The books Southern indie booksellers are recommending to readers everywhere!

Comics & Graphic Novels

Ginseng Roots: A Memoir by Craig Thompson

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Ginseng Roots: A Memoir by Craig Thompson
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Craig Thompson bursts back onto the Comix scene with this exquisitely crafted hybrid memoir/socio-cultural essay that explores his youthful experience working Wisconsin’s Ginseng farms and the fascinating history of this prized root as a bridge between Eastern and Western cultures. A book as rich in information as it is beautifully adorned.

Ginseng Roots: A Memoir by Craig Thompson, (List Price: $35, Pantheon, 9780593700778, April 2025)

Reviewed by Jonathan Hawpe, Carmichael’s Bookstore in Louisville, Kentucky

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The Raven Boys: The Graphic Novel by Maggie Stiefvater

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The Raven Boys: The Graphic Novel by Maggie Stiefvater
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The Raven Boys is one of my absolute favorite series, and I was really interested to see how it would be adapted for this graphic novel. The storyline is complex and not necessarily well suited to this format, and the writing is so beautiful and atmospheric that I wasn’t sure how it would translate. I can happily say this edition does a SUPERB job. Everything looks exactly as I imagined. Every page was full of magic and atmosphere. As a fan of the series, there were so many foreshadowing clues. I absolutely cannot wait to see the rest of the series adapted. Whether a long-time fan or a newbie to Maggie Stiefvater, any lover of magic and dark whimsy will devour this!!

The Raven Boys: The Graphic Novel by Maggie Stiefvater, (List Price: $17.99, Viking Books for Young Readers, 9780593621189, August 2025)

Reviewed by Rachel Randolph, Parnassus Books in Nashville, Tennessee

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Precious Rubbish by Kayla E.

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Precious Rubbish by Kayla E.
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Kayla E. is a ferociously inventive and blisteringly effective comix maker with an incredibly focused, original vision. Something of Chris Ware’s laser-honed visual sense and brutally tragicomic writing is in her artistic DNA, but melded with a rawer, bodily expression not unlike Lynda Barry or Phoebe Gloeckner’s. Precious Rubbish almost violently morphs and subverts the bubblegum slapstick of Nancy, Little Lulu, et al, and subverts the candy shine surfaces of 20th C. commercial illustrations, to make a universe of pain, sorrow, and black humor go down like a Coke and a smile mixed with acid and lye. Utterly brilliant.

Precious Rubbish by Kayla E., (List Price: $29.99, Fantagraphics, 9781683969280, April 2025)

Reviewed by Jonathan Hawpe, Carmichael’s Bookstore in Louisville, Kentucky

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Tongues, Volume 1 by Anders Nilsen

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Tongues, Volume 1 by Anders Nilsen
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Tongues is a masterpiece, and with it Anders Nilsen fulfills the most ambitious possibilities of the graphic novel as a medium. Rarely have images and words, form and function, been married so beautifully; his pages and panels bursting with innovative, jewel-like complexity and cascading, organic beauty. The story marries the erudite and the bawdy, political and mythical, violent and meditative, in ways that you find only in literature’s greatest: Utopia, Candide, Gulliver’s Travels, The Plague, The Castle, Cosmicomics, The Master and Margarita, White Noise. This book belongs in the pantheon.

Tongues, Volume 1 by Anders Nilsen, (List Price: $35, Pantheon, 9781524747206, March 2025)

Reviewed by Jonathan Hawpe, Carmichael’s Bookstore in Louisville, Kentucky

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Soma by Fernando Llor

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Soma by Fernando Llor
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Soma escalates before you know it as you’re thrown into the action! It’s gorgeous from its character design to its use of color. Can this comic book artist, who can’t be bothered, be persuaded to save the world from an alien invasion?

Soma by Fernando Llor, (List Price: $19.99, Oni Press, 9781637156124, February 2025)

Reviewed by Lana Repic, E. Shaver Bookseller in Savannah, Georgia

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Les Normaux by Janine Janssen

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Les Normaux by Janine Janssen
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I tried so hard to NOT buy this book but I couldn’t resist this queer love story in a magical monster world that is a copy of the non-magical. We follow Sebastien as he begins school at a wizarding university and finally has the chance to learn how to use his powers after growing up with parents who don’t approve of magic or his being gay. We get to see him navigate a lot of new relationships and grow in his confidence that he belongs in this new world. Also, did I mention he made out with a beautiful stranger who he discovers lives in the same building as him?! I devoured this story and can’t wait to read more.

Les Normaux by Janine Janssen, (List Price: $22.99, Avon, 9780063414679, February 2025)

Reviewed by Morgan DePerno, Bookmarks in Winston-Salem, North Carolina

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Speak Up, Santiago! by Julio Anta

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Speak Up, Santiago! by Julio Anta
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Speak Up, Santiago! is so much more than a bilingual graphic novel. It’s a coming-of-age story that reveals the struggles of how to connect with different generations, break barriers within a new friend group, and build up self-esteem and confidence. The pure magic between the storytelling and illustrations helps readers understand the challenges of learning a second language. Readers will be cheering for Santiago as he finds a way to communicate both at home and on the pitch.

