Best Books of 2015 | Publishers Weekly - Comics : Publishers Weekly

The Oven

Sophie Goldstein (AdHouse)

In an ecologically devastated future when cities are under domes and resources are strictly controlled, a couple escapes to a commune outside the bubble, hoping to have a baby the natural way. But natural isn't necessarily better in this multilayered debut that's as scorching as the acid orange ink its printed in.

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March, Book 2

John Lewis, Andrew Aydin, and Nate Powell (Top Shelf)

The second installment of this deeply inspirational memoir continues mapping the history of the Civil Rights Movement—lunch counter sit-ins, the Freedom Riders, and the 1963 march on D.C.—and of Georgia congressman Lewis, as the young men and women of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee heroically endure fearfully escalating levels of violence.

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The Arab of the Future

Riad Sattouf, trans. from the French by Sam Taylor (Metropolitan)

Dragged from Libya to France to Syria by his perpetually optimistic father, who desperately believes in the promise of a pan-Arabic state, Sattouf recalls a childhood filled with cruelties, absurdities, and unforgettable smells, which he somehow manages to put on the page. This densely detailed memoir has been a controversial best seller in France and remains all too timely.

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SuperMutant Magic Academy

Jillian Tamaki (Drawn & Quarterly)

The tropes of superpowered teens in a school setting—which figure into Harry Potter, X-Men, Vampire Academy, and many others—are upended and eventually elevated in this dark comedy. Sketchy art gives way to a fluid, inky wash, as one character laments, "Maybe I was too busy complaining about the food in the caf to realize these were the best years of my life."

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Killing and Dying

Adrian Tomine (Drawn & Quarterly)

Cool, elegant art understates the frustration of angry white men and the world they can't understand, in Tomine's devastating short story anthology. Each protagonist is desperate to hold on to some symbol only he or she believes in—whether it's topiary sculpture or an old apartment—with painful results for everyone around them.

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