The Shadow Planet by Gianluca Pagliarani (art) & Giovanni Barbieri (script). Image, 2025. 9781534331761. 96pp. Publisher’s Rating: M / Mature. Includes some bonus material in the back, including thumbnails and other art.

This graphic novel is a throwback to monster movies of the 1980s or earlier, and I enjoyed it as such. It even has a few bad jokes. The back says it’s Lovecraftian, but I’m not sure I agree. If you liked John Carpenter’s The Thing and wish the original Lost In Space was more gory, stop reading and find a copy.

The book opens with a blood-soaked sex scene, and soon we’re on a Federation starship with a crew of six that’s received a call for help. It’s from a ship that was reported destroyed thirty years before. Four of the crew take a shuttle to the planet’s surface to investigate. They find a very freaked out survivor who says her father massacred the rest of her family. It’s not too long before there’s a murder and alien monsters. It gets weird in ways that are predictable and fun to read.

At the heart of the story is Sgt. Vargo, an Alain Delon lookalike who always has a cigarette in his mouth. (The main characters are inspired by famous actors of the past, according to the notes at the end of the book, but I couldn’t identify any of the others offhand.)

My favorite thing: the Batmobile-inspired rover is badass.

   

Not On Display by Zelba. Translation by Alice Yang. Helvetiq, 2025. 9783039640843. 114pp. plus an Afterward by Zelba, an essay titled “The Nude In Art” by Fabrice Douar, and more. This is part of the amazing Musée du Louvre graphic novels series published in France by Futuropolis, many of which are available in English and other languages. https://www.futuropolis.fr/collection/musee-du-louvre/ I’ve read most of them and this is by far my favorite. In the opening pages of the book, a man and his father, at the front of the security line at the Louvre, take off all of their clothes before entering the museum. They’re not the only men who have to disrobe (though women and kids can leave their clothes on). What?! Six months earlier, a cleaning lady out for a smoke with a coworker explains how much she loves the “ladies” in the galleries she cleans. The works of art feel like friends to her. She says can actually hear them talking, and that they’re sick of how they’ve been treated. She promises to pass their message on to the museum’s director, that the nude sculptures of women had enough with the “unwanted touching and obscene comments from men…” and that they’re planning a rebellion. The cleaning lady is fired. And then the trouble at the museum begins! (It quickly expands a bit to include the nude women in paintings, too.) The story walks a fine line between serious and entertaining. My favorite characters are the President-Director and his sister, who functions as his Executive Secretary, because they have a secret that keeps the museum running. As at the Louvre itself, though, the statues are really the stars of the story. Zelba’s illustrations and dialogue make some works of art more compelling than ever. Worth noting: the book has a perfect ending.      

Model Five Murder: a sci-fi noir by Tan Juan Gee. Silver Sprocket, 2025. 9788886200706. 64pp. Includes a few pages of bonus content at the end about process and the history of the book.

This graphic novella has a great opening: Io is on a spacewalk at a refueling depot when she comes across a body floating nearby. Weirder, it has the same face she does; it’s also a Rohm Model Five cyborg. She returns to Tasang Loop, a huge space station and home to millions, though there are very few Model Fives living there. That last fact turns out to be central to the mystery she stumbles into.

I love Tan’s art — it takes inspiration from manga, particularly in its use of screen tones, but it’s shading and subtle use of color really makes it stand out. This is a short, enjoyable mystery from a Singaporean creator.

     

Ew, It’s Beautiful: A False Knees Comic Collection by Joshua Barkman. Andrews McMeel, 2025. 9781524897642. 140pp.

I love the birds in Barkman’s comics. They confirm my opinion that crows are the best. (Pigeons, you’re a close second!)

As soon as I read this book I recommended it to three people. And I’m still going. It’s fabulous.

You can read all the comics at https://falseknees.com (Be sure to read Life After Life, which is a short graphic novel about birds. Looks like Barkman does one every November!)

           

Welcome to the Maynard by James Robinson, art by J. Bone. Dark Horse, 2025. 9781506744919. Contains #1 – 4 of the series. Pip starts working as a bellhop at the Maynard, a fancy hotel for the magic community. It’s all secret and invisible to mortal eyes. This creates a problem with Pip’s girlfriend, who figures out Pip has been lying about working at a regular hotel. But Pip can’t give it up. And it’s not just the wizards, magical beings, and fabulous coworkers. Pip is secretly in-training with Sam, the hotel’s house detective, and they’re trying to catch a thief who has been stealing an incredibly odd array of items from the hotel (and then escaping in a marvlous, magical way, of course). Pip is wonderful and easy to root for, but I loved the wizard Hamilton Cape as soon as he made his entrance. He’s more Liberace than not, and he has an amazing sense of style. Robinson (Starman! Scarlet Witch) and J. Bone (Alison Dare, Mutant Texas) previously teamed up on Image Comics’ The Saviors, which I somehow missed. Check out the superhero illustrations on J. Bone’s Instagram and enjoy at the sense of nostalgia his inking creates.    

Holy Lacrimony by Michael Deforge. Drawn and Quarterly, 2025. 9781770467552. 120pp.

Jackie is abducted by aliens because he’s the saddest living person on Earth. They’re interested in human emotions they don’t experience; he’s expected to put on performances for them. His alien apprentice, Kara, tries to learn how to cry. It’s all f’d up and strange and even sexual at times, and that’s only the first half of the book; the second half is arguably weirder.

