The Best Comic Books & Graphic Novels of 2022 (So Far)

It’s time to update your pull list.

Heroes with severed blazonry , real - life history authoritarian , sentient fart masses , a man posing as an assassin . It ’s early in 2022 , but these characters are already game a claim to be among the practiced in cartoon strip and graphic novel this year . Of course , any best of the year list has subjectivity bake into the gutters , and the expansive nature of comics means that subjectivity is inevitable . There are webcomics , Substack comic strip , floppies , mini - series , trades , pictorial novel , YA novels , one - shots , Kickstarter - funded indies , and a whole lot more out there . yet , whether you wish stories about groups of minor navigating an Book of Revelation , hoi polloi with super - strength , voyeuristic seem into a stock - soaked underground world , memoirs , or graphic essay , there is a lot of new study out there for you to relish . Here are a few of the great kit and boodle published in 2022 .

ALSO understand : The Best Comics & Graphic Novels of 2021andThe Best Movies of 2022 ( So Far )

Black Widow

author : Kelly Thompson ; Pencils : Elena Casagrande ; Inks : Elisabetta D’Amico ; Color Artist : Jordie Bellaire ; Letterer : VC ’s Cory Petit

Thompson and Casagrande ’s 15 - issue course ofBlack Widowended in April , and it might be one of the best serial that Marvel has done in recent memory , belong in the conversation with can’t - miss run like Krakoa - eraX - MenandThe Immortal Hulk . The 2022 matter bring Natasha Romanov ’s time in San Francisco to a finale , “ for now . ” The final spark , “ Die by the Blade , ” force Natasha to confront The Living Blade even as the team around her continues to spread out . In her San Francisco al-Qaida , she is join by White Widow ( Yelena Belova ) , Hawkeye ( Clint Barton ) , the Winter Soldier , Spider - Girl , and a secret girl named Lucy Nguyen who lately gained major power . Together , they ’re chasing down multiple mysteries as some of those mystery chase them . The ending sticks the landing , partly due to spectacular artistic production from Casagrande and Bellaire , who can use a undivided board to communicate a cascade of movement through a elbow room or take eight bantam gore over less than half a varlet to slow up down the bit before a dud explodes . There ’s a control over the reader ’s attending in every emergence .

Black Hammer: Reborn

Written by Jeff Lemire ; Art by Caitlin Yarsky ( issue # 1 - 4 , 9 - 12 ) and Malachi Ward & Matthew Sheean ( Issues # 5 - 8) ; Colors by Dave Stewart ( Issues # 1 - 4 , 9 - 12 ) and Malachi Ward ( Issues # 5 - 8) ; Letters by Nate Piekos of Blambot

As every wedge franchise turn its boob tube shows and film toward the multiverse , so does the Black Hammer population . Lucy , daughter of the original Black Hammer , is always face with no - winnings post as she is push to squad - up with the despise Skulldigger , face the fantasm of her father , and has to stop two Spiral Cities from crashing into each other if she is going to avenge the household she presumes were killed at the hands of Colonel Weird . It all involves a not - so - dead Doctor Andromeda and the original foe ( no spoilers ) whose end sent the heroes into the not - so - veridical rural village of Rockwood . The art here is strange and gorgeous , and it create an exciting form - up to the forthcomingBlack malleus : The goal . Spinoff serial likeColonel Weird : CosmagogorBarbalien : Red Planet(one of our favourite comics of 2021 ) have their own tone and mostly self - incorporate account . ButBlack Hammer : Rebornbrings it all together in a comforting , perplexing , action - fill up convergency that drills everything that makes the series so exciting . It pokes playfulness at of all the conversant superhero tropes of Marvel and DC but manage to use them fondly and effectively .

Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands

By Kate Beaton

Kate Beaton ’s autobiographical story about leaving home and work in the Alberta crude Sand is on its face the story of a hard journey . Katie , from Cape Breton on Canada ’s east seacoast , moves west to get work in the oil George Sand , where she can pay off her scholar loan in a rushing . But what makes this the kind of book that you ca n’t stop retrieve about is the empathy with which Beaton get wind the creation . It ’s gentle to look at the oil Amandine Aurore Lucie Dupin as an environmental catastrophe , a symbol of the climate crisis . But she also sees the humans there , the indigenous cultures surrounding the area , the economic forces that push individual from across the country to the camps surrounding the oil sands . The solvent is a story about the butterfly effect of capitalism , the way it exert atmospheric pressure that steer individuals through the world . The way work — the thing many of us do more than anything else — makes us who we are , for better or worse , whether we like it or not , whether we ’re better for it or not .

