The first Pride was a riot. A riot against police.
This Pride, support Black Americans protesting for their rights. When you’re building your Pride TBR, support Black LGBTQ authors and Black-owned bookstores.
I love reading comics. This format allows stories to be told that are unlike any other medium. The art and words can work together or contrast, adding different levels to the story. I love opening up a new comic and giving myself time to just admire the artwork, reminding myself to pause and take in all the visual cues. And of course, if it’s a sapphic comic, that’s even better.
This is far from an exhaustive list! It’s just some of my favourites. I’ve also made a few videos on the subject: My Queer Comics Collection and 11 Fluffy & Happy F/F Comics. I’ve separated this recommendations into categories: comics aimed specifically at kids and teens, adult comics (many of which would also be appropriate for teens), manga, and a couple nonfiction titles. And because I’ve only scratched the surface, I had to include a few more on my TBR.
Kids’ and Teens’ Comics
The Legend of Korra: Turf Wars, Volume 1 by Michael Dante DiMartino
If you haven’t watched The Legend of Korra, go do that first. Watch Avatar: The Last Airbender, then The Legend of Korra, then come back. I’ll wait. But if you have watched Korra, then you likely felt that bittersweet ending: more than we could have expected, but ending way too soon.
Turf Wars: Part One picks up exactly where the last episode leaves off, and it was everything I could have hoped for. It gives Korra and Asami their happy ending, where they basically go on a honeymoon in the spirit world. They kiss and hold hands. They are unambiguously a romantic couple. And honestly, that’s all I wanted! I haven’t been as impressed by the following graphic novels, but I think that’s because the first part of Turf Wars gave me everything I wanted from the story.
As the Crow Flies by Melanie Gillman
Melanie Gillman is one of my favourite artists, and this volume demonstrates why: their coloured pencil illustrations are so intricate and beautiful, I can’t help but pause to stare at every page!
Charlie is a queer brown kid who was hoping to regain her closeness with God (not necessarily the Christian conception) during this trip. Instead, she’s found out that the camp is almost entirely white. She doesn’t feel welcome, and there seems to be no way to get out of this now that she’s hiking through the woods with them.
Luckily, she finds companionship with another camper, Sydney. Sydney also feels like an outsider at camp, and later we find out that’s because she’s trans. Sydney gets the distinct impression that if the camp leader knew that, she wouldn’t be welcome at this white feminist-y retreat. Sydney and Charlie get closer by commiserating and joking, and they plot to interrupt the camp plans. My only problem with this book is that it’s only volume one, and I want to read the whole story!
Check out my review here!
Goldie Vance series by Hope Larson (Author) and Brittney Williams (illustrator)
Goldie Vance is a Black queer teen detective! I really love the art in this volume. The colours are vibrant, and the character designs are distinctive and engaging, and the cast is diverse.
Originally, I had though that Goldie Vance was a preteen, but she’s a teenager, and the mystery is slightly more political and intense than I thought it would be! Unsurprisingly, my favourite part of this first volume was Goldie falling for Diane, who we first see rocking a James Dean-ish look.
Check out my review here!
Aquicorn Cove by Katie O’Neill
I can’t get enough of Katie O’Neill’s artwork and stories. The illustrations are beautiful, captivating, and comforting. The pastel tones and softness of shapes matches the soothing tone of her narratives. In her author bio, she says that she writes “gentle fantasy stories,” and I think that’s the perfect description.
This is a love letter to the ocean. Lana clearly loves being back by the water, and she nurtures a baby aquicorn she finds stranded in a tidal pool. The environmentalist message includes information at the back of the book about coral reefs and how we can take care of them.
The romance is between Lana’s aunt and an underwater woman creature (not a mermaid… she kind of reminds me of a Pokemon, but in a good way). In flashbacks, we see how they got closer, and then how they drifted apart. Their town depends on fishing, and it becomes a point of tension between them.
Check out my review here!
Princess Princess Ever After by Katie O’Neill
And, of course, I can’t forget to mention Katie O’Neill’s first graphic novel, Princess Princess Ever After.
