By Zack Quaintance — The Best Graphic Novels of 2020 was one of the hardest reading lists I wrote this year, in part because I read more graphic novels than ever before. I attribute this in part to the monthly comics distribution stoppage, which forcibly broke me out of my editorial comfort zone and pushed me to broaden what this site covers. And you know what? I found that I liked looking at a wider swatch of work much better! And what I liked the most? That’s right, the graphic novels.

Below you will find my 15 favorites from the past year, after much struggle over where to cut the list off…enjoy!

Best Graphic Novels of 2020

Almost American Girl
Creator: Robin Ha
Publisher: Blazer + Bay (HarperCollins)
A powerful and moving teen graphic novel memoir about immigration, belonging, and how arts can save a life—perfect for fans of American Born Chinese and Hey, Kiddo.
For as long as she can remember, it's been Robin and her mom against the world. Growing up as the only child of a single mother in Seoul, Korea, wasn't always easy, but it has bonded them fiercely together.
So when a vacation to visit friends in Huntsville, Alabama, unexpectedly becomes a permanent relocation—following her mother's announcement that she's getting married—Robin is devastated.
Overnight, her life changes. She is dropped into a new school where she doesn't understand the language and struggles to keep up. She is completely cut off from her friends in Seoul and has no access to her beloved comics. At home, she doesn't fit in with her new stepfamily, and worst of all, she is furious with the one person she is closest to—her mother.
Then one day Robin's mother enrolls her in a local comic drawing class, which opens the window to a future Robin could never have imagined.
Why It’s Cool: This is one of those graphic novels that is marketed at teens, but it really is just a solid memoir set primarily during the creator’s teen years. There’s so much to like about this book — from the artwork to the urgency, the real sense this is a story that needs to be told — but one of the things I liked most was that Robin Ha does a fantastic job here compressing major themes into pivotal moments and scenes, the lifeblood of an excellent graphic memoir.
Buy It Digitally: Almost American Girl

Blue in Green
Writer: Ram V.
Artist: Anand RK
Letterer: Aditya Bidikar
Designer: Tom Mueller
Publisher: Image Comics
The dark and haunting portrayal of a young musician’s pursuit of creative genius—the monstrous nature of which threatens to consume him as it did his predecessor half a century ago. From creators RAM V (Grafity’s Wall, These Savage Shores) and ANAND RK (Grafity’s Wall), BLUE IN GREEN is an exploration of ambitions, expectations, and the horrific depths of their spiraling pursuit.
Why It’s Cool: This was a great year for graphic sequential storytelling about the creative process, be it the frame of mind it requires, the life of an all-time great, or — as in the case of this book — the toll it takes on the rest of a creative’s life. This book is also a mighty comics talent showcase, featuring a script by Ram V., artwork by Anand RK, and lettering by Aditya Bidikar — all of which comes together with what seems like mysterious improvisational alchemy inherent to the jazz music this story is about.
Buy It Digitally: Blue in Green on comiXology
Read our full Blue in Green review!

The Book Tour
Writer/Artist: Andi Watson
Publisher: Top Shelf - IDW Publishing
A page-turning, Kafkaesque dark comedy in brilliant retro style, this graphic novel watches one man try to keep it together while everything falls apart. Upon the publication of his latest novel, G. H. Fretwell, a minor English writer, embarks on a book tour to promote it. Nothing is going according to plan, and his trip gradually turns into a nightmare. But now the police want to ask him some questions about a mysterious disappearance, and it seems that Fretwell's troubles are only just beginning… In his first book for adults in many years, acclaimed cartoonist Andi Watson evokes all the anxieties felt by every writer and compresses them into a comedic gem of a book. Witty, surreal, and sharply observant, The Book Tour offers a captivating lesson in letting go.
Why It’s Cool: I tend to like anything that can accurately be described as “Kaftkaesque”, and with my background in creative writing and the media, I also enjoy stories about the futility and unglamor of publishing. This book combines all of that into one story, and it sets about telling it in compulsively readable fashion. This is a 200+ page graphic novel that I read in one sitting because it demanded to be finished. Very good book.
Buy It Digitally: The Book Tour
Read our full review of The Book Tour!

