By Zack Quaintance — The Best Graphic Novels of 2021 list is now here, a full month after 2021 has, in fact, ended. It’s late (again this year) because I was reading as many comics from last year as possible (and, not to brag, but I think I got a pretty good number knocked out). The end result is before you now, featuring a wide range of publishers, including Drawn & Quarterly, Fantagraphics, First Second, DC Comics, and more.

This was such a good year for new graphic novels, and, really, for readers of all ages and sensibilities. This best graphic novels of 2021 set has entries that range from serious to charming to shocking to understated (all the things!). It’s also a list that touches many corners of the world, geographically, featuring work from Japan, Israel, and West Africa. But enough rambling! Check out the full list of 20 selections below…

Best Graphic Novels of 2021

Alone In Space - A Collection
Creator: Tillie Walden
Publisher: Avery Hill Publishing
A collection of Tillie's three longform comics with Avery Hill: "I Love This Part," "The End of Summer," and "A City Inside." Plus the early sketches, short comics for magazines and webcomics such as "What It's Like To Be Gay In An All-Girls Middle School" that shot her to fame on both sides of the Atlantic and have never been collected before.
Why It’s Cool: Tillie Walden has established herself as one of the most interesting cartoonists with ethereal and haunting books like On a Sunbeam (2018) and Are You Listening? (2019). Her next project will be a set of graphic novels for Skybound’s new YA imprint, set in the world of The Walking Dead and focused on the character of Clementine — and the glimpses we’ve had of these books so far have been incredible. All of that is to say that Walden is a major talent, and this year we got a collection of her early stories, which give a glimpse not only into her own journey to focusing and honing her talent, but into the general development of unique creatives. These stories are rewarding on their own merits, but when taken in the context of Walden’s life and career, this collection is elevated to the ranks of the best graphic novels of 2021.
Buy It Here: Alone In Space

Chartwell Manor
Creator: Glenn Head
Publisher: Fantagraphics Books
No one asks for the childhood they get, and no child ever deserved to go to Chartwell Manor. For Glenn Head, his two years spent at the now-defunct Mendham, NJ, boarding school ― run by a serial sexual and emotional abuser of young boys in the early 1970s ― left emotional scars in ways that he continues to process. This graphic memoir ― a book almost 50 years in the making ― tells the story of that experience, and then delves with even greater detail into the reverberations of that experience in adulthood, including addiction and other self-destructive behavior. Head tells his story with unsparing honesty, depicting himself as a deeply flawed human struggling to make sense of the childhood he was given.
Why It’s Cool: You can read my full review of Chartwell Manor from the spring, but this is a harrowing and deeply honest memoir comic that takes a stark look at the central trauma of cartoonist Glenn Head’s life. In this work, Head looks back to his childhood at a notorious boarding school run by a headmaster who would later face criminal charges for abuse. The work in the book uses Head’s vast alternative cartooning schools in interesting and measured ways, unleashing his looser sensibilities where it fits but for the most part laying out a disturbing account of what Head experienced, as well as how it informed the rest of his life. Perhaps the decision that most elevates this work is dedicating the second half to the ways that trauma has spiderwebbed out through not only Head’s life but the other boys he encounters later as adults. As a result, Chartwell Manor is haunting and memorable in ways few comics achieve.
Buy It Here: Chartwell Manor via Amazon
Buy It Digitally: Chartwell Manor via comiXology