It’s Fine It’s Fine Just Understand

By ND Stevenson

The Forest

By Thomas Ott

Theoretically , you could read Ott ’s wordlessThe Forestin just minute . But I do n’t know that it ’s possible to launch the Scripture and not get lost in Ott ’s intricate scratchboard artistic creation . The details , the texture , the deepness of the paradigm all feel like an fantasy that drags you deeper into the world of this morose , unnamed boy at the tale ’s core as he confront the abysmal power of nature . InThe Forest , both dark-skinned and hopeful , a boy roll off from a funeral into a timber . He is physically and emotionally find his way in a creation where it ’s easy to choose reverence in the cheek of grief . There ’s healing in the embrace of something as massive and mysterious as a woods — Ott does not involve intelligence to transmit that king here .

Putin’s Russia: The Rise of a Dictator

By Darryl Cunningham

I scan this before Russia invaded Ukraine and was strike by how enlightening this book seemed then . It has only become a more urgent read since . Putin ’s Russiais a vivid depiction of Vladimir Putin ’s rise to major power , starting from his childhood . As a pictorial novel , blank dictates that it will never be quite as deep of a honkytonk as you ’ll get from something like Masha Gessen’sThe Man Without a Face , but this thrives ihn its desire to communicate our gaps in cognition about the Russian leader and where his motivations might rest . Putin ’s Russiafollows the style of similar books from Cunningham , likeBillionaires . The nontextual matter is sparse , bringing you swiftly from place to place . At its best , it connects the country ’s history and its drawing card ’s motivations to what we see in the news show . It uses touchstone images — Boris Yeltsin stand on a tank or dancing , the Berlin Wall coming down , Putin on a jet ski , a shirtless Putin riding a knight , Pussy Riot in balaclavas — to connect the Lucy in the sky with diamonds from Putin ’s prison term in the KGB to the leader who ordered an unprovoked encroachment of Ukraine , interfere in foreign election , and has refuse to countenance go of his throttlehold on power in Russia .

A Righteous Thirst for Vengeance

author : Rick Remender ; Artist : André Lima Araújo ; gloss : Chris O’Halloran ; Letters : Rus Wooten

Everything that explains the story ofA Righteous Thirst for Vengeancedoes short to get at exactly why it ’s so not bad . The first issue barely uses wrangle , and the unnamed champion speak just once in the terminal 11 page . Still , you see a man who clearly carry secrets , wreathe his way out of a city into the countryside before step into a theatre that is n’t his . It ’s a moment that changes his animation . At least , we think it does . What follow is a account about an assassin electronic internet , a gun for hire who may not be a hitman , and a caboodle of hoi polloi who are verifying damage to the confusion . Hitmen , secret identities , code names , crime , murder , people on the ravel . It ’s bloody but quiet , chaotic but musing . Part of the understanding the story works is the virtuoso collaboration between Remender , Araújo , and O’Halloran , using minimal dialogue , unexpected board social structure , originative lettering , and big emotions to tell the level .

Soul Plumber

write by Marcus Parks and Henry Zebrowski ; Pencils by John McCrea and PJ Holden ; Inks by John McCrea ; Colors by Mike Spicer ; varsity letter by Becca Carey

If you have just one Logos to explicate what the hell is happening inSoul Plumber , you might habituate profane . Or blue , or chaotic . Basically , it ’s a weird ride . Gas post attendant Edgar believes he ’s imply for something more , that the Lord has more in store for him than what he has going now . inscribe a chemical group of actually religious individuals who are also forge with hucksters to sell the Soul Plumber , a gimmick that can extract the devil from your soul . It may or may not be a scam , but either way , Edgar ca n’t give one . So , he steal plans to build his own , and … it kind of works . The rest of the journey is filled with an extraterrestrial cloud - being that chops piece off other body to make itself a human form to verbalize to others , spiritual zealot , a noseless unspoilt friend , a sexual activity craze lead by the Fuckmother , and an epoch - spanning demon in a jar . It ’s all over the place , but that ’s the fun . The narrative hangs together through sheer absurdity , but every second is delightful . It ’s funny , quietly epical , and so imbecilic that you ca n’t jib each issue just to see what is potential in Edgar ’s populace .

best comics of 2022