New York Ninja Super Special by Charles Forsman
Floating World Comics/Vinegar Syndrome
$12
Do you even sequels, bro? No sequel is more vital and important than this Forsman ripper.You don't need to have watched the cult classic original film from 1984 to immerse yourself into this gem. Just remember that crime in NYC in the 1980s was very bad and we all should thank New York Ninja, not Spidey, Heroes For Hire, or Daredevil, for keeping those streets clean.
Detention No. 2 / Sir Alfred No. 3 by Tim Hensley
Fantagraphics
$20/each
Local boy done good, your cartoonist's favorite cartoonist, Tim Hensley is back baby! Oversized, gloriously illustrated and colored, and packed with the language and minutiae of turn of the century NYC ("loosely" based on Stephen Crane's novella Maggie: A Girl of the Streets). And since there's no such thing as too much of a good thing, Fantagraphics have reissued Sir Alfred, for those who need to scratch their Hitch itch!
Shuna's Journey by Hayao Miyazaki
First Second
$28
At this point, there is nothing that Miyazaki-san can do that won't be short of absolutely amazing. He can draw a dot on a post-it, and it'll probably end world suffering for a blissful moment. Shuna's Journey, originally from 1983 and translated into English for the first time, is based on an old Tibetan folktale and features many visual ideas that would form Nausicaa, Mononoke, etc. RIYL Studio Ghibli, coming of age journeys, nature and anti-colonial anti-slavery sentiment.
Acting Class by Nick Drnaso
Drawn & Quarterly
$30
Y'all, this is a goddamn masterpiece. Take something that is inherently awkward (an acting class), magnify it by a million, mess with the perception of reality, then die inside forever. Drnaso already has "Booker Prize longlist" distinction, what's next? Pulitzer? Nobel Prize? Purple Heart? Grammy? Better jump on the wagon now, so you can tell kids 20 years from now that you were there before he was doing VR hologram New Yorker covers in 2042.
The Human Target Volume One by Tom King and Greg Smallwood
DC Black Label
$30
Tom King's extremely good at his thing. Some folks wanna get all snobby and say they don't like it anymore, but really they still do because, like I wrote earlier, he's extremely good at his thing. Another reinvention of a B-list DC character, in a stylish noir mystery, elevated to bonkers status by Smallwood's impeccable art which lies in the center of a Venn Diagram of Norman Rockwell's style and Darwyn Cooke's vibe.
A Frog in the Fall (and Later On) by Linnea Sterte
Peow Studio
$35
Brew your genmaicha and put on your favorite Japanese ambient records, because Linnea Sterte's new one is here and it's so incredibly chill. With her zen minimal linework and the jaw-dropping PEOW packaging, Frog's journey is so epic, it might actually get you to leave your electric blanket and go outside for a change.