Crisis Zone
Creator: Simon Hanselmann
Publisher: Fantagraphics Books
In March 2020, as the planet began to enter lockdown, acclaimed cartoonist Simon Hanselmann decided that what the world needed most was free, easily accessible entertainment, so he set out to make the greatest webcomic ever created! The result is also certain to be one of the most acclaimed and eagerly anticipated graphic novels of 2021. As the Covid-19 pandemic continued to escalate far beyond any reasonable expectations, Crisis Zone escalated right alongside, in real time, with daily posts on Instagram. Crisis Zone's battle mission was to amuse the masses: no matter how horrible and bleak everything seemed, at least Werewolf Jones wasn’t in your house! Over the course of 2020, Crisis Zone has amassed unprecedented amounts of new fans to the Megg and Mogg universe and is presented here, unabridged and uncensored, with a slew of added pages and scenes deleted from the webcomic, as well as an extensive “Director’s Commentary” from Hanselmann himself.
Why It’s Cool: This book complies the Instagram comic that Simon Hanselmann made in real time throughout most of the first year of the pandemic, one that I’ve previously written about as the best comics work of 2020 (we also had a suitably madcap roundtable about it). This is a story that evolves along with the pandemic, keying off on the individual moments that gave the odd and disorienting year definition, from Tiger King and Animal Crossing to the murder of George Floyd and the resulting protests. It’s also a deeply human work, in which Hanselmann’s madcap characters show growth in more direct ways than they have in the other books of his in which they’ve long appeared. Be warned, this is definitely a work for folks with a certain sense of humor — readers must be amenable to many many scenes involving dildos — but it easily ranks as one of the defining graphic novels of 2021.
Buy It Here: Crisis Zone
Buy It Digitally: Crisis Zone via comiXology

Did You Hear What Eddie Gein Done?
Writer: Harold Schecter and Eric Powell
Artist: Eric Powell
Letterer: Phil Balsman
Publisher: Albatross Funny Books
One of the greats in the field of true-crime literature, Harold Schechter, teams with five-time Eisner Award-winning graphic novelist Eric Powell to bring you the tale of one of the most notoriously deranged murderers in American history, Ed Gein. This is an in-depth exploration of the Gein family and what led to the creation of the necrophile who haunted the dreams of 1950s America and inspired such films as Psycho, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and The Silence of the Lambs. Schechter and Powell's true-crime graphic novel takes the Gein story out of the realms of exploitation and gives the reader a fact-based dramatization of these tragic, heartbreaking and psychotic events.
Why It’s Cool: Did You Hear What Eddie Gein Done? is one of the best and most thorough true crime comics in years. It’s meticulously well researched, drawing from primary sources to depict a gruesome set of events in the 1940s and 1950s, as well as the complex psychology that motivated the man at the center of it all. What elevates this work to one of the best graphic novels of 2021 is the way it connects the dots between the real world events and their impact on the American fascination with true crime, serial killers, and depravity, played out in the classic film Psycho to the wave of slasher films it continues to inspire to this day. Moreover, this is a chilling reading experience, one that will immerse you and leave you rattled to your core. If you’d like to know more, be sure to read our full Did You Hear What Eddie Gein Done? review.
Buy It Here: Did You Hear What Eddie Gein Done?
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Djeliya
Creator: Juni Ba
Publisher: TKO Studios, 2021
Inspired by West African folklore and stories handed over centuries, this unique graphic novel follows the adventures of Mansour Keita, last prince of a dying kingdom, and Awa Kouyaté, his loyal Djeli, or 'royal storyteller' as they journey to meet the great wizard who destroyed their world and then withdrew into his tower, never to be seen again.
On their journey they'll cross paths with friend and foe, from myth and legend alike, and revisit the traditions, tales, and stories that gave birth to their people and nurture them still. But what dark secret lies at the heart of these stories, and what purpose do their tellers truly serve?
Why It’s Cool: Quite frankly, I don’t think we’ve ever seen cartooning quite like the work Juni Ba lays out in Djeliya, especially not in the context of sci-fi/fantasy storytelling that appeals to adults who enjoy genre fare as well as to teen and young adult readers. I had the chance to interview Juni Ba while writing for NPR, and he detailed using the West African folklore he grew up with to create art and narrative that felt wholly new, with a chic future-leaning aesthetic that also honors the past.
Buy It Here: Djeliya
Buy It Digitally: Djeliya via comiXology

