Six highlights from the world of comic-books and graphic novels in 2025
It was another good year for the comic-books world.
In 1994, the publication of Paul Karasik and David Mazzucchelli’s adaptation of felt like a high-water mark for the comics medium.
We had to wait three decades for all three books of Auster’s acclaimed to receive the graphic treatment. Having initially revelled in the giddy virtuosity of Mazzucchelli’s artistry, this time around I leave with more of a reverence towards Auster’s taut, remorseless and disquieting storytelling.
These new adaptations, delivered by Karasik and the great Lorenzo Mattotti, meet the challenge, bringing something new, but also serving to lead one back to the original text.
The various anthologies created by the Cork Comic Creators collective have tended more towards horror and science fiction. In their latest publication, set around the theme of a post-apocalyptic Cork, a couple of writers have chosen to move away from the usual genres to explore more meaningful and personal stories. Over four pages, writer and artist Judy Powell traces a story of the harbour village of Glandore from 1970 to 2050 in that may be more science-fact. Andrea Aron’s poetic is also similarly socially aware.
When not editing the anthology and providing lettering and script work, Kevin M Smith published his martial art fantasy adventure, (available in Vibes & Scribes).
Meanwhile, Cork writer Gary Moloney has just made his Marvel Comics debut for their anthology series for a story on simian assassin Hit-Monkey. Writer and artist Baldemar Rivas appear in total harmony in an action-packed one-off.
Richard Sala’s sudden death in 2020 felt like a particularly huge loss. While peers like Daniel Clowes, Charles Burns and Chris Ware were receiving mainstream acclaim for their more “serious” work and “mature” themes, Sala was still on the margins, creating whimsical gothic fairytales that seemed to draw on everything from Edward Gorey and Edgar Allan Poe to silent cinema and the classic monsters of Universal Pictures.
This lovingly made reprint of his rare early comics work from 1984, which features work that was animated early ‘90s MTV, reveals a far more anarchic and experimental spirit.
When Craig Thompson hurt his hands while on holiday in China, the soothing application of a ginseng lotion by a local pharmacist triggered childhood memories of picking the root in his native Wisconsin. When his return to his family home coincides with the first ever state ginseng festival, Thompson’s initial reminiscences of child labouring for comics money develop into a study of ginseng that immerses itself equally into its medicinal, agricultural and economic histories. As with his acclaimed memoir Blankets, Thompson doesn’t do things by half. As absorbing as it is exhaustive.
Special mention to Guy Delisle’s (Drawn & Quarterly). Delisle’s small-form canvas brings both the photographic innovator Eadweard Muybridge and the great characters of his era to life. The delightful artwork is supplemented by a range of historic photographs.
Surely the most dazzling and original offering this year was Kennedy’s collection of ten short stories. Covering several decades and drawing largely on the West Indies experience in the UK, there are some of the stories that are set in the American past, and others in some future outer space world. The stories are often baffling, making no concessions to the reader, but they have a cumulative effect of a soul, or a people, trying to find their place.
The artwork is a pure joy. Extraordinarily varied and bold, there is a great imagination at work. Fantastic beings and creatures appear, but most often it is with the simplest panel that he can stop you in your tracks.
“The sky outside the window was always full of crucifixes,” is the baleful opening line of Dublin-based visual artist Boz Mugabe’s graphic novel debut, A dark, dense and profane work, the deliberately grotesque artwork is rendered quite beautifully in this assault on the Catholic Church’s grip on conservative Ireland.
#To fight the oppressive orthodoxy, an anonymous young hero and his equally outsider friends Klaralara and OtherJim decide, Ghostbusters-style, to capture the Holy Ghost. This is a work that clearly comes from a dark, dank well.