This has the same adorable style I’ve come to expect from this author (even the end papers are adorable!) Originally a webcomic, this is a short romp about two princesses saving each other. It’s maybe not as well-developed as her later books, but still well worth the space on your shelves, especially to read to/with younger kids.
Space Battle Lunchtime Volumes 1 & 2 by Natalie Riess
This comic is an all-ages queer women comic about a competitive cooking show… in space. What could be better?? Peony agrees to be in a competitive cooking show, only to be transported onto the spaceship it’s being filmed on. That’s when she realizes that this isn’t space-themed, it’s literally in outer space. But she takes the existence of aliens in stride, and concentrates on the competition. And, okay, maybe one of the cute alien contestants.
I highly, highly recommend reading volume 1 & 2 back to back, because they really are one complete story. This is such a joyful book!
Check out my review here!
Lumberjanes by Noelle Stevenson, Grace Ellis, and Shannon Watters
I feel like recommending Lumberjanes as a queer all-ages comic should go without saying, but I will say it all the same!
This is a comic that follows a group of girls at summer camp, where they get into fantastical adventures. The strongest part of the series is the dynamic between the 5 main characters. They all have different personalities, strengths, fears, priorities, etc, but they are a tightly-knit group. They support each other. And we get to see each one spotlighted at some point.
This is also a diverse cast, including multiple trans characters, and two of the girls start dating. This is a fun series to read as an adult, but I’m especially glad it exists for kids and teens. The main characters are different ages and also a little ambiguous, so this really works as a recommendation for 9 and up, I’d say. And it’s still going!
Check out my review here!
Supermutant Magic Academy by Jillian Tamaki
SuperMutant Magic Academy takes place at a boarding school for disaffected, superpowered teens. The stories are more high school drama than superhero comic, though. My favourite character is Frances, a guerilla artist who relishes in disturbing the comfortable and is only ever shaken by one panel where a teacher coolly observes that her art is “a little 70s”.
Mostly stand-alone comics, the plot that does exist surrounds Marsha, a sarcastic, often apathetic psychic student, and her best friend Wendy, a fox girl who she has hopelessly fallen for. Marsha is closeted and debates about whether to tell Wendy about her feelings. Marsha is acts superior about Wendy’s naiveté and optimism, often criticizing her about it, despite the fact that those are clearly the traits that made her fall in love with Wendy.
Irreverent, funny, and just a little bit sad; if you’ve got a bit of a pessimistic sense of humor, you’ll love this one.
Check out my review here.
Jem and the Holograms by Kelly Thompson and Sophia Campbell
I love Sophia Campbell’s art style in this: colourful and vibrant, with characters of all different shapes and sizes. It is unbelievably cute.
You don’t have to be familiar with the original Jem and the Holograms to pick this up: it’s a re-imagining of the original concept. 4 sisters start a band together, but their lead singer, Jerrica, has debilitating stage fright. Luckily, they get access to hologram technology, so Jerrica can perform disguised as the confident and larger than life Jem.
Also, one of the sisters gets a crush on a member of rival band The Misfits! So much fun!
Heavy Vinyl, Volume 1 by Carly Usdin and Nina Vakueva
Chris is a teenager who has just started working at the local record store. (It’s the 90s.) All her coworkers seem impossibly cool, and she immediately starts crushing on one of them. As the cover would suggest, though, it’s not just music that this group of girls is passionate about. Chris finds herself getting initiated into a network of teen girl vigilante gangs.
It’s a little bit Empire Records, a little bit Josie and the Pussycats (the movie), with bonus vigilante, mystery-solving teen girl gang and a queer main character. The strength and weakness of this is how cute it is. You wouldn’t think that a story about a vigilante gang would be so fluffy, but it is! It’s more Scooby Doo than anything else. If you’re looking for a fun and hopeful read, set in a 90s with no homophobia, pick this one up.
Check out my review here.
Princeless: Raven the Pirate Princess Vols. 1-3 by Jeremy Whitley
Raven is the daughter of a pirate captain, and she was supposed to inherit the title. Unfortunately, her brothers stole that from her. Now, she’s determined to put together her own crew, get a ship, and regain what’s rightfully hers.