Fictional Father
Writer/Artist: Joe Ollmann
Publisher: Drawn and Quarterly
Caleb is a middle-aged painter with a non-starter career. He also happens to be the only child of one of the world's most famous cartoonists, Jimmi Wyatt. Known for the internationally beloved father and son comic Sonny Side Up, Jimmi made millions drawing saccharine family stories while neglecting his own son.
Why It’s Cool: There are two primary qualities that landed Fictional Father on my list of best graphic novels of 2021. First and foremost, it’s an excellent character-driven story that feels lived-in and real. It’s the story of a man with a cold and removed father, who loved work and fame perhaps more than he loved his son, a fact complicated by that work and fame centering on a fictional father-son relationship. There are just so many great small details that bring this to life, from the main characters sobriety to the subtle touches that make supporting characters feel as real as the lead. The second central quality to this book is its reverence for the newspaper comic strip. This is a book that takes place around the edges of one of the grand (and endangered) traditions of the comics medium, and that extra layer will be appreciated by anyone who’s ever felt vested in newspaper strip characters. For more, checkout our full Fictional Father review from the summer.
Buy It Here: Fictional Father
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Friday: Book One - The First Day of Christmas
Writer: Ed Brubaker
Artist: Marcos Martín
Colorist: Muntsa Vicente
Publisher: Image Comics
Collected in print for the first time—a young adult detective hero finally grows up in the first volume of this genre-defying, post-YA masterpiece from award-winning creators ED BRUBAKER (RECKLESS, FRIEND OF THE DEVIL, PULP, KILL OR BE KILLED) and MARCOS MARTIN (THE PRIVATE EYE, Daredevil).
Friday Fitzhugh spent her childhood solving crimes and digging up occult secrets with her best friend Lancelot Jones, the smartest boy in the world. But that was the past. Now she’s in college, starting a new life on her own—or so she thought. When Friday comes home for the holidays, she’s immediately pulled back into Lance’s orbit and finds that something very strange and dangerous is happening in their little New England town…
This is literally the Christmas vacation from Hell, and they may not survive to see the New Year.
Why It’s Cool: Marcos Martín and Munsta Vincente are one of the best and most talented duos making assembly line comics, and they are teamed here with writer Ed Brubaker. That’s a lot of top-tier creators, but what makes this book all the more special in my opinion is that they’re all pushing each other. Brubaker continues to put out the most consistent crime and noir comics in the industry with regular collaborator Sean Phillips (see the Reckless series, which made this list’s honorable mentions), but in this one, he looks backward, penning a story that serves as almost a deconstruction of regular YA tropes. Martín then gives the entire thing a unique aesthetic, indebted in equal parts to 1970s hipster fashion and small-town New England. It all coheres surprisingly well, and while it was first published in installments (one of only three entries on this year’s list released that way), it reads better as a whole, feeling like the youth detective novels that inspired the book. Read our full review of Friday: Book One - The First Day of Christmas.
Buy It Here: Friday - Book One

Fungirl
Creator: Elizabeth Pich
Publisher: Silver Sprocket
Fungirl is a hapless (hopeless) mess of a woman crashing through life, leaving mayhem in her wake. Her oblivious antics infuriate her roommate-slash-ex-girlfriend and threaten any opportunity for employment, but surely Fungirl will figure it all out... eventually. A love letter to that chaotic friend with a heart of gold!
Why It’s Cool: Humor in comics is hard, yet Fungirl is hilarious basically from start to finish. In these cartoons, the titular Fungirl is a high-energy agent of chaos, careening from situation to situation (none of which are that implausible) in which she almost uniformly makes things worse. The cartooning in this book is clean and sharp, and the punchlines consistently deliver some of the best humor in all of 2021 comics. Like Crisis Zone before it, readers must be willing to entertain a certain sense of humor (again, here there by dildos), but it’s all in good fun, adding up to one of the best graphic novels of 2021.
Buy It Here: Fungirl