Bowie: Stardust, Rayguns & Moonage Daydreams
Writers: Steve Horton & Michael Allred
Artist: Michael and Laura Allred
Publisher: Insight Comics
Inspired by the one and only superhero, extraterrestrial, and rock and roll deity in history, Bowie: Stardust, Rayguns, & Moonage Daydreams is the original graphic memoir of the great Ziggy Stardust! In life, David Bowie was one of the most magnetic icons of modern pop culture, seducing generations of fans with both his music and his counterculture persona. In death, the cult of Bowie has only intensified. As a musician, Bowie's legacy is remarkable, but his place in the popular imagination is due to so much more than his music. As a visual performer, he defied classification with his psychedelic aesthetics, his larger-than-life image, and his way of hovering on the border of the surreal. Bowie chronicles the rise of Bowie's career from obscurity to fame; and paralleled by the rise and fall of his alter ego as well as the rise and fall of Ziggy Stardust. As the Spiders from Mars slowly implode, Bowie wrestles with his Ziggy persona. The outcome of this internal conflict will change not only David Bowie, but also, the world. Introduction by Neil Gaiman.
Why It’s Cool: This is not only an excellent read, but it’s also a straight-up cool artifact to have in your house or on your shelf. It’s such a hip and good-looking book, that you can literally make the rooms in your house cooler by putting this on display. Past that, it’s also a well-drawn and informative read about one of the greatest and most idiosyncratic artists to ever live. By this book, put on Hunky Dory, and be ready for sheer and utter bliss.
Read our full review of Bowie: Stardust, Rayguns & Moonage Daydreams

Chasin' the Bird Charlie Parker in California.jpg

Chasin’ The Bird - Charlie Parker in California
Writer/Artist: Dave Chisholm
Colorist, Intro - Ch. 4: Peter Markowski
Publisher: Z2 Comics
Chasin’ The Bird tells the story of Charlie Parker’s time in L.A. December 1945 began a tumultuous two year-stint for Bird bumming around L.A., showing up at jam sessions, crashing on people’s couches, causing havoc in public places, and recording some of his most groundbreaking tracks. The graphic novel explores Bird’s relationship with the characters and events he encountered during his time in L.A. including recording some of his signature songs with Dial Record founder Ross Russell, a brief but influential stay at the home of famed jazz photographer William Claxton, a party for the ages at the ranch home of artist Jirayr Zorthian, and others who found themselves in the orbit of the jazz genius. Named after Charlie Parker’s 1947 standard, Chasin’ the Bird adapts one of the sunnier, but darker chapters in the life of Bird, beautifully written and illustrated by Dave Chisholm.
Why It’s Cool: Writer/artist Dave Chisholm is not only a great comics creators; he’s also an actual professor of music. Simply put, there’s no better choice for someone to create a graphic sequential story about an artist as important, iconic, and vital as Charlie Parker. And what Chisholm delivers here is just such a powerful work, one that honors both comics tradition and the musician at once. I’d really never read a book like this one before, making it as singular as the artist’s music.
Read our full review of Chasin’ The Bird - Charlie Parker in California!

The Contradictions
Writer/Artist: Sophie Yanow
Publisher: Drawn and Quarterly
Sophie’s young and queer and into feminist theory. She decides to study abroad, choosing Paris for no firm reason beyond liking French comics. Feeling a bit lonely and out of place, she’s desperate for community and a sense of belonging. She stumbles into what/who she’s looking for when she meets Zena. An anarchist student-activist committed to veganism and shoplifting, Zena offers Sophie a whole new political ideology that feels electric. Enamored—of Zena, of the idea of living more righteously—Sophie finds herself swept up in a whirlwind friendship that blows her even farther from her rural Californian roots as they embark on a disastrous hitchhiking trip to Amsterdam and Berlin full of couch surfing, drug tripping, and radical book fairs.
Capturing that time in your life where you’re meeting new people and learning about the world—when everything feels vital and urgent—The Contradictions is Sophie Yanow’s fictionalized coming-of-age story. Sophie’s attempts at ideological purity are challenged time and again, putting into question the plausibility of a life of dogma in a world filled with contradictions. Keenly observed, frank, and very funny, The Contradictions speaks to a specific reality while also being incredibly relatable, reminding us that we are all imperfect people in an imperfect world.
Why It’s Cool: The Contradictions is a minimalist graphic novel that perfectly captures some of the chaos and tumult of feeling out who you (and your friends) are in college, played out over an ill-advised spring break road trip taken while studying abroad in Europe. This book suceeds thoroughly on the strength of extra characterization, played out in the way people talk, the bad decisions they make, and the half-truths they tell themselves to justify their actions. Great storytelling and great cartooning.
Read our full review of The Contradictions!

