Tag: graphic novels

NYCC | Dave Baker brings ‘Halloween Boy’ to Oni Press

The ‘Mary Tyler MooreHawk’ creator brings his self-published pulp epic to Oni in 2026.

Cartoonist Dave Baker is teaming with Oni Press for a new edition of his underground hit Halloween Boy.

Announced at New York Comic Con, Halloween Boy Vol. 1: Last of the Halloween Boys arrives in May 2026, collecting the first five self-published issues of Baker’s duotone sci-fi pulp adventure in hardcover for the first time, complete with a new cover.

The Mary Tyler MooreHawk creator described Halloween Boy as “a two-fisted adventurer for the post-superhero age.” It’s a high-concept, meta-pulp romp that mixes cosmic quests, interplanetary warfare and pulp heroics with a personal story about family and legacy.

“Does the book feature megalomaniacal villains, inter-planetary warfare, and classic pulp-inspired escapades? You bet,” Baker said in Oni’s announcement. “But it’s also a deeply personal reflection on family, fraternity, and purpose… I really wanted to re-construct the heroic iconography that lured me into this great medium as a child. To repurpose, remix, and rebuild the best aspects of these types of stories in a hyper-earnest and sincere way.”

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‘Putty Pygmalion’ by Lonnie Garcia wins at the 2025 Lambda Literary Awards

‘Putty Pygmalion’ competed against four other works in the LGBTQ+ Comics category.

The 37th annual Lambda Literary Awards were presented this weekend in a virtual ceremony from Charlie’s Queer Books in Seattle, Washington that celebrated the best in LGBTQ+ literature across 26 categories.

In the LGBTQ+ Comics category, Putty Pygmalion by Lonnie Garcia took home the award. Published by Silver Sprocket, this innovative graphic novel offers a queer reimagining of the classic Pygmalion myth through Garcia’s distinctive multimedia comic art style.

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Abrams ComicArts line expands with Eric Powell’s ‘Thor: Behemoth of the Black Moon’

“I’m doing exactly what I want—a big cosmic adventure with giant Kirby style monsters …”

The Goon creator Eric Powell will prove himself worthy in a new graphic novel coming next May from Marvel and Abrams ComicArts.

Thor: Behemoth of the Black Moon will be published through Abrams’ Marvel Arts line, an initiative curated by Alex Ross and edited by Charles Kochman, editor-in-chief of Abrams ComicArts. It’ll be a cosmic adventure featuring giant monsters and a burden left to Thor by his dad, Odin.

“Growing up a Marvel kid as I did, getting free rein to tell a story with a premier character like Thor is a dream come true,” Powell said. “I didn’t want to waste this opportunity, so I’m doing exactly what I want—a big cosmic adventure with giant Kirby style monsters. Yeah, this book is absolutely my love letter to Jack Kirby and Walt Simons on, and I think their influences will be clear. Did I mention cosmic monsters? Cosmic . . . MONSTERS. The kid in me is giddy. I’m so appreciative of Alex Ross, Marvel, and Abrams ComicArts for offering me this project and allowing me to do my thing in this universe.”

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Picture + Panel | Štěpánka Jislová + Sofia Szamosi on ‘the lies the TV told me’

We continue our interview series in advance of a live question-and-answer session between the two creators in Boston next week.

We continue our interview series on creators speaking at the monthly Picture + Panel event in Boston, which brings together two comic creators to talk about a specific topic — for September, Štěpánka Jislová and Sofia Szamosi will discuss “the lies that TV told me” about body image, women and relationships.

Next Monday, you can join the creators and moderator Rebecca Hains, Ph.D. for the discussion at the Boston Figurative Arts Center. You can find more details on it here.

Štěpánka Jislová is an award-winning comics artist based in Prague and the cofounder of the Czech branch of Laydeez do Comics, an international organization that promotes female comic artists and their work. Jislová collaborated with Czech writer Tereza Čechová on the 2021 Muriel prize–winning Bez vlasů, later published by Graphic Mundi in English as Bald. Srdcovka (the original Czech edition of Heartcore) received the Muriel Award in three categories in 2024, including the main prize.

Sofia Szamosi is an artist and author originally from New York City. In addition to making books, she enjoys painting and creating art in analog photobooths. Along with her debut graphic novel, Unretouchable (Lerner/Graphic Universe), she is the author of BAD KID: My Life as a Troubled Teen (Little, Brown Ink, forthcoming Spring 2026), a graphic memoir exploring her adolescence in and out of the troubled teen industry. A third graphic memoir is currently in development with Street Noise, focusing on healing from eating disorders and the journey of recovering fertility. Szamosi now lives in a small town in Massachusetts—just the right distance from New York City—with her husband, two daughters, and their elderly Pomeranian, Breakfast.

Check out the interview below, and big thanks as always to Gina Gagliano and Jason Viola, who organize the monthly series in Boston and brought this Q&A series to Smash Pages!

