Fabio Moon
With dozens of titles hitting the print (and digital) stands each month, deciding which comics to read isn’t always easy. So we’ll keep it simple: If you’re only going to pick up a couple of comics or graphic novels right now, here are a handful that are worth your time and money. Of course, there’s no way to cover every worthwhile title, so consider this a monthly sampler—and leave your own suggestions in the comments.
Casanova: Acedia
Matt Fraction’s inter-dimensional superspy returns for the long-awaited fourth volume of this series, where an amnesiac Casanova Quinn walks out of a fire in the Hollywood Hills with no memory of the past, and no fear of the future. As he makes a new life in the heady, forgetful glow of Los Angeles, where he finds a way to put his specialized skills to use for a fatherly criminal figure. Indeed, he seems happier than he’s been—maybe ever? Maybe it’s better to forget. His past starts to catch up with him, however, when beautiful occult assassin starts trying to murder him in swimming pools wearing nothing but Louboutins. The art is a sumptuous delight, as always, and since cartoonists (and identical twins) Gabriel Ba and Fabio Moon have been trading off for each volume this time around it’s Moon’s chance to shine. Throw in a backup story written by Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Michael Chabon, and you’ve got yourself a party.
Price: $3.99
Where to Buy It: Image Comics (DRM-free digital) or your local comic shop
Jason Shiga
Demon
A pure mathematics major turned cartoonist, Jason Shiga has a tendency to make stories that feel like puzzles, from his superbly mind-bending choose your own adventure-style time travel comic, Meanwhile , to the amnesiac mystery of Fleep . This time around Shiga introduces us to Jimmy Yee, a down-on-his-luck man who kills himself in a motel room, only to wake up in bed the next morning no worse for the experience. After several more failed suicide attempts, things start to get weird—he finds bullets lodged in the wall and his own headless body on the floor, but somehow never ends up any deader. After stepping in front of a trailer truck, he wakes up in the hospital to find a daughter he doesn’t know and a life he never lived waiting for him. Half the fun of Demon is unraveling the mystery, and the other half is watching things go wild when Yee finally learns the truth. Although you can read the ongoing story for free at Shiga’s website, print or DRM-free digital versions are available for a modest Patreon contribution. And you should seriously consider the latter option.
Price: The webcomic is free, but PDFs cost $1/month, print editions $4.99/month
Where to Get It: Shiga’s website and store, Patreon
Michael DeForge
Michael DeForge’s Patreon Comics
Michael DeForge makes some of the most excellent and unnerving comics currently in print (see: his highly-acclaimed anthology series Lose and the drone body horror of Ant Colony ). He’s currently making original monthly comics for Patreon subscribers, which means that for three dollars a month you can watch a modern master of sequential art do weird, wonderful experiments. December’s “Wet Animals” explores the lingering heartbreak of love (and cruel fish) while January’s “Mars Is My Last Hope” follows refugees from Earth as they try to adapt to the red planet and get infiltrated by its native flora. These monthly comics are a bit of a limited-time offer, however: He’s only promised to continue them through May, so get on board while you can.
Price: $3.00 a month
Where to Buy It: Patreon
First Second Books
The Sculptor
Scott McCloud wrote the book on comics. Or more accurately, he wrote three of them: Understanding Comics, Reinventing Comics, and Making Comics. Now, he’s finally released what he considers his magnum opus, an original graphic novel about an ambitious young sculptor who makes a Faustian bargain for an unusual superpower: the ability to sculpt anything in his imagination with little more than a thought. Decades in the making, it explores some pretty ambitious ideas: nothing less than the meaning of art, love, and being human. It’s a high bar to clear—especially with the sky-high expectations that accompany his publication history—but McCloud delivers a solid, mature work worthy of the countless “best of 2015″ lists it will no doubt populate later this year. (Check out WIRED’s profile of McCloud here.)
Price: $29.99 print, $14.99 Kindle
Where to Buy It: Macmillan/First Second
And Then Emily Was Gone
Chances are you missed this offbeat comic about a detective who sees terrifying visions of monsters, travels to the remote Orkney Islands in Scotland to find a missing girl, and finds hell instead. Published by a very small indie press, And Then Emily Is Gone is written by John Lees with art with by Iain Laurie, and it’s scary as hell. Readers with more conventional tastes might be put off the misshapen faces and thick-lined monsters of Laurie’s atypical art style, but that’s exactly what will make it irresistible to everyone else. Horror fans take note: This might be the best creepy comic of the last year to slip under your radar.
Price: $7.99
Where to Buy It: ComiXology (digital)
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