Dragon Hoops
Writer/Artist: Gene Luen Yang
Publisher: First Second
In his latest graphic novel, Gene Luen Yang turns the spotlight on his life, his family, and the high school where he teaches. Gene doesn't get sports. But at Bishop O'Dowd High School, it's all anyone can talk about. The men's varsity basketball team, the Dragons, is having a phenomenal season that's been decades in the making. 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. What he doesn't know yet is that this season is not only going to change the Dragons' lives, but his own life as well.
Why It’s Cool: First and foremost, Dragon Hoops is an expertly-told story, one that clearly necessitated years of research, thought, contemplation, and craft. It’s also the type of story that supersedes its narrative to find universal and relatable questions for all who pick it up. Those questions, too, are laced with optimism in a way that was not only welcoming in 2020, but absolutely vital to my own mental health and well-being. This book really was that good, just a blast of excellent art with some much needed hope attached.
Read our full review of Dragon Hoops!

Fights - One Boy's Triumph Over Violence.jpg

Fights: One Boy’s Triumph Over Violence
Writer/Artist: Joel Christian Gill
Colors: Shannon Scott
Production Assistance: Jade Rodriguez
Publisher: Oni Press
Propelled into a world filled with uncertainty and desperation, young Joel is pushed toward using violence to solve his problems by everything and everyone around him. But fighting doesn't always yield the best results for a confused and sensitive kid who yearns for a better, more fulfilling life than the one he was born into, as Joel learns in a series of brutal conflicts that eventually lead him to question everything he has learned about what it truly means to fight for one's life.
Why It’s Cool: This is really just a fantastic graphic novel, from state to finish. It’s a memoir made with unflinching honesty, anchored around ideas about how environment contributes to learned violence, and how the chain can be broken by small bounces in fate and a lot of self-awareness and determination. It had me really emotional in places, and it’s also the sort of book I would feel comfortable with both giving to adult friends and younger readers who could benefit from the lessons within.
Buy It Digitally: Fights - One Boy’s Triumph Over Violence

The Impending Blindness of Billie Scott
Writer/Artist: Zoe Thorogood
Publisher: Avery Hill Publishing
Billie Scott is an artist.
Her debut gallery exhibition opens in a few months.
Within a fortnight she'll be completely blind.
As Billie struggles to deal with her impending blindness, she sets off on a journey from Middlesbrough to London; into a world of post-austerity Britain and the problems facing those left behind. Her quest is to find ten people to paint for her exhibition, as well as the inspiration to continue with her art, and the strength to move on with her life.
Why It’s Cool: The Impending Blindness of Billie Scott is one of the best stories in any medium about what it feels like to be a young creative in world today. It’s a beautiful story that seems grown directly from the writer’s own life, experiences, and fears, splashed throughout with engaging details and touches. It’s the type of book that you’ll crack open…and then find that two hours have gone by, and you’re eager to go back and start to read it again.
Buy It Digitally: The Impending Blindness of Billie Scott on comiXology

Kent State: Four Dead in Ohio
Writer/Artist: Derf Backderf
Publisher: Abrams ComicArts
From bestselling author Derf Backderf comes the untold story of the Kent State shootings—timed for the 50th anniversary. On May 4, 1970, the Ohio National Guard gunned down unarmed college students protesting the Vietnam War at Kent State University. In a deadly barrage of 67 shots, 4 students were killed and 9 shot and wounded. It was the day America turned guns on its own children—a shocking event burned into our national memory. A few days prior, 10-year-old Derf Backderf saw those same Guardsmen patrolling his nearby hometown, sent in by the governor to crush a trucker strike. Using the journalism skills he employed on My Friend Dahmer and Trashed, Backderf has conducted extensive interviews and research to explore the lives of these four young people and the events of those four days in May, when the country seemed on the brink of tearing apart. Kent State: Four Dead in Ohio, which will be published in time for the 50th anniversary of the tragedy, is a moving and troubling story about the bitter price of dissent—as relevant today as it was in 1970.
Why It’s Cool: Told with phenomenal cartooning and research; Kent State: Four Dead in Ohio hones in on a horrific event in American history, simultaneously working to uncover what happened that day through personal lens for those involved, while also drawing parallels to the modern movements, in some sense. I couldn’t put this book down once I picked it up, and I felt like I came away with a better understanding not only of the event at its center but also at political dynamics that remain influential in this country to this very day.
Buy It Digitally: Kent State: Four Dead in Ohio

