By Zack Quaintance — Comics and sports have a complicated relationship. This maybe stems back to tired and outdated bullying dynamics in schools, because I don’t know how many times I’ve heard typically older creators, say stuff like, “We’re comics people, we don’t like sports!” As if jocks versus nerds isn’t an outdated paradigm, as if everyone nowadays doesn’t watch Marvel movies; as if it were still 1988.

I assume it’s because of this there is a relative lack of compelling comics and graphic novels involving sports. This, in my humble opinion, is unfortunate. Athletics offers inherent drama and relationships between characters on par with a party crawling through a dungeon or a crew floating through space. Sports offers these things, I’d argue, in an everyday context more poignant and relatable given the added layer of familiarity.

This lack of sports comics, however, seems to be thawing, with basketball leading the way. This year we’ve had four excellent graphic novels about hoops. Meanwhile, former Pro Bowl linebacker Lance Briggs is writing a new comic with Kyle Higgins called The Trap, which looks excellent and is currently on Kickstarter (I backed this book and you should too). All of this is why I recently compiled a reading list of the best graphic novels and comics about sports.

Enjoy!

Best Graphic Novels and Comics About Sports

21: The Story of Roberto Clemente
Writer/Artist: Wilfred Santiago
Publisher: Fantagraphics
21 chronicles Roberto Clemente's life from his early days growing up in rural Puerto Rico, the highlights of his career (including the 1960s World Series where he helped the Pirates win its first victory in 33 years, and his 3000th hit in 1972 during the last official at-bat of his life) as well as his private life and public mission off the field.
Why It’s Cool: Wilfred Santiago (who has two books on our list today) has a gritty cartooning style that leans into the themes and characteristics of the story. In this book, he traces one of the most interesting stories in Major League Baseball history, one that continues to influence and inspire rising young players throughout Latin America to this day.
Buy It Here: 21 - The Story of Roberto Clemente

A Map to the Sun
Writer/Artist: Sloane Leong
Publisher: First Second
One summer day, Ren meets Luna at a beachside basketball court and a friendship is born. But when Luna moves to back to Oahu, Ren’s messages to her friend go unanswered. Years go by. Then Luna returns, hoping to rekindle their friendship. Ren is hesitant. She's dealing with a lot, including family troubles, dropping grades, and the newly formed women's basketball team at their high school. With Ren’s new friends and Luna all on the basketball team, the lines between their lives on and off the court begin to blur. During their first season, this diverse and endearing group of teens are challenged in ways that make them reevaluate just who and how they trust. Sloane Leong’s evocative storytelling about the lives of these young women is an ode to the dynamic nature of friendship.
Why It’s Cool: This is the first of many excellent basketball stories on our list, the majority of which were published this year. Yes friends, basketball is having a moment within comics, with creators who clearly love the sport using it convey and emphasize character relationships and personal journeys. A Map to the Sun is a brilliant coming of age story with gorgeous artwork, perhaps the most meaningful use of colors in a graphic novel all year.
Buy It Here: A Map to the Sun

Bull on Parade
Writer/Artist: Wilfred Santiago
Publisher: Fantagraphics
A thrilling, kinetic bio-epic about Michael "Air" Jordan, the greatest basketball player of all time and most influential athlete in history, from the creator of the acclaimed and best-selling 21: The Story of Roberto Clemente. This tour de force explores Jordan's public successes and private struggles, with the depth of Santiago's passion for his subject shining through on every full-color page.
Why It’s Cool: There’s a bit of overlap here with the recent docuseries, The Last Dance, but where that was produced by star Michael Jordan, this excellent graphic novel is not, enabling writer/artist Wilfred Santiago to explore some of the elements of the time in greater depth. This includes glancing mention of Jordan’s infidelity scandal, as well as — most crucially — a look at how the man and his success fit into (or ignored) the movements and cultural significance of the time. That’s all great, but what was most appealing to me was the cartooning, which used the way certain figures played the game (Barkley and Lambeer, to be sure) to influence their visual depictions on the page.
Buy It Here: Bull on Parade

Check, Please!
Writer/Artist: Ngozi Ukazu
Publisher: First Second
Eric Bittle may be a former junior figure skating champion, vlogger extraordinaire, and very talented amateur pâtissier, but being a freshman on the Samwell University hockey team is a whole new challenge. It is nothing like co-ed club hockey back in Georgia! First of all? There’s checking (anything that hinders the player with possession of the puck, ranging from a stick check all the way to a physical sweep). And then, there is Jack―his very attractive but moody captain.
Why It’s Cool: Check, Please is perhaps the Kickstarter comics success story, having (at least to my mind) really established the platform as not just a viable place to fund a comics project, but one to find great success. And of course, none of that would have been possible if the comics work itself wasn’t so strong. Check, Please is a college coming-of-age story set around hockey, approaching the sport almost with an anthropological lens, as an arena to tell a love story. It’s also brimming with personality in a way that makes it compulsively readable, armed as it is with fantastic voice for its characters and a vlog concept that lets its very likable protagonist speak directly to the reader.
Buy It Here: Check, Please!