This is a diverse, all-women pirate crew bent on revenge. There’s an f/f romance between Raven and another member of the crew, who was a childhood friend until Raven betrayed her. (Friends to Lovers to Enemies to Lovers?)
The whole crew gets time for their characters to develop, and there is a lot of diversity between them, including a Deaf crew member who uses sign language. In addition to adventure and heartbreak, there’s also a lot of satire, especially making feminist points, and fun references.
Check out my review here!
Adult
Heathen, Volume 1 by Natasha Alterici
I feel like Heathen is a book that lots of people are looking for, but they don’t know it’s an option. It’s about a lesbian viking taking on the patriarchy. Norse mythology with a queer lead!
Aydis is banished from her community–and meant to be killed–for kissing a girl. Instead of feeling shame, she feels outrage at a system that punishes her for this. She decides to free Brynhild, a Valkyrie who is imprisoned in fire by Odin.
That’s only the beginning, though. This is a quest to take down the patriarchy, and along the way Aydis and her allies defend other outcasts. She also runs into some talking wolves and a talking horse as well as Freyja, goddess of love. Oh, and of course, she picks a fight with the most powerful enemy you can find in Norse mythology: Odin.
Check out my review here.
Motor Crush Vol 1 by Brenden Fletcher, Cameron Stewart, and Babs Tarr
Domino races by day in motorcycle races that serve as the main source of entertainment in this society. She’s tracked by a floating camera asking for constant updates and interviews. By night, she races gangs, where there is no limits to the lengths you can go to in order to win the pot. (You can see Domino’s weapon of choice on the cover.) While others race for Crush because it boosts their engines (and apparently motorcycles can get addicted to it??), Domino needs it to live.
There are plenty of good reasons to like Motor Crush, but what really sold me on it was Domino’s ex-girlfriend, Lola. Who can resist a beautiful, curvy, femme woman with hot pink hair who’s on a motorcycle? Did I mention that she’s a mechanic, too? Swoon.
Check out my review here.
Darlin’ It’s Betta Down Where It’s Wetta by Megan Rose Gedris
Down Where It’s Wetta is a lesbian mermaid porn made up of short arcs, all featuring the same characters. This is light on plot, but there is enough variety in setting to keep it interesting.
I love Gedris’s artwork, and this volume is no exception. The subtle watercolor-like shading in the full-color edition really adds interest to the pages, I thought. Although the focus is definitely on sex, I also really enjoyed the humor in Down Where It’s Wetta. The author makes a few appearances in the pages, including defending their use of a half-page detailed illustration of shoes as definitely pornographic. Chloe, especially, makes for a ridiculous (and entertaining) character to read. She makes the kind of choices that you wouldn’t be able to stand in a friend but lap up in a fictional landscape.
(Also, fun fact, the Lesbrary banner is by Megan Rose Gedris!)
Check out my review here!
Stage Dreams by Melanie Gillman
In Stage Dreams, Grace is in a stage coach, on the run. The coach is being driven through an area that’s being haunted by the Ghost Hawk, a supernatural giant hawk that swoops down on carriages and robs them! When Grace’s coach is targeted, she discovers that the Ghost Hawk is, in fact, Flor: a Latina woman who robs coaches, with her (regular-sized) pet hawk–not the story stagecoach drivers like to tell about the experience!
When the stagecoach fails to produce any worthwhile goods, Flor takes Grace instead, in the hopes of getting some ransom money from her family. Her plan falls apart when she finds out that Grace is trans and is running away from her family. Instead, the two end up hatching a plan together to pull of another heist–one that could set them both up for life.
Although I would have liked for this to be a little longer, I really enjoyed the art, characters, and historical context (the end notes are packed with info). Westerns are not usually my genre, but I was sucked into this story. Definitely pick it up for a quick, engaging read with a diversity of characters not often seen in this setting.
Check out my review here.
Kim Reaper: Grim Beginnings and Vampire Island by Sarah Graley
Becka is an art school student who is crushing hard on Kim, a gothic girl in her class. Little does she know, Kim is a part-time Grim Reaper, and instead of heading off to the pub after class with a cute girl, Becka ends up being pulled into some dangerous undead shenanigans.
