Eric Heisserer’s, Raul Allen’s, and Patricia Martin’s Secret Weapons (Valiant) is a surprisingly fun and refreshing take on what would happen if you mashed up equal parts Runaways and Grant Morrison’s New X-Men.New Super-Man (DC Comics), written by Gene Luen Yang and drawn by a rotating set of artists– this Rebirth title started off unevenly but ended up finding its footing this year in an exploration of America’s historical Yellow Peril and the development of a Justice League of China that doesn’t just mirror America’s, but comes to have stakes and issues of its own.An early frontrunner for the Best of 2018 list. Tom King’s and Mitch Gerad’s Mister Miracle (DC Comics), a haunting and existential exploration of depression colored through a psychedelic lens.Christophe Chabouté’s Park Bench(Gallery 13), which follows in the vein of Richard McGuire’s Here to tell a story that is just as much about place as it is about people.We have to summon the strength to grapple with them every day. And in ignoring easy resolution, Nagata reminds us that our ghosts never really go away. She may no longer have to completely repress her sexuality and may no longer cow to her parents’ expectations for her completely, but these things still weigh on her and deeply color the way she views the world. Like life itself, her story is ongoing and there are no simple answers. Perhaps the most powerful things about My Lesbian Experience with Loneliness is that while its narrative arc reflects the typical ones we see in similar stories, Nagata’s autobio manga offers little resolution.

As someone who also grew up in a repressed environment and ended up struggling with anxiety as well, I empathized strongly with Nagata’s personal journey of self discovery as she figures out the parts of her life that are missing and begins to find purpose within herself. The resulting story explores her struggle with anxiety in relation to her seeming asexuality and her strained relationship with her parents, whose expectations for her clash with her vision for herself. In her manga, Kabi Nagata doesn’t start out closeted, but completely sexually repressed instead. When I first started reading My Lesbian Experience with Loneliness, I expected a coming out story. Through this incredibly rendered and deftly written story, Tamaki and Jones ask the question that all great Supergirl stories ask: If you didn’t come from Earth, what is your place on it? My Lesbian Experience with LonelinessĬartoonist: Kabi Nagata (Seven Seas Entertainment (US)) However, as her body changes (alien zits!!!) and a tragedy strikes, Kara’s life is thrown into chaos and Supergirl: Being Super reveals itself to be a story that is just as much about grief as it is about coming of age. She’s too busy living life as a regular teenager, hanging out with her two best friends and prepping for track meets. Kara has incredible strength and this one recurring dream of a far away place, but for the most part, she takes her strange powers and strange dreams in stride. In this elseworlds tale, Mariko and Joelle Jones reimagine Kara Danvers as a young midwestern farmgirl, not unlike her cousin Clark. Through hers and her cousin Jillian Tamaki’s coming of age comic This One Summer, Mariko has proven that she is capable of conveying of what it’s like to come of age as a girl who doesn’t quite fit in, whether it’s because of her interests, sexuality, or as we see in Supergirl: Being Super, something even more extraordinary. I never thought that Mariko Tamaki would come to DC Comics. As such, stylistically, Spinning slots perfectly into Walden’s rapidly growing bibliography of work. As she writes in the afterward to Spinning, Walden is unconcerned with forming a cohesive narrative out of her life, preferring to let loose ends dangle and allowing readers to extract their own meaning from her words and images. The book follows her twelve year childhood ice skating career, weaving anecdotes in the rink with stories about her youth and the discovery of her sexual identity. In Spinning, Tillie Walden makes a splash with her first mainstream US publishing debut. It’s no wonder that before she started drawing in earnest, she spent years tracing shapes on the ice as well. Her artwork is fluid and entrancing, filled with vivid colors and abstract shapes that keep the eye searching for further meaning between the lines. Tillie Walden is one of the most captivating cartoonists of our generation.

Best comic book reader 2017