By Zack Quaintance — Last year, I swore that I would spend 2019 reading more graphic novels from the publishers like FirstSecond, Fantagraphics, Drawn & Quarterly, etc...and you know what? I did. As a result of surprisingly moving to Washington, D.C., in the middle of the year, I also attended Small Press Expo in September, where those aforementioned publishers rule the day.

As a result, I am proud to be able to offer you one lest Best Comics of 2019 list, that being Best Original Graphic Novels of 2019, which you can find below in no particular order. Enjoy!

Best Graphic Novels of 2019

Laura Dean Keeps Breaking Up With Me
By Mariko Tamaki & Rosemary Valero-O’Connell
Publisher - FirstSecond
Told with absolutely beautiful art, Laura Dean Keeps Breaking Up With Me is a coming-of-age story populated with some of the most real characters we saw in any medium all year. This book paces out its flourishes expertly, perfectly capturing a feeling of not being able to quit people who are just the worst that is inherent to adolescence (and often beyond).

Rusty Brown
By Chris Ware
Publisher - Pantheon
Chris Ware’s comics are among the most rewarding and idiosyncratic in the medium, and they’ve been depicting the people in Rusty Brown for years now. What we get with Rusty Brown is an insight into loneliness at the intersection of several lives, a heart-rending look at how pain of one informs the pain of others and so on down the line. The book can be trying at times (especially given its physical heft), but the effect of reading it all together left tears in my eyes at the forlorn beauty of it all.

Guts
By Raina Telgemeier
Publisher - Scholastic
Raina Telgemeier is a bonafide literary sensation, not just within comics but within the book market as a whole, with her work finding a larger audience than all but the most popular modern best-sellers. This year was my first experience with Telgemeier’s youth-skewing memoir, and I quickly saw what all the fuss has been about. This book dives so specifically into Telgemeier’s memories, that it eventually emerges with emotional and entertaining universal truths.

They Called Us Enemy
By George Takei, Justin Eisenger, Steven Scott, & Harmony Becker
Publisher - Top Shelf Productions
They Called Us Enemy is a moving story that shows the heartrending dangers of an entire country giving into fear of the other during wartime, told through the lens of actor/activist George Takei’s own real-life experiences as a child in Japanese internment camps during WWII. There’s a deep sadness inherent to this story, but what I appreciated most about They Called Us Enemy was the way Takei’s telling kept defeatism at bay, often focusing on the faith and heroics displayed by his father within even the family’s darkest times. This should be a must-read for every American within our current political climate.

BTTM FDRS
By Ezra Claytan Daniels & Ben Passmore
Publisher - Fantagraphics
BTTM FDRS is a masterful bit of sci-fi body horror that incorporates an ongoing problem in every major American city — gentrification. It follows a fashion designer who moves into what outwardly looks like an old warehouse being converted into apartments. Within, she soon finds all is not as it seems. It would have perhaps been easy for BTTM FDRS to tip into lecture mode, holding to a message that certain actions are wrong and others clearly right. BTTM FDRS supersedes that temptation, creating a world and a story more complex, where sometimes surprising characters and actions start to seem problematic and vice versa. The result is a world where crazy sci-fi horror is happening in a context that feels 100 percent real.

Swimming in Darkness
By Lucas Harari
Publisher - Arsenal Pulp Press
Swimming in Darkness is one of those stories where a place setting starts to feel like a character. Thankfully, however, that setting is not New York City (enough of that already!). It’s a thermal bath in the Swiss Alps, which Lucas Harari renders to eerie perfection throughout a forlorn tale that paces its surprises expertly. Swimming in Darkness is a comic steeped in architecture, striking scenery, and keen ideas that evoke thoughts of community, PTSD, and trust. It’s a fast read, one best taken at once on a snowy night in a warm and comfortable chair.

This Was Our Pact
By Ryan Andrews
Publisher - FirstSecond
This Was Our Pact is a blast of an adventure comic, a magic-heavy buddy comedy with a pair of reluctant middle schoolers on bikes navigating ethereal artwork so light and striking it seems to float off the page. This was the exact type of comic I’d have liked to have read as a kid (although I enjoyed it quite a bit now as an adult too).

The Replacer
By Zac Thompson, Arjuna Susini & Dee Cunniffee
Publisher - AfterShock Comics
The Replacer is one of the most moving graphic novels of 2019, blending horror mythos with a real tragedy that struck writer Zac Thompson’s family when he was young. The creative team brings together an unflinching set of memories (Thompson is unafraid to show the full range of emotions he felt as a child) with research into actual monster myths. The artwork is scary and the emotions within heavy with meaning. I read it in the early part of this year and it continues to linger with me today.
CLICK HERE for a full review!

Harley Quinn: Breaking Glass
By Mariko Tamaki & Steve Pugh
Publisher - DC Ink
Harley Quinn: Breaking Glass was perhaps the greatest triumph of DC Comics’ new young readers line in 2019, delivering an entertaining story that takes a familiar superhero universe character and puts her in a place, situation, and struggle that has much to offer readers of all ages. There are lessons for the youngsters and jokes for the adults, and a powerful number of 2019-relevant themes we’d all do well to take to heart, ranging in focus from gentrification to discrimination to the power of money to uphold old status quos and structures. It’s a lot, and it’s a credit to the creative team that they do such an expert job here wrapping it all up in a new reader-friendly product led by Harley Quinn.

The Twilight Man: Rod Serling and the Birth of Television
By Koren Shadmi
Publisher - Life Drawn
In The Twilight Man: Rod Serling and the Birth of Television, writer/artist Koren Shadmi delivers a graphic novel that reads like a high-end biopic, following Serling’s life with an impressive amount of research and reporting to depict the formation of network television as we’ve known it until recently. Twilight Man strikes at a number of poignant themes that were as relevant in the 1950s as they are today, reminding us that we’re all part of an ongoing battle to create media in the service of a better world.

Honorable Mentions

The American Dream: A Journey on Route 66 by Shing Yin Kor; Are You Listening by Tillie Walden; Bloom by Kevin Panetta and Savanna Ganucheau; Frogcatchers by Jeff Lemire; and The Hard Tomorrow by Eleanor Davis.

Check out more Best Comics of 2019 lists:

Zack Quaintance is a tech reporter by day and freelance writer by night/weekend. He Tweets compulsively about storytelling and comics as Comics Bookcase.