Himawari House
Creator: Harmony Becker
Publisher: First Second Books
A young adult graphic novels about three foriegn exchange students and the pleasures, and difficulties, of adjusting to life in Japan. Living in a new country is no walk in the park-Nao, Hyejung, and Tina can all attest to that. The three of them became fast friends through their time together in the Himawari House in Tokyo and attending the same Japanese cram school. Nao came to Japan to reconnect with her Japanese heritage, while Hyejung and Tina came to find freedom and their own paths. Though each of them has their own motivations and challenges, they all deal with language barriers, being a fish out of water, self discovery, love, and family.
Why It’s Cool: This book is an incredible moving story about familial roots, cultural identity, and fast friendships forged while searching for all of the above. It’s touching from start to finish, but one thing I found particular well-done in this graphic novel — which is suitable for both adults and teens — was the craft. The lettering does a seamless job of conveying what languages the characters are speaking — or trying to speak, or speaking but not smoothly — without slowing down the story or taking readers out of the book. Communication is central to the book’s events, and I absolutely loved how speech was conveyed. Moreover, Himawari House is a touching story of friendship during a pivotal if confusing time of life, an easy choice for the best graphic novels of 2021 list.
Buy It Here: Himawari House

I Am Not Starfire
Writer: Mariko Tamaki
Artist: Yoshi Yoshitani
Letterer: Aditya Bidikar
Publisher: DC Comics
From New York Times bestselling author Mariko Tamaki (Laura Dean Keeps Breaking Up with Me, Harley Quinn: Breaking Glass) and artist Yoshi Yoshitani (Zatanna and the House of Secrets) comes a story about Mandy, the daughter of super-famous superhero Starfire. Seventeen-year-old Mandy, daughter of Starfire, is not like her mother. Starfire is gorgeous, tall, sparkly, and a hero. Mandy is not a sparkly superhero. Mandy has no powers. She’s a kid who dyes her hair black and hates everyone but her best friend, Lincoln. To Starfire, who is from another planet, Mandy seems like an alien, like some distant, angry, light-years away moon. And ever since she walked out on her SATs, which her mom doesn’t know about, Mandy has been even more distant. Everyone thinks Mandy needs to go to college and become whoever you become at college, but Mandy has other plans. Or she did until she gets partnered with Claire, the person she intensely denies liking but definitely likes a lot, for a school project. When someone from Starfire’s past arrives, Mandy must make a choice: give up before the battle has even begun, or step into the unknown and risk everything to save her mom. I Am Not Starfire is a story about teenagers and/as aliens; about knowing where you come from and where you are going; and about mothers.
Why It’s Cool: My friends, I was not ready for how charming this book is. I Am Not Starfire is an absolute riot of a graphic novel, taking the recognizable character of Starfire from the Teen Titans (who is essentially unchanged here) and giving her an awkward teenage daughter, with whom she outwardly shares next to nothing in common. Whereas Starfire is famous and powerful and traditionally gorgeous (definitely portrayed here in the it girl socialite mode), her daughter Mandy simply is not. It’s an A+ slice of life comic concept, and the creators here spin such a wonderful mix of touching moments and jokes from it. The humor is great throughout, but what really elevates this one to the best graphic novels of 2021 status is the way it captures the stressful time of life (age 16 - 18) where for the first time one is making decisions about the direction of their life. I absolutely loved this one, with its fearless and unique use of familiar superhero characters.
Buy It Here: I Am Not Starfire
Buy It Digitally: I Am Not Starfire

In
Creator: Will McPhail
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Nick, a young illustrator, can’t shake the feeling that there is some hidden realm of human interaction beyond his reach. He haunts lookalike fussy, silly, coffee shops, listens to old Joni Mitchell albums too loudly, and stares at his navel in the hope that he will find it in there. But it isn’t until he learns to speak from the heart that he begins to find authentic human connections and is let in—to the worlds of the people he meets. Nick’s journey occurs alongside the beginnings of a relationship with Wren, a wry, spirited oncologist at a nearby hospital, whose work and life becomes painfully tangled with Nick’s.
Illustrated in both color and black-and-white in McPhail’s instantly recognizable style, In elevates the graphic novel genre; it captures his trademark humor and compassion with a semi-autobiographical tale that is equal parts hilarious and heart-wrenching—uncannily appropriate for our isolated times.
Why It’s Cool: When I got a press copy of In by Will McPhail earlier this year, I’d never heard of the cartoonist, who had done quite a bit of work for The New Yorker. But I checked out his cartoons for the magazine, and I enjoyed them quite a bit — so I dove into this book, and friends? I was absolutely blown away by Will McPhail’s In. The book has trace amounts of the gag-heavy visual work required to regularly generate New Yorker cartoons, but it’s all framed around a really compelling narrative about loneliness by design, inability to connect with others, and what prevents us from fully opening up. While Will told me in an interview the book was conceived and mostly created before the pandemic, it’s hard not to connect with such a touching story of loss and loneliness while shut up at home and distancing. The end effect is a question about the holistic reasons we as a people can’t truly connect, and it’s moving work indeed. I wrote a full review of In prior to release, already suspecting it would land on this year-end list.
Buy It Here: In - A Graphic Novel by Will McPhail