This is so much fun to read. The plot is silly (they fight a bodybuilder and his army of cats!) and the art is super cute. I think Becka is the cutest character I’ve ever seen in my life.
Check out my review here.
The One Hundred Nights of Hero by Isabel Greenberg
The framing device here is that Cherry’s husband has made a bet with another man, Manfred, that he can’t seduce Cherry in 100 nights. In order to save Cherry from being forced into this arrangement, Hero (her lover and maid) tells Manfred stories over the course of these nights, with the promise that once he seduces Cherry, the stories will end. These stories are engaging in themselves, and resemble folk tales. They revolve around women, often sisters, and as those characters tell their own narratives, the nesting story structure grows.
Although there’s a timeless, folk lore feel to the story, there’s also some moments of great, clever humor thrown in, including the narrator cutting in for commentary, and Hero and Cherry using vocabulary I was not expecting! Mostly the humor is dry, feminist wit.
This a beautiful, epic love story that centres on two women. That fundamentally respects women and their love. This is a story that respects storytelling, that believes that stories can change the world. This is the queer feminist mythology we deserve.
Check out my review here.
Sugar Town by Hazel Newlevant
This is a queer, polyamorous, BDSM fluffy love story. Hazel is in an open relationship with her boyfriend, and she bumps into Argent, a confident and kind domme, at a party. They click instantly, and Argent helps Hazel learn more about negotiating polyamorous relationships.
Sugar Town is a sweet, soft story. Everyone in it treats each other with respect and caring. They check in. They talk about their feelings. Hazel is still figuring out jealousy and other aspects of polyamory, but that’s okay. They’re not simmering underneath, they’re freely discussed.
I also loved the art style, which reinforces that warm and welcoming feel. I want to crawl inside the pages and curl up there. This is definitely one of my rare 5 star ratings: I loved every panel, and I know I will return to it when I need something hopeful to dive into for a little while. What a treat.
Check out my review here.
Always Human by Ari North
I read this as a webcomic, but it’s newly available as a graphic novel! This is technically sci fi, set at a time where people can modify their bodies easily. Sunati loves changing her appearance all the time, though she never changes her natural skin colour. Austen is unable to change her appearance–her immune system rejects them.
But mostly this is about about the relationship between them. It’s a sweet, gentle, and thoughtful read. The art is beautiful and bright, and I plan to read anything Ari North puts out.
Girl Town by Carolyn Nowak
What a weird and wonderful book. This a collection of comic short stories, which differ in characters and style, but have a similar vibe of women’s complicated relationships with each other, and a general sense of unease and yearning. With beginning lines like “I have lived with Ashley and Jolene since we all got kicked out of astronaut school for being too good-looking to be sent to space,” Girl Town wastes no time in introducing you to a world that’s one step out of sync with our own, while still seeming eerily familiar.
Girl Town is a surreal and affecting read. I felt off-kilter while reading it, with the odd worlds and only brief glimpses into these lives, but the emotions rang true. I read this book because my coworker put it in my hands and said “I just read this and I think you’re really like it.” Not only am I glad to have had it put in my hands, I’m also flattered to be associated with a queer weirdo feelings comic like this one.
Check out my review here.
America Volume 1 and Volume 2 by Gabby Rivera
If you liked Juliet Takes a Breath, you should also pick up Gabby Rivera’s comics! Although this is a different genre, it has Rivera’s signature style, complete with pep talks.
Although I felt like I was missing something, because I haven’t read any other Marvel comics with these characters, I still enjoyed it, especially getting an openly queer women of colour superhero. She also has two moms!
Manga:
I have only dabbled in manga! But it’s definitely something I want to explore more. If you want more recommendations, check out Okazu!
I Married My Best Friend to Shut My Parents Up by Naoko Kodama
I know, I know, but ignore the title for a minute! This is genuinely good. This short, standalone manga is about a fake marriage: Morimoto is sick of being constantly set up by her parents. Her friend Hana suggests that they get married.