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: Kill a Man is one of the most polished and well-paced stories I’ve read in ages. It grabs readers with a simple yet compelling premise, and then proceeds to use a combination of great scripting choices and phenomenal minimalist artwork to pull them through a highly-concentrated mixed martial arts story that has Shakespearean drama undertones. There are very few graphic novels that I would get such a quick universal recommendation from me over Kill A Man. I loved this book.
Buy It Digitally: Kill A Man

The Magic Fish
Writer/Artist: Trung Le Nguyen
Publisher: Random House Graphic
Real life isn't a fairytale. But Tién still enjoys reading his favorite stories with his parents from the books he borrows from the local library. It's hard enough trying to communicate with your parents as a kid, but for Tién, he doesn't even have the right words because his parents are struggling with their English. Is there a Vietnamese word for what he's going through? Is there a way to tell them he's gay? A beautifully illustrated story by Trung Le Nguyen that follows a boy as he tries to navigate life through fairytales, an instant classic that shows us how we are all connected. Available in softcover and hardcover editions.
Why It’s Cool: This remarkable book tells a touching and poignant coming-of-age story about a protagonist whose does not know the language they need in Vietnamese to come out to this parents. This is the grounded, ongoing narrative, and it’s one that Trung Le Nguyen weaves through gorgeous, ethereal fairy tale vignettes that layer the feelings and events on the pages. It’s a remarkable debut graphic novel, and it’s one of the few on this list that put actual tears into my eyes as I finished it. Bravo.
Read our full review of The Magic Fish!

Maids
Writer/Artist: Katie Skelly
Publisher: Fantagraphics Books
The scandalous true crime story about the Papin Sisters, as told by one of comics' most stylized talents. Christine Papin, an overworked live-in maid, is reunited with her younger sister, Lea, who has also been hired by the wealthy Lancelin family. They make the estate's beds, scrub the floors, and spy on the domestic strife that routinely occurs within its walls. What starts as petty theft by the maids ― who are flashing back to their tumultuous time in a convent ― shortly turns into something more nefarious. Madame Lancelin’s increasingly unhinged abuse ignites the sisters' toxic upbringing and social class exploitation and explodes into a ghastly double murder, an event that shocked and fascinated 1930s France and beyond. Maids has high bravura and high intrigue, all drawn in Skelly’s highly stylized manner, which combines the best of pop art, manga, and Eurocomics.
Why It’s Cool: Maids is one of the briefest reads on the list, but it’s also one of the stories that will linger with readers the longest. This is a true crime story doled out via graphic novel, one that looks at the Papin Sisters, a pair of live-in maids who take grisly revenge upon their abusive employer. It’s told in a stylish and fascinating way, making great use of minimalistic artwork, perfect details, and flash back sequences, all of which combine to expertly set the tone of the gruesome events that slowly unfurl.
Buy It Digitally: Maids by Katie Skelly

Pulp
Writer: Ed Brubaker
Artist: Sean Phillips
Colors: Jacob Phillips
Publisher: Image Comics
Max Winters, a pulp writer in 1930s New York, finds himself drawn into a story not unlike the tales he churns out at five cents a word—tales of a Wild West outlaw dispensing justice with a six-gun. But will Max be able to do the same when pursued by bank robbers, Nazi spies, and enemies from his past?
One part thriller, one part meditation on a life of violence, PULP is unlike anything award-winning BRUBAKER & PHILLIPS have ever done before. This celebration of pulp fiction set in a world on the brink is another must-have hardcover from one of comics’ most acclaimed teams.
Why It’s Cool: This book saw one of the best veteran teams in all of comics — Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips — both trying new things and also returning to their finely-honed genre interests in crime stories. Essentially, this book is an early 20th Century period piece that blends elements of pulp westerns with metafiction, and gives it all a heist movie engine to drive it. Pick this one up and enjoy.
Buy It Digitally: Pulp