Speak Up, Santiago! by Julio Anta, (List Price: $13.99, Random House Graphic, 9780593651636, March 2025)

Reviewed by Jenny Gilroy, E. Shaver Bookseller in Savannah, Georgia

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Milk White Steed by Michael Kennedy

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Milk White Steed by Michael Kennedy
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Michael Kennedy’s comix are somewhere between jazz, surrealism, Greek tragedy and Krazy Kat. Suffused with the grain and pain of hard luck life, these strange tales dot along the timeline of the Afro-Caribbean diaspora like messages from the Gods drawn in blood and fruit juice.

Milk White Steed by Michael Kennedy, (List Price: $24.95, Drawn and Quarterly, 9781770467590, February 2025)

Reviewed by Jonathan Hawpe, Carmichael’s Bookstore in Louisville, Kentucky

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Hunger’s Bite by Taylor Robin

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Hunger's Bite by Taylor Robin
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What should be another routine crossing of the Atlantic for Emery, Neeta, and their ship/home, the S.S. Lark, turns deadly when new management steps in, their intentions…less than good. Perhaps even a little demonic. Robin’s debut graphic novel is enthralling; the artwork in this book alone should catch your eye, every panel crafted with great color sense, expression, emotion, and such dynamic textures.

Hunger’s Bite by Taylor Robin, (List Price: $24.99, Union Square & Co., 9781454950240, February 2025)

Reviewed by Morgan Holub, E. Shaver Bookseller in Savannah, Georgia

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The Kiss Bet Volume One by Ingrid Ochoa

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The Kiss Bet Volume One by Ingrid Ochoa
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Nothing is more awkward than a first kiss, and Ingrid Ochoa captures that so well and makes it interesting when senior student Sara Lin gets bet by her friend to kiss a stranger. What ensues is secret disguises, new crushes, and so many twists and turns. Will Sara get her kiss? Will she pass Calculus!? Can’t wait to see where this story goes!

The Kiss Bet Volume One by Ingrid Ochoa, (List Price: $18.99, WEBTOON Unscrolled, 9781998341146, February 2025)

Reviewed by Morgan DePerno, Bookmarks in Winston-Salem, North Carolina

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The Kiss Bet Volume One by Ingrid Ochoa

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The Kiss Bet Volume One by Ingrid Ochoa
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Just how far are you willing to go for a bet? Would you kiss a cute stranger on the subway? I have followed this comic for so so long and I’m elated to see it in print! Team subway boy all the way!

The Kiss Bet Volume One by Ingrid Ochoa, (List Price: $18.99, WEBTOON Unscrolled, 9781998341146, February 2025)

Reviewed by Lana Repic, E. Shaver Bookseller in Savannah, Georgia

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Detective Beans by Li Chen

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Detective Beans by Li Chen
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This might actually be the cutest thing I have ever read. I\’m not lying when I say that I shed a tear because my body could not handle how cute it was (and from how hard I was laughing).Bonus points – I have a cat named Beans so it was so sweet thinking about her playing detective kitty.

Detective Beans by Li Chen, (List Price: $12.99, Andrews McMeel Publishing, 9781524882587, October 2024)

Reviewed by Stephanie St. John, E. Shaver Bookseller in Savannah, Georgia

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All Princesses Die Before Dawn by Quentin Zuttion

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All Princesses Die Before Dawn by Quentin Zuttion
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If you know me, you know this got downloaded the SECOND I saw Princess Diana’s name. Such cute, almost Studio Ghibli-type illustrations, a beautiful (and sometimes very emotional) story following one family in the day after Diana’s death. This graphic novel touches on many deep subjects which left me tearing up while reading it. Easy and enjoyable read.

All Princesses Die Before Dawn by Quentin Zuttion, (List Price: $24.99, Abrams ComicArts, 9781419776649, November 2024)

Reviewed by Stephanie St. John, E. Shaver Bookseller in Savannah, Georgia

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Sunday by Olivier Schrauwen

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Sunday by Olivier Schrauwen
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Olivier Schrauwen’s Sunday is an epic of interiority, emerging like a psychological hologram out of one fragile, mundane, ridiculous, precious human mind to commune with a world of love, sex, art, work, time, and experience at the nexus of the goofy and the transcendent: imagine James Joyce’s Ulysses as a comic book.

Sunday by Olivier Schrauwen, (List Price: $39.99, Fantagraphics, 9781683969679, October 2024)

Reviewed by Jonathan Hawpe, Carmichael’s Bookstore in Louisville, Kentucky

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The Guy She Was Interested In Wasn’t a Guy at All, Vol. 2 by Sumiko Arai

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The Guy She Was Interested In Wasn't a Guy at All, Vol. 2 by Sumiko Arai
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This series is utter perfection, NO NOTES. I’ve been keeping up with this one since it was unofficially translated, and I love that it has an intersection of two of my favorite things– rock music and gay stuff 🙂 The pops of bright green with the art style are so eye-catching and fun, so glad more people get to experience this story!!

The Guy She Was Interested In Wasn’t a Guy at All, Vol. 2 by Sumiko Arai, (List Price: $20, Yen Press, 9798855412598, February 2025)

Reviewed by Sam Conners, E. Shaver Bookseller in Savannah, Georgia

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