Unsurprisingly, Hana and Morimoto’s relationship changes as they live together. Morimoto also finds new confidence in herself: she is inspired by Hana, by her dedication to her passion (art) and her defiance in being unapologetically out. It was gratifying to see an out character, one who even uses the word “lesbian,” in the pages of a yuri manga. This has all of the appeal that yuri manga usually has for me: it’s a quick, absorbing, and adorable read. But it adds more depth and realism than I expect from this genre. It had me absolutely grinning as I read it.
Girl Friends: The Complete Collection by Milk Morinaga
This seems to the quintessential yuri series: It’s school girls, and a lot of blushing, and the typical “girls don’t do this” heteronormativity. I read this in the omnibus, and talk about a slow burn! This is almost 500 pages, and mostly just about Mariko making a new friend, falling in love with her, and then (much later) realizing that she’s fallen in love with her.
Girl Friends is super cute, but with the melodrama of agonizing over a crush on a girl. This is a fun, quick, addictive read.
Check out my review of volume 1 and volume 2.
Revolutionary Girl Utena manga by Chiho Saito
If you have never heard of Utena, I’m not sure exactly how to explain it to you. It is an anime, manga series, and movie. It’s sort of like Sailor Moon, but darker and weirder. After being rescued by a prince as a child, Utena decides to grow up to become a prince herself. She has just arrived at a fantastical boarding school (where all the girls swoon over her), and accidentally gets involved in a dueling club, where they battle over the Rose Bride.
To be honest, I think the anime is much better than the original manga, but it’s best when you read/watch both. The manga is subtextual between Utena and Anthy, but it is textual in the anime (and, especially, the movie.)
Check out my review here.
Citrus, Vols 1-3 by Saburo Uta
Yuzu is a loud, mischievous, and overall adorable girl who has just moved. She’s shocked by the strictness of her new school, which leaves little room for fashion or boy-chasing, her usual pursuits. She immediately comes into conflict with Mei, the student council president, who has no tolerance for her. Then, plot twist, Mei turns out to be Yuzu’s new stepsister.
There is definitely some questionable consent in several scenes in this. Where Yuzu is generally carefree, Mei is reserved and brooding, and we learn that she’s in a relationship with a teacher who is using her for her family connections. She has largely accepted this is her fate, but she lashes out at Yuzu because of this pain–which doesn’t excuse it, but it does explain it. They definitely don’t have the healthiest dynamic because of this, but you can really see that she’s coming from a place of pain and of self-sabotaging any relationship she might have with someone who cares about her.
Check out my review here.
Nonfiction
Fun Home by Alison Bechdel
It’s pretty unlikely that you haven’t heard of Fun Home, but it really does live up to the hype. For me, what really stood out to me was both how queer and how literary this book is: Bechdel’s parents as she was growing up were both English teachers, and books are a constant presence throughout the novel. She understands her family through comparing them to books and authors. She often has excerpts from books that take up a whole panel, and even the books in the background usually get a title and author.
Bechdel’s coming out was also wrapped in books: she realized her lesbianism by stumbling across a description of a lesbian in a book, she devoured lesbian books in her coming out process, and she parallels her coming out with the Odyssey.
Check out my review here.
My Lesbian Experience with Loneliness by Kabi Nagata
Based on the cover, I was expecting this to be a goofy read. Instead, it’s a very introspective memoir in manga form, processing her mental health issues.
It’s a sometimes uncomfortable read, because Kabi pulls no punches in detailing her struggles with depression, eating disorders, self-harm, and internalized homophobia.
War of Streets and Houses by Sophie Yanow
This is an academic reflection on urban design and how it relates to militarization, focusing on the Montreal 2012 student strike and the brutal police response.
I was a little intimidated by the ideas here, but they presented pretty accessibly. It’s a series of vignettes, not a continuous narrative. Some focus on Yanow’s witness of and participation in the Quebec student protests, while others ruminate on the nature of the city and how it can affect what social change is possible. We also see glimpses of Yanow’s queer community, and a small acknowledgment of how Yanow’s whiteness factors into her activism and feeling of safety.
This is a very short read, only a 64-page graphic novel, but it will leave you thinking. If the blurb sounds at all appealing, you should give War of Streets and Houses a try.
Check out my review here.