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‘Star Trek: Lower Decks: Warp Your Own Way’ wins a Hugo Award

The interactive graphic novel by Ryan North, Chris Fenoglio and team took home the award at this weekend’s Seattle WorldCon.

Star Trek: Lower Decks: Warp Your Own Way, written by Ryan North with art by Chris Fenoglio, Charlie Kirchoff and Jeff Eckleberry, won the 2025 Hugo Award in the “Best Graphic Story or Comic” category.

The graphic novel, which was published by IDW and edited by Heather Antos, features the cast of the popular animated series (which also won a Hugo Award) in a choose-your-own-adventure story involving different paths to death, destruction and coffee.

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‘Girlmode,’ ‘We Belong’ among the nominees for the 2025 Lambda Literary Awards

The annual awards recognize LGBTQ+ books, poetry, comics and more.

Lambda Literary has announced the nominees for the 34th annual Lambda Literary Awards, which celebrate “the very best in LGBTQ literature.” The awards include an “LGBTQ+ Comics” category.

The nominees were chosen by 80 judges who took part in “the review and deliberation on this year’s 1,339 submitted titles across six months.” The list of judges included literary critics, academics, librarians, students, poets, independent and traditionally published authors, and other avid readers “representing a bright and bold spectrum of LGBTQ+ lived experiences.”

Last year’s winner in the comics category was A Guest in the House by Emily Carroll. Other past winners include Lee Lai’s Stone Fruit, Spinning by Tillie Walden and O Human Star: Volume One by Blue Delliquanti.

Congratulations to this year’s nominees:

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Smash Pages Q&A | Craig Hurd-McKenney on ‘Curse of Dark Shadows’

The writer of the new graphic novel that dives back into the world of the cult classic supernatural soap opera discusses the project, which is currently up on Kickstarter.

Dark Shadows was a supernatural-themed daytime soap opera that ran on ABC from 1966 to 1971, but still holds a place in the hearts of many fans. Barnabas Collins and his brood have lived on in books, movies and through streaming services over the years, bringing new fans to Collinsport, Maine — a city inhabited by vampires, zombies, werewolves, witches, warlocks and more.

Hermes Press has kept the story alive through a series of novels and reprints of previous comics, but now they’re returning to the world of Dark Shadows with an original graphic novel that moves the story into the present. Craig Hurd-McKenney, writer of the recent Station Grand from Oni Press, and Jok, artist of the under-appreciated In Hell We Fight with John Layman at Image Comics, are bringing these characters back to the forefront and continuing the drama that made the show so popular.

Here’s the description of Curse of Dark Shadows:

Carolyn Stoddard-Hawkes made a deathbed promise to her mother. But, in order for Carolyn to complete that promise, she must rely on the one person in the world she doesn’t want to see: vampire Barnabas Collins. His return home after an extended period away sets in motion a chain of events that will change the Collins family forever. Can Carolyn and her cousin David survive the newly-awakened CURSE OF DARK SHADOWS, or will Barnabas be the end of the Collins family line?

The project is currently up on Kickstarter, and Hermes Press has a small number of limited edition copies at the San Diego Comic-Con. They’ll also host a panel this afternoon at 3 p.m. Pacific at the con, featuring Hurd-McKenney and actress Kathryn Leigh Scott, who played Maggie on the show and will join the conversation remotely.

I spoke with Hurd-McKenney about the project, his history with the show and working again with his longtime collaborator Jok.

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SDCC | Abrams ComicArts to publish John Byrne’s ‘X-Men: Elsewhen’

The 600-page story will be told across three hardcover volumes.

I can’t say I ever expected to see this news, but hey, there’s no better time than the week of Comic-Con for a surprise. Abrams ComicArts and Marvel are teaming up to publish X-Men: Elsewhen, a collection of John Byrne’s alternate history X-Men story.

Byrne is one of the legendary artists of the new X-Men, if not THE legendary artist of the new X-Men that debuted back in Giant-Sized X-Men #1. Byrne joined writer Chris Claremont on X-Men with issue #108, shortly before “Uncanny” was added to the title. Together with inker Terry Austin, he drew some of the most well-regarded issues of the title, including the Dark Phoenix Saga, Days of Future Past, the introduction of Alpha Flight and more. He left the title with issue #143, and went on to work on everything from Fantastic Four to Alpha Flight to Sueprman to Doom Patrol and so much more.

Cut to about seven years ago, and Byrne started posting these X-Men: Elsewhen comics on his Byrne Robotics forum. As the press release describes it:

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Dark Horse announces a new original graphic novel by Mike Mignola

‘Uri Tupka and the Gods’ is the first of two graphic novels Mignola has planned as part of his ‘Lands Unknown’ universe.

Mike Mignola is expanding the Lands Unknown universe with Uri Tupka and the Gods, a new graphic novel that Dark Horse Comics will publish next year.

“This is the first of two books tracing the life of Uri Tupka, former Doctor of Theology but now heretic, on the run as he looks for the truth about the gods,” Mignola said. “See Uri barely escape one disaster after another—pirates, bandits, witches and demons, giants and monsters. There is also a talking cat and a queen of the vegetables because, of course, why wouldn’t there be?”