The Many Deaths of Laila Starr
Writer: Ram V.
Artist: Filipe Andrade
Letterer: AndWorld Design
Publisher: BOOM! Studios
Humanity is on the verge of discovering immortality. As a result, the avatar of Death is cast down to Earth to live a mortal life in Mumbai as twenty-something Laila Starr.
Struggling with her newfound mortality, Laila has found a way to be placed in the time and place where the creator of immortality will be born. Will Laila take her chance to stop mankind from permanently altering the cycle of life, or will death really become a thing of the past?
Why It’s Cool: The Many Deaths of Laila Starr is another of the three books on our list that were originally published in periodical format, and I’ve selected here because I think it reads coherently on the whole. It’s a beautiful story — poetic in both text and visuals — about death in Mumbai, about the forces that shape the concept and the way life sort of moves around them. I found this book gorgeous and moving on all levels, and entirely singular, so different was it from anything else I read this past year, landing it a spot on the best graphic novels of 2021 list. Also, don’t miss my full interview with writer Ram V. and artist Filipe Andrade.
Buy It Here: The Many Deaths of Laila Starr
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My Alcoholic Escape From Reality
Creator: Nagata Kabi
Publisher: Seven Seas
An emotional new diary comic from Nagata Kabi, creator of My Lesbian Experience with Loneliness. Nagata Kabi's downward spiral is getting out of control, and she can't stop drinking to soothe the ache of reality. After suffering from unbearable stomach pains, she goes to the hospital, where she is diagnosed with pancreatitis - and is immediately hospitalized. A new chapter unfolds in Nagata Kabi's life, as she struggles to find her way back to reality and manga creation in the wake of her breakdown.
Why It’s Cool: A diary comic that follows creator Nagata Kabi essentially hitting rock bottom with her drinking, My Alcoholic Escape From Reality is so well-told that it transcends the very personal details shared within. This might all sound familiar, as it was largely the same formula that made Nagata’s My Lesbian Experience With Loneliness work so well. Again here, Nagata is vulnerable and generous in sharing what happened to her, and she’s willing to get so specific with small details, that this book raises questions around more universal struggles, namely the ways we cope with life and how they can slide into becoming far greater problems, or in the case of this one, problems with the potential to greatly alter one’s life. Power and moving, My Alcoholic Escape From Reality is one of the most memorable comics I read this past year.
Buy It Here: My Alcoholic Escape From Reality
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Night Bus
Creator: Zuo Ma
Publisher: Drawn & Quarterly
Night Bus blends autobiography, horror, and fantasy into a vibrantly detailed surreal world that shows a distinct talent surveying his past. Nature infringes upon the man-made world via gigantism and explosive abundance - the images in Night Bus are often unsettling, not aimed to horrify, but to upset the balance of modern life.
Why It’s Cool: I’m fairly certain that I’ve never read anything quite like Night Bus, an excellent blend of everyday life — things like family, traversing the city, taking care of others — with touches of horror and fantasy. What really helped to land Zuo Ma’s book on my list of best graphic novels of 2021 was the way the book trusts the reader to draw connections and meaning from the incredible artwork being laid out on the page. It makes it all feel much more powerful and rewarding.
Buy It Here: Night Bus

