Before the pandemic BF’s Staff Picks feature had run for many years, with members of the team giving a weekly overview of recommended new releases. Now, retooled and reimagined to fit the site’s current ethos, it returns as a monthly feature designed to spotlight a few key releases that appeal to us. This is not, then, intended as a comprehensive, exhaustive or extensive round-up but rather to point you in the direction of some top projects that caught the eyes of BF contributors. Please also remember these aren’t intended as reviews and full coverage of the comics/books below may follow in due course!
Comic of the Month
The Scrapbook of Life and Death (Avery Hill Publishing)
J. Webster Sharp is another Broken Frontier ‘Six to Watch’ artist to be picked up Avery Hill Publishing with The Scrapbook of Life and Death set to take her genuinely unique vision to the expanded audiences it deserves. We first covered her oblique, abstract and yet eerily resonant approach to graphic narrative when we reviewed her self-published comic Pretty Flavours, calling it “a comics equivalent of a cabinet of curiosities with a gritty, grainy line in shading that, seemingly incongruously, has one foot in both reality and the hallucinatory.”
The Scrapbook of Life and Death is described by Avery Hill as concerning “the monstrosity of life explored through the strangeness of Edwardian England and the cartoonist’s own mental illness” and examines some of the stranger stories culled from the egalitarian George Ives’ newspaper clipping collection, compiled between 1892 and 1949, Sharp’s comics have already been recognised by Fantagraphics who gave her a showcase in anthology series NOW. This first, longform work from her is a must buy in August.
– Andy Oliver
Mothballs (Fantagraphics)
While the cover art of Mothballs was what initially intrigued me to click on its page on the Fantagraphics website, its thought-provoking subject matter is what inspired me to add it to this month’s staff picks. A moving family saga from Sole Otero, translated by Andrea Rosenberg, about uncovering violence and betrayal in one’s family tree, with humour and heart-warming moments permeating throughout. This is a chunky graphic novel, coming in at three hundred and thirty-six pages of Otero’s textured art style.
Mothballs isn’t Otero’s first rodeo, with graphic novels like Poncho Fue and Intensa having been previously published, but this is the first of her works to be translated into English! Having already won the Fnac-Salamandra Graphic Novel Award in 2019 and the Audience Award from the Angoulême International Comics Festival in 2023, Otero’s doll-like illustrations and reflection on memories and identity is sure to be just as big a hit in its English translation.
– Lydia Turner
Star of Swan and Half Gold/Half Dung (Breakdown Press)
Only this past weekend I was sat on a panel at a comics exhibition opening with Breakdown Press co-publisher Tom Oldham. I wasn’t expecting to be asked to introduce him to the audience by the event organiser but I think somewhere in my babbling I spoke about how Breakdown put out some of the finest experimental, alternative and form-pushing work in comics. At least I hope I did…
This month they have two new books spotlighting the work of Margot Ferrick, whose work I remember from 2dcloud’s publishing output a few years back. Star of Swan explores internet friendships and parasocial relationships through its protagonist, a lonely swan while in Half Gold/Half Dung we are promised a melding of “the worlds of video games, courtly romance and classic illustration.” Check out the Breakdown Press website for some examples of Ferrick’s truly striking visuals and check BF for reviews in upcoming weeks.
– Andy Oliver
Cutting Season (Fantagraphics)
You may already be familiar with Bhanu Pratap’s comics for his contributions to Fantagraphics’ anthology series NOW: The New Comics Anthology. This month his work will be getting its own showcase collection courtesy of Fantagraphics’ Underground imprint. Great news.
When I reviewed Pratap’s story ‘Big Head Pointy Nose’ in NOW #12 last year I noted that “acute changes in perspective and often angular, yet still oddly organic, visuals bring an unlikely tenderness to the strip’s conclusion.” Expect more of that approach to the page in this book containing no less than sixteen short comics stories. This compilation promises “distortion, abstraction, romance, sex, body horror, isolation, violence, color, humor, and a seductive sense of design and composition.” Could we really ask for more?
