Every year I read a bunch of graphic novels, and these are the ones that I liked best that were published in 2025 (with one exception). I hope that you can check them out!
Favorite Overall Book
Santos Sisters, Volume 1
Add Archie Comics-style visuals and format, superhero tropes, and a social media sensibility, and you get this book. Immensely entertaining, funny, and surprising!
Favorite Fictional Biography
Grommets
Although I was not a West-coaster or a skater, this book set in the mid-1980s was totally in my wheelhouse in terms of my childhood and pop culture references. What sets it apart is its universal coming-of-age story that shows a couple of teens mess up and succeed at life. A riveting read.
Favorite Satire of Contemporary Culture
The Toxic Avenger
This book may have been tailor-made for my love of Troma movies, but it extends and expands the original movie and characters in a way that fits our current moment to a T. Gross and engrossing!
Favorite Literary Adaptation
Godzilla's Monsterpiece Theatre
Not so much a strict adaptation, but more like the most unexpected and awesome What If? story, where Jay Gatsby decides to impress Daisy by battling Godzilla. It features a cavalcade of other literary and movie character, too. Undeniably incredible!
Favorite Literary Biography
The Novel Life of Jane Austen
I am not the world's biggest Austen fan, but this book is a great riff on her life and works. Educational and entertaining in the best way.
Nathan Hale Award for Nonfiction
Bones and Berserkers
It seems weird to give an award a book to the guy it's named after, but in hindsight I did not read a lot of nonfiction graphic novels this year. This one is not all nonfiction, but it has many creepy, gruesome, and gobsmacking true tales that have haunted me since I read it.
Favorite Superhero Book for Younger Readers
Jimmy Olsen's Supercyclopedia
I love Silver Age DC Comics madness, and I can think of no better introduction to that weird, wonderful multiverse than this book.
Favorite Superhero Book for Older Readers
Absolute Wonder Woman
Believe the hype! This book reinvents the Amazing Amazon in ways that only augment her character while she faces epic and gargantuan menaces.
Favorite Ghost Story
Spectators
This book is part epic adventure/part social commentary, about how we are desensitized by social media, what the afterlife might be like, and the apocalypse. The art is amazing, and the plot is entrancing.
Favorite Noir Book
Out of Alcatraz
This riff from a true-life tale features beautiful, evocative water colors and taut plotting. It's a unexpectedly moving page-turner.
Favorite Book I Read in 2025 that was not published in 2025
Big Jim and the White Boy
This re-imaged version of Huck Finn was published last year, and it is utterly fantastic. It is told across three distinct historical periods, commenting on US history, culture, and literature in moving and insightful ways. I think about this book all the time.
Thank you for reading! Happy New Year!
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