The Rough Pearl
The Rough Pearl
Writer/Artist: Kevin Mutch
Publisher: Fantagraphics
Thirty-something Adam Kline is an aspiring artist with bleak prospects, stuck in a thankless adjunct teaching gig and married to an ambitious woman tired of supporting his starry-eyed pipe dreams. Just as things seem to be looking up for hapless Adam, he begins to black out at random and awaken in a pitch-dark void surrounded by billions of probing eyes. When these uncanny visions appear in his real life, he starts to worry that he’s losing his mind…In The Rough Pearl, Xeric Award-winning cartoonist Kevin Mutch skewers the pretentious world of academia and the soul-crushing New York art scene — and enlivens this wry, slice of life (and death) tale with a touch of the surreal.
Why It’s Cool: The Rough Pearl is wonderfully told. It uses a close third-person perspective with its protagonist that really puts the reader in his frame of mind. If our hero is blacking out, the reader is being sent to a hazy sequence of unreality. If our hero is fantasizing about a woman, the reader is taken right to the nature of that fantasy with him. If our hero is struggling to find the right thing to say, the reader is given a thought balloon that nails his process of grasping for a thought, etc. It’s fearless storytelling applied to mental health, stress, and the New York fine arts scene, all adding up to one of the best graphic novels of 2020.
Buy It Digitally: The Rough Pearl

Slaughter-House Five
Story: Kurt Vonnegut
Writer: Ryan North
Artist: Albert Monteys
Color Assistance: Richard Zaplana
Publisher: BOOM! Studios - Archaia
With Kurt Vonnegut's seminal anti-war story, Slaughterhouse-Five, Eisner Award-winning writer Ryan North (Unbeatable Squirrel Girl) and Eisner Award-nominated artist Albert Monteys (Universe!) translate a literary classic into comic book form in the tradition of A Wrinkle in Time and Fight Club 2. Billy Pilgrim has read Kilgore Trout and opened a successful optometry business. Billy Pilgrim has built a loving family and witnessed the firebombing of Dresden. Billy Pilgrim has traveled to the planet Tralfamadore and met Kurt Vonnegut. Billy Pilgrim has come unstuck in time. Slaughterhouse-Five is at once a farcical look at the horror and tragedy of war where children are placed on the frontlines and die (so it goes), and a moving examination of what it means to be a fallible human.
Why It’s Cool: I read Slaughter-House Five for the first time as a teenager, and it shaped my understanding of what a strong voice in media could be. There are a lot of risky narrative choices in the book, from time jumps to aliens to intensely personal experiences, but it all holds together on the strength of Kurt Vonnegut’s authorial voice. This is all why I was a bit skeptical when I first heard that the seminal novel was being adapted as a graphic novel. I am, however, happy to report that the creative team here did the book justice, and actually teased out some themes and passages I hadn’t focused on during the three times I’ve read the novel. All of that earns the book a spot on the Best Graphic Novels of 2020 list, with an added boost for any readers who love the novel (as I very much do).
Buy It Digitally: Slaughter-House Five
Read our full Slaughter-House Five review!

Superman Smashes the Klan #1
Writer: Gene Luen Yang
Artist: Gurihiru
Letterer: Janice Chiang
Publisher: DC Comics
The year is 1946, and the Lee family has moved from Chinatown to Downtown Metropolis. While Dr. Lee is eager to begin his new position at the Metropolis Health Department, his two kids, Roberta and Tommy, are more excited about being closer to the famous superhero Superman!
Tommy adjusts quickly to the fast pace of their new neighborhood, befriending Jimmy Olsen and joining the baseball team, while his younger sister Roberta feels out of place when she fails to fit in with the neighborhood kids. She's awkward, quiet, and self-conscious of how she looks different from the kids around her, so she sticks to watching people instead of talking to them. While the Lees try to adjust to their new lives, an evil is stirring in Metropolis: the Ku Klux Klan.
Why It’s Cool: Simply put, Superman Smashes the Klan might just be the best comic DC has published in years. It came out in three installments, but I personally think it belongs on this list, so coherent is the storytelling between the three parts. At its core, this is a story that draws from Superman’s real world history of being an effective tool for battling the Klan through his mega popular radio program. It extrapolates that into this fantasy comics story, one that it entangles with the story of an immigrant family experiencing racism in America first hand. It all adds up to a singular and immersive book that is a must-read for all ages.
Buy It Digitally: Superman Smashes the Klan