Deforge’s aliens and their environment are just amazing, and really work in contrast to the graphic novel’s more realistic scenes. I really enjoy his work, and I’d rate this as one of his best graphic novels, right up there with Ant Colony and Sticks Angelica: Folk Hero.

   

Punycorn and the Princess of Thieves by Andi Watson. Clarion Books, 2025. 9780358572008. 202pp. Punycorn’s sword Bloodgutter is broken and needs to be fixed, which is even more of a problem than that might otherwise seem because Bloodgutter is Punycorn’s friend, too. It needs to be reforged in a hurry. Wheeze (a dragon) has something in his hoard that might help, but his hoard has been stolen. Together with P’oo (a dung elemental) they head to the Verdigris Forest to track down the Princess of Thieves and her band of brigands, who have the treasure. (Side quest: Wheeze’s friends need to help boost his self-confidence so he can finally breathe fire.) The evil Sir Ogre’s mom is upset that her son was defeated by Punycorn (in the previous book), and she’s confiscating his weapons, which makes his sister Sixsmith super happy; Sixsmith wants to rule the Land of Carbuncle herself. To that end, she seeks a magical grimoire that will help her conquer it. It’s also in the hands of the Princess of Thieves. Watson’s graphic novels are all beautifully drawn, and I loved the color in this one as much as I did in his Gum Girl series. He excels at writing entertaining, silly characters while walking a fine line between embracing and making fun of the fantasy genre in a way that makes this a great read-aloud.

James Bond 007: Your Cold, Cold Heart by Garth Ennis and artist Rapha Lobosco. Dynamite, 2024. 9781524125523. Contains #1 – 6. Bond is hunting for a secret weapon that the British developed after stealing it from the Soviets back in the day. It’s been stolen back by them, basically, which is going to cause big trouble. (I’m not telling you about the weapon because why ruin the surprise?) There are twists and turns, of course, and a betrayal that leaves Bond with no one to trust except Moneypenny. (She’s also tough as nails in this book.) Ennis might be more famous these days for writing Preacher and The Boys, but I always loved the way he wrote the Punisher. His run was gleefully brutal and has a lot in common with this graphic novel. If Hollywood action films seem too soft-hearted, this is the book for you. My favorite part is the extremely violent misdirect at the beginning. It’s the perfect opening to this story, which ends with a poetic bit of payback.  

Muybridge by Guy Delisle. Translation by Helge Dascher and Rob Aspinall.  Drawn & Quarterly, 2025. 9781770467729. 218pp. Includes credits for all photos in the book and a timeline of the lives of the artists, photographers, and others appearing in the book. On the first page of this graphic novel, Delisle summarizes the mystery of the galloping horse and shows Muybridge in the last “panel” as the young Englishman who would eventually solve the mystery (while working for Leland Stanford). What Delisle doesn’t say is that in pioneering the photographic methods that solved that mystery, Muybridge became the first person to animate photographs, leading to movies and more. Muybridge’s story begins in 1850 when he arrives in New York and becomes a bookseller. “This wasn’t the adventure he had hoped for.” Ha. He went to San Francisco, where he met a friend working for a portrait photographer. And the rest is history, kinda. After failing at the American dream, a gruesome accident, and a return to England to recover, Muybridge returned to the US as a photographer. Not too much later, he headed west and took pictures of the then-unknown Yosemite Valley. The rest of his story is crazy — it includes not only the history of photography and early filmmaking but also a murder and more. Delisle includes photos as part of the narrative, both by Muybridge and others. I haven’t seen photos this well integrated into a graphic novel since reading Guibert’s The Photographer. My favorite moment of the book is when, after achieving fame for his photos of a galloping horse, Muybridge decides to capture the motion of other animals and people. This is Victorian times, and he wants people to be photographed nude to show their bodies in motion, but no one will do it. This is why there is a 12-photo sequence of a naked Muybridge, age forty-eight, swinging a pickax. That’s dedication. (My second favorite, and the most unexpected moment, is Delisle’s note about how Muybridge’s techniques led to the way the action sequences in The Matrix were filmed. Very cool.)

A Shining Beacon by James Albon. Top Shelf, 2019. 9781603094450. 205pp. An authoritarian government has created a new pool that’s both a grand rejuvenation project and a national sporting monument! All that remains is to find an artist to create the central mural. Most candidates have been blackballed by the censorship committee. The two men in charge of finding an artist have identified Francesca Saxon as the person to recruit for the job. She lives and works in a small town; her art is a little bland, but they don’t expect her to cause any trouble. After receiving their invitation, she heads for the capital as requested and begins to submit her ideas. Of course, they’re all rejected, with little explanation, but she continues to sketch and submit more. And then some real trouble starts. Albon’s illustrations are beautiful, loose enough to convey both Saxon’s initial excitement and to later capture the oppressiveness and confusion she experiences. His art really comes to life when the city explodes in violence later. My favorite thing about the book is the relationship between Saxon and the low-level guard who is supposed to keep an eye on her, who accompanies her wherever she goes. Albon goes to great lengths to humanize him as Saxon tries to get to know him. Albon has three other graphic novels published by Top Shelf: Her Bark & Her Bite, The Delicacy, and, the most recent (from 2025), Love Languages. I plan to read them all as soon as possible.