Dragon Hoops
Writer/Artist: Gene Luen Yang
Publisher: First Second
Gene understands stories―comic book stories, in particular. Big action. Bigger thrills. And the hero always wins. But Gene doesn’t get sports. As a kid, his friends called him “Stick” and every basketball game he played ended in pain. He lost interest in basketball long ago, but at the high school where he now teaches, it's all anyone can talk about. The men’s varsity team, the Dragons, is having a phenomenal season that’s been decades in the making. Each victory brings them closer to their ultimate goal: the California State Championships. Once Gene gets to know these young all-stars, he realizes that their story is just as thrilling as anything he’s seen on a comic book page. He knows he has to follow this epic to its end. What he doesn’t know yet is that this season is not only going to change the Dragons’s lives, but his own life as well.
Why It’s Cool: In my review of Dragon Hoops, I wrote at great length about why Dragon Hoops is one of my favorite comics things of 2020, and all these many months later, none of that has changed. The one thing I have to add here now is that this is perhaps the headlining book for our list, not because it’s the best (although there is a case to be made), but rather because at the start of this story, Yang himself (who is a character in the book) typifies comics relationship with sports. He is disinterested, almost aggressively so, because of bad experiences he’s had in the past. By the end, however, Yang has come to appreciate the similar levels of craft and achievement and collaboration that make basketball so great and such a wonderful source of inspiration for life off the court as well.
Buy It Here: Dragon Hoops

Fantasy Sports
Writer/Artist: Sam Bosma
Publisher: Nobrow
In Sam Bosma's debut graphic novel, a young explorer and her musclebound friend go treasure hunting in a mummy's tomb—but if they want to get rich, they're going to have to best the mummy in a game of hoops! Can they trust their bandaged adversary to play by the rules? Or will they be stuck in the tomb... forever? A fast-paced sports adventure graphic novel in the vein of 1960's manga, Mike Mignola, and Raiders of the Lost Ark, Fantasy Sports is poised to be Nobrow's first breakout adventure comic for the indie and YA scene.
Why It’s Cool: This is just such a wonderful mashup of high fantasy comics with basketball, using an odd couple relationship between two leads to jump start the plot. The artwork is fantastic, the sensibilities are absurd in the best way, and the reading time is breezy and rewarding. This one is a blast for anyone who loves comics, as well as for anyone who’s ever played in a pickup game that felt especially heated or high stakes. I fit both of those descriptions, and I absolutely loved this.
Buy It Here: Fantasy Sports

The Golem’s Mighty Swing
Writer/Artist: James Sturm
Publisher: Drawn and Quarterly
Before penning his acclaimed graphic novel Market Day and founding the Center for Cartoon Studies, James Sturm proved his worth as a master cartoonist with the eloquent graphic novel, The Golem’s Mighty Swing, one of the first breakout graphic novel hits of the twenty-first century. Sturm’s fascination with the invisible America has been the crux of his comics work, exploring the rarely-told or oft-forgotten bits of history that define a country. By reuniting America’s greatest pastime with its hidden history, the graphic novel tells the story of the Stars of David, a barnstorming Jewish baseball team of the depression era. Led by its manager and third baseman, the nomadic team travels from small town to small town providing the thrill of the sport while playing up their religious exoticism as a curio for people to gawk at, heckle, and taunt. When the team’s fortunes fall, the players are presented a plan to get people in the stands. But by placing their fortunes in the hands of a promoter, the Stars of David find themselves fanning the flames of ethnic tensions. Sturm’s nuanced composition is on full display as he deftly builds the climax of the game against the rising anti-semitic fervor of the crowd. Baseball, small towns, racial tensions, and the desperate grasp for the American Dream: The Golem’s Mighty Swing is a classic American novel.
Why It’s Cool: I feel like the summary above is enough to emphasize why this is a must-read classic graphic novel, but just to be clear, this based-on-a-true story account of a barnstorming Jewish baseball team is absolutely essential, not just as a sports graphic novel but as a must read book. It’s done with the highest levels of craft and research, making for easily one of the most immersive and poignant reads on our list.
Buy It Here: The Golem’s Mighty Swing

