By Zack Quaintance — It’s a weird thing to be doing a list of Top Comics to Buy for May 20, 2020. Yes, officially new comics are shipping out to retailers next week, with Diamond Comics Distribution resuming services. The reality, however, is that in some of the largest population centers in the country (including where I live), there’s not really anywhere to go buy comics. 

I can mail order books, but I can’t physically go out and get them, not even via curbside service, unless I’m willing to drive out of town to some areas where the population density is less. The other reality making this list a bit odd is that there really aren’t that many new comics coming out. So with all that in mind, this is going to be more of a list tracking exactly what’s coming out this week, rather than the set of weekly recommendations we used to provide prior to March 25.

I hope you find it helpful...

Top Comics to Buy for May 20, 2020

*PICK OF THE WEEK*
Year Zero #1
Writer: Benjamin Percy
Artist: Ramon Rosanas
Colorist: Lee Loughridge
Letterer: Sal Cipriano
Publisher: AWA Studios
Price: $3.99
Ben Percy (Wolverine) and Ramon Rosanas (Star Wars: Age of Resistance) team up to present an epic tale that offers a global look at the Zombie Apocalypse. A Japanese hitman, a Mexican street urchin, an Afghan military aide, a Polar research scientist, a Midwestern American survivalist – five survivors of a horrific global epidemic who must draw upon their unique skills and deepest instincts to navigate a world of shambling dead. Year Zero wrestles with the weighty moral and theological questions posed by the pandemic and investigates its cause and possible cure.
Why It’s Cool: We wrote a series of takes on the new line of AWA Studios comics, and among our favorites was Year Zero. It’s a zombie story that takes some major narrative risks, working to depict what’s happening across the entire globe by following four distinct storylines. It’s a really interesting storytelling experiment, in which Percy and Rosanas do a great job telling four clear stories (which is an awful lot to juggle). In addition, Percy is one of the most skilled writers in all of American fiction when it comes to incorporating interesting, offbeat, and sometimes just absurd facts into his work, and he’s really done a great job of that here.
Buy It: Click Here!

DCeased Unkillables #3
Writer: Tom Taylor
Artist: Karl Mostert
Inkers: Trevor Scott, Neil Edwards, & Mostert
Colorist: Rex Lokus 
Letterer: Saida Temofonte
Publisher: DC Comics
Price: $4.99
It's the epic finale of the next chapter in the DCeased saga as heroes and villains collide with one epic purpose: to escape the coming of the infected population of Gotham City and a monstrous Wonder Woman! It's time to ride the fury road one final time...to survival!
Why It’s Cool: Okay, so maybe it’s not ideal to be reading about a virus that destroys the world right now...but at the same time, the affliction in DCeased is so over-the-top and unrooted from reality, that it’s also a nice bit of escapism that speaks to current concerns. In this book, everything is cranked up to 11, from the excellent linework by Karl Mostert (a star in the making!) and the character moments by writer Tom Taylor. In the end, this is a comic that’s just fun.
Buy It Here: Click here!

Ghosted in LA #10
Writer: Sina Grace
Artist: Siobhan Keenan
Colorist: Cathy Le & Natalia Nesterenko
Letterer: DC Hopkins
Publisher: BOOM! Studios
Price: $3.99
Daphne was just getting used to living with ghosts, but when a mysterious door in the basement flies open, Rycroft Manor is overwhelmed with even more strange phenomena than anyone knows how to deal with. And even worse, Daphne's former roommate Michelle has some ideas about how to handle a haunting... and it doesn't involve going gently into that good light.
Why It’s Cool: Ghosted in LA has been such a wonderful little series, a slice-of-life comic that is largely about adjusting to being young and in LA...but also there’s a whole big mansion full of ghosts. It’s very cool and has a great emotional core that will keep you coming back as the narrative slowly unspools more answers about the supernatural elements that have been there all along.
Buy It Here: Click here!

Ludocrats #1
Writers: Kieron Gillen & Jim Rossingnol
Artist: Jeff Stokely
Colorist: Tamra Bonvillain
Letterer: Clayton Cowles
Publisher: Image Comics
Price: $3.99
SERIES PREMIERE! The Ludocrat! The ludicrous aristocrat! A collision of the ornate fantasy of Dune and an M-rated Asterix & Obelix! Baron Otto Von Hades and Professor Hades Zero-K are here, and they're going to save us all have a nice time.
Why It’s Cool: I do not know what just happened to me but I think I might have liked it...is probably the exact right response to Ludocrats, a new comic that is — like the characters it stars — a perfectly ludicrous and not boring event. It’s just a really ambitious and refreshing different sort of comics story, which all makes it a fitting title to be there during this first Wednesday that new comics are back. Click here to read our full review!
Buy It Here: Click here!

Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen #10
Writer: Matt Fraction
Artist: Steve Lieber
Colorist: Nathan Fairbairn
Letterer: Clayton Cowles
Publisher: DC Comics
Price: $3.99
Jimmy continues his world tour, risking his life for more of your sweet retweets,  likes, and faves! Plus, the mastermind behind Jimmy's assassination is revealed... and the insidious secret he's willing to kill for will upend everything everywhere forever, assuming by "everything" you mean "everything in the pages of just this comic." Also...you've heard of Arm-Fall-Off-Boy? Get ready to meet the entire Fall-Off-Family. What connection do they have to all this nonsense? Probably not much, but hey, you never know.
Why It’s Cool: There are few comics that are in equal parts as smart and as irreverent as Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen, from the wonderfully-matched creative team of Matt Fraction and Steve Lieber. We’re now 10 issues in, so the great gag-per-panel ratio feels a bit expected. What’s perhaps not so expected is the overarching narrative that has to do with the Olsen family, the Luthor family, and the deep history of the city of Metropolis. This comic is fantastic, and it’s really great to return to this world as the crisis continues to plague us with uncertainty outside.
Buy It Here: Click here!

Recent Digital-Only Content

• Batman: Gotham Nights #5

• Batman: The Adventures Continue #4

• Hawkeye Free Fall #5

• Ironheart 2020 #1

• Lost on Planet Earth #2

• Star #4

• Superman: Man of Tomorrow #5

• Swamp Thing: New Roots #4

• Teen Titans: Go to Camp #13

• Youth #2

Other Comics for May 20, 2020

• Disaster Inc. #1

• Bang! #1 Third Printing

• Birthright #43

• Buffy the Vampire Slayer #14

• Deadly Class #44

• Dollhouse Family #6

• Dungeons and Dragons: Infernal Tides #3

• Flash Giant #4

• Goon #10

• Jim Hensons Storyteller Ghosts #2

• Killswitch #4

• Kill Whitey Donovan #5

• Mirka Andolfo’s Unsacred #5

• Outcast by Kirkman & Azaceta #45

• Plunge #3

• Red Hood Outlaw #45

• Red Sonja #15

• Savage Dragon #248

• Star Wars Adventures: Clone Wars #1

• Wonder Woman #755

• Year of the Villain: Hell Arisen #3 Third Printing

Trade Paperbacks & Original Graphic Novels of Note

*PICK OF THE WEEK*
Snotgirl Vol. 3 Is This Real Life TP
Writer: Bryan Lee O’Malley
Artist: Leslie Hung
Colorist: Rachael Cohen
Letterer: Mare Odomo
Publisher: Image Comics
Price: $15.99
The biggest fashion disaster in comics is back! Fashion blogger Lottie Person just wants to live up to her flawless online persona—but why is real life so much harder?
Why It’s Cool: Snotgirl is a relentlessly stylish comic that (when it comes out) is regularly among our favorites. It’s a great send-up of Los Angeles Instagram culture, of the style-over-substance and must maintain appearances at all costs ethos that rages among the cottage industry of cool and good-looking people whose main job is to just make others envious and take pictures of each other. And Snotgirl’s third volume is now collected here, finally. Get it now, because the book is going on hiatus and likely won’t be back until 2021.
Buy It Now: Click here!

• American Jesus Vol. 2 The New Messiah

• Flash by Mark Waid Book 7

• Harley Quinn and Poison Ivy HC

• In Vitro GN

• Livewire Vol. 3 Champion TP

• Machine Never Blinks: A Graphic History of Spying & Surveillance HC

• Portrait of a Drunk HC

• Stargirl by Geoff Johns TP

• Stepping Stones Vol. 1 HC

• Suncatcher HC

• Talking to Strangers: A Memoir of My Escape From a Cult TP

Check out our picks for the Best of comiXology Unlimited!

See our past top comics to buy here, and check out our reviews archive here.

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