Some Comics On My TBR
Of course, this is far from a complete list! It’s only the books that have found their way into my hands, and that I’ve loved. So I couldn’t help but include some more books that are on my TBR. These ones just have their Goodreads descriptions.
Strawberry Panic by Sakuraki Kimino
For new transfer student Aoi Nagisa, St. Miator Girls’ Academy offers her the chance at a fresh start and a way to redefine herself. But these noble intentions go out the window when she catches her first glimpse of honor student Hanazono Shizuma, whose goddess-like beauty leave Nagisa speechless.
It’s puppy love at first sight, but naive Nagisa is unaware that Shizuma is a serial heartbreaker who has set her sights on Nagisa herself. Will Nagisa end up as another notch on Shizuma’s belt, or does fate have other plans in store for the new couple?
Hana & Hina: After School by Milk Morinaga
Hana and Hina are two high school girls working at the same shop, but they come from completely different worlds. Hana is petite, uncertain and shy, while Hina is tall, trendy and confident.
But they both can’t keep their eyes off things that are cute, be it the uniforms at Hana’s new school or Hana herself! Hana and Hina may have more than their shared part time jobs to keep a secret…
Bloom Into You by Nakatani Nio
Yuu has always adored shoujo manga and yearns for the day when someone might give her a love confession that would send her heart aflutter. Yet when a junior high school classmate confesses his feelings to her–she feels nothing. Disappointed and confused, Yuu enters high school, where she sees the confident and beautiful student council member Nanami. When the next person to confess to Yuu is Nanami herself, has her romantic dream finally come true?
Sweet Blue Flowers by Takako Shimura
A genre-defining saga of love and friendship between girls.
Akira Okudaira is starting high school and is ready for exciting new experiences. And on the first day of school, she runs into her best friend from kindergarten at the train station! Now Akira and Fumi have the chance to rekindle their friendship, but life has gotten a lot more complicated since they were kids…
Fumi is glad Akira is back in her life. Even in kindergarten, Akira knew how to stand up for herself, and she was always willing to stand up for Fumi too. But Fumi’s first love recently got married, and Fumi is grappling with a broken heart and the fact that her sweetheart was another woman… Can Akira’s open heart help dispel the gloom Fumi has been caught up in?
Kase-san and Morning Glories by Hiromi Takashima
Kase-san and Morning Glory is the debut release of Hiromi Takashima’s ongoing yuri series about the first love, high school romance between the clumsy, flower-adoring Yamada and the exuberant Kase-san, the school’s track and field star.
Yamada may be shy and rather clumsy, but the flower gardens at her school have always brought her happiness. Suddenly, a different sort of beauty catches her eye―the vivacious track star, Kase-san. Although the two girls don’t seem to have much in common, they soon start a romance where each must learn an important lesson in tending their budding relationship. Can the two girls, so different from each other, learn how to make their first love blossom?
Hotel Dare by Terry Blas and Claudia Aguirre
Olive and her adopted siblings Charlotte and Darwin are spending the summer with their estranged grandma at her creepy hotel and it’s all work and no play. They’re stuck inside doing boring chores but they soon stumble upon an incredible secret… Behind each room door of the hotel lies a portal to a different strange and mysterious place. The simple turn of a knob transports them to a distant magical world filled with space pirates. Behind the next door are bearded wizards. Down the hall is a doorway to a cotton-candied kingdom. But once the doors are opened, worlds start colliding, and only one family can save them before they tear themselves apart.
[Olive identifies as queer]
Meal by Blue Delliquanti and Soleil Ho
Yarrow is a young chef determined to make her mark on the cutting edge of cookery with her insect-based creations. Though her enthusiasm is infectious, it rubs some of her fellow cooks the wrong way, especially Chanda Flores, Yarrow’s personal hero and executive chef of an exciting new restaurant. Her people have been eating bugs for centuries, and she’s deeply suspicious of this newbie’s attempt to turn her traditions into the next foodie trend. While Chanda and her scrappy team of talented devotees struggle to open on time, Yarrow must win over Chanda — and Milani, the neighbor she’s been crushing on for weeks — or lose this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to achieve her dreams.