– Andy Oliver
The Night Never Ends (Silver Sprocket)
This month, I’ll be keeping my eye out for The Night Never Ends, a new horror-comedy graphic novel from Silver Sprocket and Steven Thueson, all about the perils of turning thirty. When Kate and her friends decide to relive their youth by holding a séance in a haunted house, they have no idea the very real terrors they will soon set free! Contrasting the carefree nature of adolescence with the dangerous reality of adulthood, Thueson unleashes bloody, slasher fun as the group finds themselves in the hands of a killer cult.
Horror and comedy are two genres that always work incredibly well together but are rare to see paired up in graphic novel format, so The Night Never Ends should be a real treat. To date, Thueson’s comics have mostly been aimed at middle-grade readers and have been shorter in length, so it’ll be awesome to see how their style adapts to a more adult audience!
– Lydia Turner
PeePee-PooPoo #1 (Silver Sprocket)
Fresh off its much deserved Eisner win (where the Broken Frontier Awards lead all other awards follow…) Caroline Cash’s autobio/slice-of-life anthology comic PeePee-PooPoo returns in August for more underground homage excellence. The fourth issue also continues Cash’s iconoclastic approach to numbering with the words “The First Issue” proudly emblazoned on the cover.
We’ve said of PeePee-PooPoo at BF that it’s “a series that deserves all the attention it continues to garner” and Cash’s star is ever rising. As shown by her interim work on the Nancy strip while Olivia Jaimes takes a sabbatical. Pick up the latest issue for first dates, an Alison Bechdel tie-in, and more social misadventures. This one deserves all the buzz it’s getting!
– Andy Oliver
Oba Electroplating Factory (Drawn & Quarterly)
Oba Electroplating Factory, the fourth entry in Drawn & Quarterly’s collections of the complete works of Yoshiharu Tsuge, debuts in August, translated by Ryan Holmberg. Tsuge is a renowned alt-manga master craftsman whose practice spanned the years 1955-1987 and work of this importance being brought to English language audiences is crucially vital.
In this volume we are promised more autofiction in “a startlingly bleak but nonetheless captivating portrait of mid-century Japan.” Stories explore a young cartoonist’s dismay at the behaviour of his seniors, a married couple and an extra-marital fling, and the consequences of honesty. D&Q call this an “indispensable addition to the literary comics canon and a shining example of world literature at its most human.” That’s quite a statement, and one that definitely bears out further investigation in August.
– Andy Oliver
Boy Island (Silver Sprocket)
Last month, as part of our Pride Montb coverage at Broken Frontier, we covered Leo Fox’s My Body Unspooling, a powerful study of dysphoria and trans identity of which we said “This is a comic that asks us to immerse ourselves in its juxtaposition of poetic commentary and sprawling imagery on an instinctual plane as much as to interpret it on a literal one.”
Fox returns to Silver Sprocket in August with the thematic follow-up Boy Island. Described by the acclaimed publisher as “a modern transgender fable in graphic novel form” the story again follows protagonist Lucille on an extended metaphorical journey from Girl Island to Boy Island. Fox’s eerily organic visuals have an immediately mesmerising appeal and, at a time when rampant transphobia is reaching an unprecedented high, work like this is so very, very important.
– Andy Oliver
Blurry (New York Review Comics)
Quite why New York Review Comics titles aren’t more prevalent on awards nominations and end-of-year lists is beyond me. With their mix of cutting edge original work (Joe Kessler’s The Gull Yettin), translated gems (Pierre La Police’s Masters of the Nefarious: Mollusk Rampage) and long out-of-print seminal practice (Charles Johnson’s All Your Racial Problems Will Soon End) they have one of the most exciting comics catalogues around.
In August we can add new Dash Shaw work in Blurry to that list. In this slice-of-life comics collection we’re promised short stories where Shaw “renders doubts around everyday decisions as startling cliffhangers.” Everything on NYRC’s genuinely eclectic list is worth your time. Do check out their recent publications list here.
– Andy Oliver