Kill a Man
Writers: Steve Orlando & Phillip Kennedy Johnson
Artist: Al Morgan
Letterer: Jim Campbell
Publisher: AfterShock Comics
As a child, James Bellyi watched his father die in the ring as payback for slurs thrown at the other fighter. Today, he's a Mixed Martial Arts star at the top of his game, and one of the most popular fighters in the world...until he's outed as gay in his title shot press con-ference. Abandoned overnight by his training camp, his endorsements, his fans and his sport, to regain his title shot Bellyi is forced to turn to the last person he ever wants to see again: Xavier Mayne, a gay, once-great fighter in his own right...and the man James once watched kill his father.
Why It’s Cool: This new graphic novel isn’t even out yet (it’s now due on Nov. 25), but I was fortunate enough to read most of it via a review copy, and friends? This is one of the must-read comics works of late 2020. It’s just such a compelling concept, built with stark and violent (when it needs to be) artwork by Al Morgan. The world of ultimate fighting is one I don’t personally understand at all, but the themes in this book are so dramatic and relatable it didn’t really matter. You can read my full Kill a Man review now.
Buy It Here: Kill a Man

Old Head
Writer/Artist: Kyle Starks
Publisher: Image Comics
The madcap action-horror story of the world's toughest former pro-basketball player returning home with his daughter to learn about his destiny and his mother's mysterious past, while—right next door— Dracula and his goons are on the eve of their bloodiest holiday. What follows is a ton of fights and action and comedy and monsters and tough guy one liners - the type of thing you'd expect from one of my books. I've filled this book with jokes and punches and a rude amount of vampire decapitations. If you like a dope tough guy beating butt story this is for you. If you love action-comedy this book is for you! If you love slam dunks or Draculas you're going to be over the moon.
Why It’s Cool: This is yet another book on our list that is about so much more than sports, and those other things it’s about include family, stereotypes, and vampires. It is, indeed, a strange brew, but writer/artist Kyle Starks is one of the best humorists working in the medium today, and what he delivers with this eclectic book is such a fantastic good time that I would recommend Old Head to any and all, regardless of how they feel about vampires or basketball.
Buy It Here: Old Head

Southern Bastards
Writer: Jason Aaron
Artist: Jason Latour
Letterer: Jared K. Fletcher
Publisher: Image Comics
Welcome to Craw County, Alabama, home of Boss BBQ, the state champion Runnin' Rebs football team...and more bastards than you've ever seen. When you're an angry old man like Earl Tubb, the only way to survive a place like this...is to carry a really big stick. From the acclaimed team of JASON AARON and JASON LATOUR, the same bastards who brought you Scalped and Wolverine: Japan's Most Wanted, comes a southern fried crime series that's like the Dukes of Hazzard meets the Coen Brothers...on meth.
Why It’s Cool: When this book was coming out, it was one of the most compelling and unexpected looks at gritty life in a small town southern America…and it was more or less entirely centered around the success and disappointments of high school football. This book seems to be on an indefinite hiatus with a number of its plot threads left dangling (so be warned of that), but the arcs that are available are sure to surprise and entertain readers who take the plunge, regardless of whether they life football.
Buy It Digitally: Southern Bastards on comiXology

Sports Is Hell
Writer/Artist: Ben Passmore
Publisher: Koyama Press
Some wars are fought for religion, and some are fought for political belief, but this one is for football. After her city wins the Super Bowl for the first time, Tea is separated from her friend during a riot and joins a small clique fighting its way through armed groups of football fanatics to meet a star receiver that just might end the civil war... or become the city's new oppressive leader!
Why It’s Cool: This is another book for which I’ve written a full review, and it’s a fantastic, if brief read. It’s loosely centered about the Eagles recent Super Bowl win over the Patriots, but it’s about so much more than that, including most prominently race relations and the police. And it’s all depicted by expert storyteller and thoughtful creator Ben Passmore. This book also feels most likely to play to the segment of comics readers who have an open disdain for sports, but hey, maybe there will be some common ground found there after all. Just look at that cover!
Buy It Here: Sports Is Hell

**NOTE: We could do a whole separate list about sports manga…and hopefully will someday.**

Check out our Best Graphic Novels of 2020 (So Far)!

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