Power & Magic: The Queer Witch Comics Anthology
POWER & MAGIC: The Queer Witch Comics Anthology collects fifteen original comics about queer witches of color as they master their abilities, discover their traditions, and navigate love as beings with incredible power.
This digital DRM-free edition of POWER & MAGIC is 178 pages, black and white, and features the work of 17 women, demigirls, and bigender creators of color.
From the euphoria of holding the stars in your grasp, to the sacrifices we make to reach them, POWER & MAGIC explores what it means to be a person of power in all its complexity.
Immortal Souls (Power & Magic: Queer Witch Comic Anthology #2)
Power & Magic: IMMORTAL SOULS is the immediate follow-up to POWER & MAGIC: The Queer Witch Comics Anthology, the award-winning collection of fantasy stories exalting the witch as an archetype of feminine power.
In IMMORTAL SOULS, all-new queer witches of color explore astral planes, necromancy, visions of death, and communion with the spirits of our world (…and the beyond). This DRM-free digital edition is B&W, 120 pages long, and contains 10 original stories by women of color and non-binary people of color.
From the euphoria of holding the stars in your grasp to the sacrifices we make to reach them, the POWER & MAGIC ANTHOLOGY SERIES explores what it means to be a person of power in all its complexity.
Harley Quinn: Breaking Glass by Mariko Tamaki
Outspoken, rebellious, and eccentric fifteen-year-old Harleen Quinzel has five dollars to her name when she’s sent to live in Gotham City. Harleen has battled a lot of hard situations as a kid, but her fortune turns when Gotham’s finest drag queen, Mama, takes her in.
And at first it seems like Harleen has finally found a place to grow into her most “true true,” with new best friend Ivy at Gotham High. But then Harley’s fortune takes another turn when Mama’s drag cabaret becomes the next victim in the wave of gentrification that’s taking over the neighborhood.
Now Harleen is mad. In turning her anger into action, she is faced with two choices: join Ivy, who’s campaigning to make the neighborhood a better place to live, or join The Joker, who plans to take down Gotham one corporation at a time.
From Eisner Award and Caldecott Honor-winning author Mariko Tamaki (This One Summer) and Eisner Award-nominated artist Steve Pugh (The Flintstones) comes a coming-of-age story about choices, consequences, and how a weird kid from Gotham goes about defining her world for herself.
Laura Dean Keeps Breaking Up With Me by Mariko Tamaki
Author Mariko Tamaki and illustrator Rosemary Valero-O’Connell bring to life a sweet and spirited tale of young love in Laura Dean Keeps Breaking Up with Me, a graphic novel that asks us to consider what happens when we ditch the toxic relationships we crave to embrace the healthy ones we need.
Laura Dean, the most popular girl in high school, was Frederica Riley’s dream girl: charming, confident, and SO cute. There’s just one problem: Laura Dean is maybe not the greatest girlfriend.
Reeling from her latest break up, Freddy’s best friend, Doodle, introduces her to the Seek-Her, a mysterious medium, who leaves Freddy some cryptic parting words: break up with her. But Laura Dean keeps coming back, and as their relationship spirals further out of her control, Freddy has to wonder if it’s really Laura Dean that’s the problem. Maybe it’s Freddy, who is rapidly losing her friends, including Doodle, who needs her now more than ever.
Fortunately for Freddy, there are new friends, and the insight of advice columnists like Anna Vice to help her through being a teenager in love.
Everything is Beautiful, and I’m Not Afraid: a Baopu Collection by Yao Xiao
Everything Is Beautiful, and I’m Not Afraid perfectly captures the feelings of a young sojourner in America as she explores the nuances in searching for a place to belong. Baopu is a monthly serialized comic on Autostraddle, and this book includes beloved fan favorites plus new, never-before-seen comics.
This one-of-a-kind graphic novel explores the poetics of searching for connection, belonging, and identity through the fictional life of a young, queer immigrant. Inspired by the creator’s own experiences as a queer, China-born illustrator living in the United States, Everything Is Beautiful, and I’m Not Afraid has an undeniable memoir quality to its recollection and thought-provoking accounts of what it’s like to navigate the complexities of seeking belonging—mentally and geographically.
Did I miss one of your favourites? Leave me your recommendations in the comments!