Save It For Later
Creator: Nate Powell
Publisher: Abrams ComicsArts
From Nate Powell, the National Book Award–winning artist of March, a collection of graphic nonfiction essays about living in a new era of necessary protest In this anthology of seven comics essays, author and graphic novelist Nate Powell addresses living in an era of what he calls “necessary protest.” Save It for Later: Promises, Protest, and the Urgency of Protest is Powell’s reflection on witnessing the collapse of discourse in real time while drawing the award-winning trilogy March, written by Congressman John Lewis and Andrew Aydin, this generation’s preeminent historical account of nonviolent revolution in the civil rights movement. Powell highlights both the danger of normalized paramilitary presence symbols in consumer pop culture, and the roles we play individually as we interact with our communities, families, and society at large. Each essay tracks Powell’s journey from the night of the election—promising his four-year-old daughter that Trump will never win, to the reality of the Republican presidency, protesting the administration’s policies, and navigating the complications of teaching his children how to raise their own voices in a world that is becoming increasingly dangerous and more and more polarized.
Why It’s Cool: This book — a collection of graphic essays — is essential reading for our times, a powerful and haunting glimpse at cartoonist Nate Powell’s efforts to parent responsibly amid so much national turmoil. This manifests in a series of different short stories, all of which are tied together by Powell’s connected drives to do right by his children and also live in a way that makes the world — his family, community, and country — a better place to live. You may have read some of these essays before, but reading them now collected together is an essential experience, making this one a core pick on my best graphic novels of 2021 list. Read my full Save It For Later review, as well as a phone interview I conducted with Powell.
Buy It Here: Save It For Later
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The Secret to Superhuman Strength
Creator: Alison Bechdel
Publisher: Mariner Books
Comics and cultural superstar Alison Bechdel delivers a deeply layered story of her fascination, from childhood to adulthood, with every fitness craze to come down the pike: from Jack LaLanne in the 60s ("Outlandish jumpsuit! Cantaloupe-sized guns!") to the existential oddness of present-day spin class. Readers will see their athletic or semi-active pasts flash before their eyes through an ever-evolving panoply of running shoes, bicycles, skis, and sundry other gear. But the more Bechdel tries to improve herself, the more her self appears to be the thing in her way. She turns for enlightenment to Eastern philosophers and literary figures, including Beat writer Jack Kerouac, whose search for self-transcendence in the great outdoors appears in moving conversation with the author’s own. This gifted artist and not-getting-any-younger exerciser comes to a soulful conclusion. The secret to superhuman strength lies not in six-pack abs, but in something much less clearly defined: facing her own non-transcendent but all-important interdependence with others.
Why It’s Cool: The first line in the preview text for this one calls it “deeply layered”, and I’m hard-pressed to think of a better (or even different) way to describe this book. Like the best works of memoir, it dances between highly personal and movingly universal, bringing in readers with a focus on fads in physical fitness, winning a bet that the majority of folks who’d pick this one up would have experience dabbling with the same. But quickly the fitness elements of this story become little more than framework, giving way to a powerful and honest tale of deep, lifelong personal growth, of pushing to process trauma in ways that make one better not just for themselves but for the people who love them as well…ultimately giving this wonderful book’s title a poetic double meaning.
Buy It Here: The Secret to Superhuman Strength
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Tunnels
Creator: Rutu Modan
Publisher: Drawn and Quarterly
When a great antiquities collector is forced to donate his entire collection to the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, Nili Broshi sees her last chance to finish an archeological expedition begun decades earlier - a dig that could possibly yield the most important religious artifact in the Middle East. Motivated by the desire to reinstate her father's legacy as a great archeologist after he was marginalized by his rival, Nili enlists a ragtag crew-a religious nationalist and his band of hilltop youths, her traitorous brother, and her childhood Palestinian friend, now an archeological smuggler. As Nili's father slips deeper into dementia, warring factions close in on and fight over the Ark of the Covenant!
Why It’s Cool: This book uses what is essentially a family quest story to tell an interesting narrative about Israel and Palestine. On the surface, the book is about the children of an archaelogist making one last push to satisfy his life’s work and find the Ark of the Covenant. And it’s told incredibly well, complete with action, suspense, heart, and deep wells of humor. There’s also bigger symbolism in play too, involving the relationship of the two communities and the conduct between them. No surprise that a story about a tunnel under a wall is rich with metaphors, but this one might catch you off guard with how engaging and entertaining it is from the first page onward.
Buy It Here: Tunnels

