The best comics of 2023 so far

The comics medium is a beautiful and interconnected ecosystem, and we do our best to show that in Polygon’s best comics of the year. From self-published works and foreign imports to Marvel and DC’s blockbuster series, if one thing is clear in 2023, comics culture inspires all culture. Who cares that these will be the films, television shows and video games in five years?

Here in 2023, they’re incredible books.

In order to be eligible, comics must have been published as graphic novels for the very first time by 2023. They can also include series which were first collected or published with their last collection in 2023. Everything on this list is available in paperback or collected form for your eager hands — no worries for trade-waiters.

Darlin’ and Her Other Names (Part 1: Marta)

Image: Olivia Stephens

Olivia Stephens

The first installment of Olivia Stephens’ self-published werewolf-Western-horror-romance comic is one of the most striking things I’ve read all year. Stephens creates a story in stark black-and white that is both haunting and hopeful. It tells of two strangers, who come together in the aftermath of violence in order to get the revenge they so badly desire.

You will want to read more despite the fact that this comic is only 88 pages. It’s soulful, moving, beautifully rendered, and uniquely atmospheric. Stephens already showed her talents with the beautiful graphic novel Artie and The Wolf MoonWhile that book was charming for young readers Darlin’This book is for mature readers. It has a lot of emotional weight, a deep theme, and violent violence. You will be left thinking about it long after the reading. —Rosie Knight

Shubeik Lubeik

Deena Mohammed/Penguin Random House

Deena Mohammed

Whenever Egypt comes up in Western art, it’s usually flattened and caricatured under the Western gaze. What happens if you flip the perspective? Deena Mohamed’s brilliant saga — a work by an Egyptian creator originally serialized for an Egyptian audience in Arabic — does just that. It is translated by Mohamed, who also translates the pages, so that they read left-to-right, as in any manga.

Set in a modern day Cairo, the book pulls the reader into an alternate history wherein humanity can wish their dreams into reality — for a price. Following multiple characters from varied class backgrounds, Mohamed explores how a world shaped by Western colonialism and capitalist impulses even systematizes impossible powers like wishes and dreams — and what that does to the Egyptian people living in such a society. This bold work of science fiction/fantasy is unlike any other comic this year or ever. It uses slick background-matter and infographics, as well as charts and changes between black and white and color.

There’s talking donkeys, deadly dragons, clever world-building, and best of all: heartrending characters that stick with you. —Ritesh Babu

Do a Powerbomb!

Image: Daniel Warren Johnson/Image Comics

By Daniel Warren Johnson

Story of Do a PowerbombDaniel Warren Johnson fell in love with professional wrestling during the COVID-19 Pandemic. This is his letter of devotion to this form.

Story within Do a PowerbombIt is said that the necromancer will offer a place in his superhuman wrestling tournament to a young wrestler who is from this world. In ours, wrestling is performed. If she wins, he’ll bring her late mother back to life, but to do that, she’ll have to tag team with the masked wrestler who accidentally killed her during a fateful match. Twist! Twist! Twist! The must fight God! They have to fight God!

It is a joy to be alive! Do a Powerbomb is that there’s no inch of it that’s ashamed or sheepish: It’s all sincerity, all camp, all heart, and all spectacle. Johnson’s ability to capture the action with an eye like a Renaissance artist is what makes it so great. He is able to blow out a fraction of a second on the page, so the beauty and tension are preserved forever. —Susana Polo

Blood of the Virgin

Sammy Harkam/Penguin Random House

Sammy Harkham

Seymour, if we’re being honest, is a bit of a schlub. The protagonist of cartoonist Sammy Harkham’s Blood of the VirginLives in 1970s Los Angeles where he edits the most horrible grindhouse films alone. He dreams of being a screenwriter, but then it’s seedy: His magnum opus is called “Blood of the Virgin,” and its artistically bereft production unfolds over the course of Harkham’s comic. Seymour doesn’t have nearly as much to offer as he wishes he did, and he’s running out of ways to disguise it from his parasitic boss, his wife Ida, and even himself.

This is a risky business. Blood of the Virgin sound like the kind of navel-gazing comic about narcissistic men reliably found on highbrow reading lists, but that doesn’t come close to what Harkham is doing here. Seymour, an Iraqi Jewish Immigrant, is also the son of Holocaust survivors, and tries to fit into a culture he cannot relate to.

So like Boogie Nights (a film with which this comic shares a general similarity), Harkham’s work uses a small lens to illuminate sprawling themes: the history of Iraqi Jews; survivor’s guilt; Hollywood exploitation; the burning desire that all of us have to belong somewhere. Blood of the VirginIt could be a work of art. —Zach Rabiroff

Wonder Woman History: The Amazons

Image: Phil Jimenez/DC Comics

Kelly Sue DeConnick, Phil Jimenez, Gene Ha, Nicola Scott et. al.

Wonder Woman Historia was among the very first titles DC announced when it revealed the scope and theme of its new Black Label imprint — a place for the biggest names DC could attract to make canon-optional stories at a high production value. Five years later the first collectible edition of Wonder Woman History: The AmazonsThis is one of the most beautiful illustrations to emerge from either of the Big Two in the last few years.

Phil Jimenez filled the first 62 pages of his issue with incredibly detailed renditions of character designs that were heavily researched. This included 30 characters from the Greek pantheon as well. Gene Ha came back with a full issue of hidden godesses. Nicola Scott rounded off the trilogy, bringing some of today’s best character and layout work.

And I haven’t even talked about Kelly Sue DeConnick’s expert prose, or her heart-wrenching story of Queen Hippolyta of the Amazons, as the Amazons tell it themselves. The primal sound of a primal scream, in beautifully worked gold. —SP