Under-Earth
Writer/Artist: Chris Gooch
Writer/Artist/Letterer: Chris Gooch
Publisher: Top Shelf Productions
Price: $19.99
The inmates of an extensive underground prison struggle to build meaningful lives in a broken system, in the most ambitious graphic novel to date from rising indie star Chris Gooch (Bottled and Deep Breaths).
Under-Earth takes place in a subterranean landfill, hollowed out to serve as a massive improvised prison. Sunken into the trash and debris of the past—Gameboys, iPhones, coffee cups, old cars—we follow two parallel stories.
In the first, a new arrival struggles to adapt to the everyday violence, physical labor, and poverty of the prison city. Overwhelmed and alone, he finds a connection with a fellow inmate through an old, beat-up novel. While these two silent and uncommunicative men grow closer thanks to their book, the stress of their environment will test their new bond.
Meanwhile, a pair of thieves pull off a risky job in exchange for the prisons’ schematics and the promise of escape—only to be betrayed by their employer. On the run with their hope for escape now gone, the two women set their minds to revenge. Yet as they lay their plans, their focus shifts from an obsession with the outside world to the life they have with each other.
Equal parts sincerity and violence, Under-Earth explores humanity’s inextinguishable drive to find meaning, connection, and even family—and how fragile such constructions can be.
Why It’s Cool: There have been many comics made this year about our times, but few that spin the feeling of struggling in 2020 into a story as well-done and immersive as Under-Earth, which takes entirely in a penal colony underground yet feels very familiar to anyone navigating our times. This is a book that involves themes of income inequality, class struggle, and exploitation, spilling them all across a story that has to do with revenge. I couldn’t put this book down, and I highly recommend it.
Buy It Digitally: Under-Earth Graphic Novel
Read our Under-Earth review!

Victory Point
Writer/Artist: Owen D. Pomery
Publisher: Avery Hill Publishing
On a summer's day, Ellen returns to the coastal town she grew up in, the picturesque, yet architecturally strange, Victory Point. Revisiting old haunts and people from her past, she feels increasingly disconnected from her previous life, and exhausted by the constant struggle of trying to forge the path ahead. Exploring a town, which itself is an experiment in how to live, Ellen searches for some comfort in her own history that might just give her the strength to move forward. Victory Point quietly explores the idea of how we choose to live and be remembered. Asking whether we should strive for a higher calling, or if a simple, domestic legacy is the most honest and admirable achievement we can hope for. And if the land from which we disembark feels as alien as the one we hope to reach, how does anyone make their peace with a life amongst the ever-changing ocean waves?
Why It’s Cool: Victory Point was easily one of the most gorgeous graphic novels published last year. A small and understated story, this narrative is one that thrives based on the lonely and introspective tone with which it is embued by the powerful talents of creator Owen D. Pomery. Pick up this book, set aside an hour or two, and prepare to absolutely bliss out on the story that unfolds within.

Year of the Rabbit
Writer/Artist: Tian Veasna
Publisher: Drawn & Quarterly
Year of the Rabbit tells the true story of one family’s desperate struggle to survive the murderous reign of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia. In 1975, the Khmer Rouge seizes power in the capital city of Phnom Penh. Immediately after declaring victory in the war, they set about evacuating the country’s major cities with the brutal ruthlessness and disregard for humanity that characterized the regime ultimately responsible for the deaths of one million citizens.
Why It’s Cool: This is another book that really felt as informational as it was entertaining, although the latter feels like the wrong word for a tale as harrowing and tense as this one. I read Year of the Rabbit over the course of a weekend, pausing to Google more information about the Khmer Rouge and a set of actual history that took place in Cambodia in the 1970s, a terrible chapter in human history I knew nothing about. I also found myself tearing up throughout this story, which filters all that through the actual experiences of creator Tian Veasna’s real family experiences. Powerful powerful stuff.
Read our full Year of the Rabbit review!

Did you enjoy this list? Check out some of our reviews of honorable mentions for the Best Graphic Novels of 2020: Eight-Lane Runaways, Familiar Face, Glass Town, J + K, Moms, and Sports Is Hell

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