Small has won multiple awards for his children’s books, but this one goes deeper and darker, boasting some of the most impressive art of his career. It’s a ferocious story of male adolescence, following a 13-year-old named Russell Pruitt, who is growing up with an alcoholic father in a 1950s America that has little to do with nostalgic notions of the era. A brutal and impressive book.
In the shadow of war, teenager Maika Halfwolf shares a psychic connection with a powerful monster. The latest chapter in this multiple Eisner-winning epic fantasy series (which has also collected three Hugo Awards) sees Maika forced to find allies as invasion looms. Confronting trauma and racism with a cast of powerful and nuanced women, this visually stunning nightmare of a series is one of the most acclaimed currently publishing. Once again, fans take note: B&N has an exclusive edition featuring variant cover art and a two-sided pull-out poster..
Stalker Prism, by Sloane Leong and Ariana Maher
The beginning of a new and decidedly bizarre bio-punk sci-fi epic, Stalker Prism is the impressive creation of writer/artist/colorist Leong, who bleeds out an ambitious story onto the page in lurid hues and near-tactile textures. Outside colonized space lies the a newly discovered planet with a truly alien environment, its plant life seeming to exhibit powerful psychic and telekinetic abilities. Vep, a refugee indentured to an alien race called the Sverans, is one of the first tasked with settling this strange new world, but spending too much time on the surface may prove fatal to her sanity.