sure to check in every month for more highlights, and browse our expanding list of past Rob’s Advisory selections.
Until next time, here are some more honorable mentions/runners up that, (entirely for space reasons) didn’t make the final Top 10 list, but you (and your readers) may also enjoy checking out:
- 10,000 Ink Stains: A Memoir by Jeff Lemire (Dark Horse)
- Anno Domini 1000 by Thomas Gilbert (Europe Comics)
- Ashes by Álvaro Ortiz (IDW)
- Bear Pirate Viking Queen by Sean Lewis and Jonathan Marks Barravecchia (Image Comics)
- Berserk Volume 42 by Kentaro Miura, Koji Mori, and Studio Gaga (Dark Horse)
- Cat + Crazy Volume 1 by Wataru Nadatani (Dark Horse)
- The Complete Hate by Peter Bagge (Fantagraphics)
- Death in Trieste by Jason (Fantagraphics)
- Detective Beans: Adventures in Cat Town by Li Chen (Andrews McMeel)
- Down to the Bone by Catherine Pioli and J.T. Mahany (Graphic Mundi)
- Earthdivers, Vol. 1: Kill Columbus by Stephen Graham Jones and Davide Gianfelice (IDW)
- Fault Lines by Robert Cullen (Ablaze)
- From Memen to Mori by Shinsuke Yoshitake (Yen Press)
- The Guy She Was Interested In Wasn’t a Guy at All, Vol. 1 by Sumiko Arai (Yen Press)
- It Rhymes With Takei by George Takei, Justin Eisinger, Steven Scott, Harmony Becker, José Villarrubia, and Nathan Widick (IDW)
- Lovers and Haters: A Love and Rockets Book by Gilbert Hernandez (Fantagraphics)
- Mage and the Endless Unknown by SJ Miller (Iron Circus)
- Moonshadow: The Definitive Edition–Expanded by J.M. DeMatteis and John J Muth, Kent Williams, and George Pratt (Dark Horse)
- My Perfectly Imperfect Body by Debbie Tung (Andrews McMeel)
- Okinawa by Susumu Higa, Jocelyne Allen, and Andrew Woodrow-Butcher (Fantagraphics)
- The Pass by Espé (Graphic Mundi)
- Pocket Full of Rain and Other Stories Expanded Edition by Jason (Fantagraphics)
- The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran, A. David Lewis, and Justin Rentería (Graphic Mundi)
- Savage Beard of She Dwarf by Kyle Latino (Oni Press)
- Solo Leveling by Chugong and DUBU (REDICE STUDIO) (Yen Press)
- A Witch’s Life in Mongol, Vol. 1 by Tomato Soup (Yen Press)
- Yojimbot Volume 1: Metal Silence by Sylvain Repos (Dark Horse)
Rob Randle is the Director of Content Management 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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