The OGN follows Bowling With Corpses and Other Strange Tales From Lands Unknown, and like that volume, Mignola will work with colorist Dave Stewart on the art.

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Paul Cornell + Lee Harris form Cosmic Lighthouse, announce first project with Comixology

The new company will publish graphic novels written by science fiction and fantasy writers, beginning with Adrian Tchaikovsky.

Paul Cornell and Lee Harris have teamed up to form Cosmic Lighthouse, a new publishing company that’s “devoted to publishing original graphic novels by the greatest modern science fiction and fantasy writers, paired with the world’s best artists.”

And ahead of next week’s San Diego Comic Con, they’ve announced their first project, a digital graphic novel that’ll be published through Comixology Originals.  Salvation’s Child is the debut graphic novel by science-fiction and fantasy writer Adrian Tchaikovsky and serves as a prologue to his bestselling book series, The Final Architecture, which includes the titles Shards of Earth, Eyes of the Void, and Lords of Uncreation.

“We at Cosmic Lighthouse are excited to work with the very best names in the field of science fiction and fantasy paired with great comic artists to bring new and longtime readers of the genre more of what they love in a new medium,“ Cornell said. “Launching our first title digitally with Comixology Originals brings us even closer to the future.”

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Guest Column | Meredith McClaren on ‘Meat Eaters,’ health, identity and transformation

In advance of her new graphic novel ‘Meat Eaters’ arriving in stores, the creator shares a personal essay about her health struggles and how they relate to her protagonist’s journey.

Today we welcome Hinges creator and Black Cloak artist Meredith McClaren to the blog, where she shares her deeply personal reflections on health, identity and transformation.

These themes also appear in Meat Eaters, her new graphic novel from Oni Press that arrives in stores July 7. It follows Ashley, a young woman looking to escape her stagnant small town life, but whose carefully laid plans are shattered when she wakes up one night covered in blood—and discovers she’s dead. As Ashley grapples with this shocking transformation and the changes happening within her, McClaren weaves a powerful story that resonates with her own experiences of unexpected life upheavals.

My thanks to the author for sharing this with us. It’s a wonderfully written essay with illustrations in the same style that I see on her Tumblr, which I recommend you follow if the essay resonates with you. You can also check out her travelogue on visiting Greece.

FUN TIMES
By Meredith McClaren
Author and Illustrator of MEAT EATERS

Your body will betray you.

(That’s a bummer of a starter sentence. Sorry. But stay with me, I have a point.)

Your body will betray you. It’s a universal human experience. I’m sorry. There’s no getting away from it. Some of us get there faster than others but we all eventually find ourselves in the unenviable position of feeling truly, utterly, devastatingly betrayed by our bodies.

For me it started with a tickle at the back of my throat that never went away.

I tried describing it to people. ‘You know how it feels when you suck in a big breath of cold air?’ It’s the way your throat feels tight. Constricted.

‘Sounds like asthma.’ One of my friends said.

But I wasn’t coughing. Yet. It was just a tickle. And it was always there.

The coughing came later. Over months. Over a year. Just one or two. A day. Everyday. Then it was a couple of times a day. Every time I woke up. Every time I went to bed. Sometimes an extra one somewhere in the middle.

It wasn’t until a friend’s wedding that I really reconciled that there was a problem. And I couldn’t really ignore it anymore. 

‘You cough a lot.’ My Dad said.

‘I know.’ I said.

Destination wedding in Flagstaff. A higher elevation. I was coughing. And I knew it wasn’t just the thinner air.

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Guest Q&A | Melissa Chan + Badiucao on ‘You Must Take Part in Revolution’

The graphic novel from Street Noise Books is a near-future dystopian story about technology, authoritarian governments and fighting for freedom.

Today we’re pleased to present a guest interview with Melissa Chan and Badiucao, creators of You Must Take Part in Revolution, conducted by Street Noise Books publisher Liz Frances.

If you’re not familiar with the graphic novel, it features a near-future dystopian story about technology, authoritarian government and the lengths that one will go to in the fight for freedom. The graphic novel is available now.

by Liz Frances

Melissa and Badiucao, this is your first graphic novel! What made you two decide that you should go from journalism and political cartoons to making a graphic novel — why this format?

Melissa: I’d been a journalist for almost two decades — writing articles and also as a correspondent for broadcast and video reports. It started to feel as if whatever I reported on didn’t really matter — that so much of it was reaching audiences who kind of agreed with me already about human rights and democracy. I’ve enjoyed graphic novels over the years, and it kind of dawned on me that this was the book I’d always wanted to write.

Badiucao: Yeap, graphic novels take serious topics like human rights and geopolitics and make them more accessible to groups who might not know the subjects well. I’d always want to break through the circles of my usual readers and speak to younger groups who are comics readers, gamers — basically to leverage the power of pop culture. You know that famous “tank man” from the Tiananmen Square student protests? How about making figures like that as cool and as popular as Spider-Man!

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