My Favorite Graphic Novels of 2025

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-imagined 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! 

Nathan Hale's Hazardous Tales: Bones and Berserkers

The 13th book in one of my favorite graphic novel series, Bones and Berserkers changes up the format in that it features a collection of 13 tales rather than one overarching narrative. Still, all the major players are still here, and the range of horrific stories run a gamut of genres. There are folk tales like the Demon Cat, an adaptation of Edgar Allan Poe's "Hop-Frog," the real-life misadventures of pro-golfer Eben Myers with medicinal radium, and the terrible murders and arson at Frank Lloyd Wright's home/studio Taliesin. I felt that in some ways this book was a bit more documentary in places, like history mixed with true crime writing, which worked well.

This book is dedicated to Alvin Schwartz and Stephen Gammell, and it shares a real kinship to their Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark. It features some pretty graphic scenes, including a human head stripped bare by cancer treatments, a bunch of men dressed as orangutans who are set on fire, and butts being chopped off of people's bodies, so it is pitched toward an older audience than earlier volumes in the series. Still, there are moments of grim humor that punctuate the proceedings much like the Crypt-Keeper did in Tales From the Crypt. It's not a book for the squeamish, and I found it to be wonderfully gruesome and fun. This book is a treasure trove of horror for fans of both fiction and nonfiction.  

The Jersey Devil!

Bones and Berserkers was made by Nathan Hale (not related to the Revolutionary War spy), a highly accomplished graphic novelist. I love his work so much that I named one of my annual favorites list categories after him. Aside from his great success with this series, he has also published the fictional graphic novels The Mighty Bite,  One Trick Pony and Apocalypse Taco. He has also drawn a few others, including Rapunzel's Revenge and Calamity Jack. I learned some more about Hale's work on this book and his upcoming projects in this article.

The reviews I have read of this book have been positive. Kirkus Reviews summed it up, "Not all true, but truly nightmarish." Susan Harari wrote that it would be "perfect for reluctant readers in middle or even high school who are brave enough to handle both fictional and factual horror stories."

Nathan Hale's Hazardous Tales: Bones and Berserkers was published by Abrams Fanfare, and they offer more information about it here.