Wake: The Hidden History of Woman-Led Slave Revolts
Writer: Rebecca Hall
Artist: Hugo Martínez
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Part graphic novel, part memoir, Wake is an imaginative tour-de-force that tells the “powerful” (The New York Times Book Review) story of women-led slave revolts and chronicles scholar Rebecca Hall’s efforts to uncover the truth about these women warriors who, until now, have been left out of the historical record.
Why It’s Cool: I think it’s fair to describe comics as a medium that exaggerates things, sometimes including titles, but Wake - The Hidden History of Woman-Led Slave Revolts is exactly as it bills itself, a fascinating accounting of pieces of history that the vast majority of people are not aware of. That was what struck me the most about this work, that Rebecca Hall had truly unearthed history that had been oppressed and suppressed to the point of nearly being lost. And it’s not just a few things — this is one of the most educational graphic novels I’ve ever read, and it’s told quite well, using Hall’s own research process as a framing structure for all the information she found.
Buy It Here: Wake - The Hidden History of Woman-Led Slave Revolts

The Waiting
Creator: Keum Suk Gendry-Kim
Publisher: Drawn and Quarterly
The Waiting is the fictional story of Gwija, told by her novelist daughter Jina. When Gwija was 17 years old, after hearing that the Japanese were seizing unmarried girls, her family married her in a hurry to a man she didn't know. Japan fell, Korea gained its independence, and the couple started a family. But peace didn't come. The young family fled south. On the road, while breastfeeding and changing her daughter, Gwija was separated from her husband and son.
Why It’s Cool: The Waiting takes this year’s prize for graphic novel that made me cry the hardest, doing so with a fictionalized story of an aging mother who lost her oldest son while evacuating from North to South Korea. It follows that mother’s daughter, who lives around the periphery of her mother’s central life tragedy and the ways it continues to effect her long into old age. What results is a touching family story that speaks to the damaging personal impacts of major and tumultuous world events.
Buy It Here: The Waiting

Yummy: A History of Desserts
Creator: Victoria Grace Elliott
Publisher: Random House Graphic
Cake is delicious, and comics are awesome: this exciting nonfiction graphic novel for kids combines both! Explore the history of desserts through a fun adventure with facts, legends, and recipes for readers to try at home. Have you ever wondered who first thought to freeze cream? Or when people began making sweet pastry shells to encase fruity fillings? Peri is excited to show you the delicious history of sweets while taking you around the world and back! The team-up that made ice cream cones! The mistake that made brownies! Learn about and taste the true stories behind everyone's favorite treats, paired with fun and easy recipes to try at home. After all, sweets-and their stories-are always better when they're shared!
Why It’s Cool: This book will absolutely charm you silly from page one, with its bright artwork, pithy scripting, and adorable character designs. Beneath all of that, however is a deep and serious look at the actual history of desserts, which lo and behold were a relatively recent development in human history. What emerges from this is an idea of a shared humanity, that people have more in common than we realize, even if we can’t always unite around it. I absolutely savored this book like a truly excellent dessert, making it an easy pick for my best graphic novels of 2021.
Buy It Here: Yummy - A History of Desserts

Did you enjoy this list? Check out more honorable mentions, complete with some linked reviews: Berzerkid, Cyclopedia Exotica, Everyone is Tulip, Factory Summer, Far Sector, Graveneye, Heaven No Hell, Jonna and the Unpossible Monsters Vol. 1, Monsters, Onion Skin, Reckless - Destroy All Monsters, and Stone Fruit

Also, don’t miss last year’s the best graphic novels of 2020! Plus other best of 2021 coverage, including Best Comics - Staff Picks, and Best Comics - Zack’s Picks!

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