The month is February in the year 1807. The place is Weybridge, Vermont: small, cold, lonely, and beautiful. Sylvia Drake is exhausted. As an unwed woman with few prospects, she is residing with and caring for her sister’s rambunctious family. Today the house is abuzz awaiting a guest—Charity Bryant. A friend of the family, she is most known for her elegant letters, with their swoopy and evocative penmanship and carefully chosen prose. But Charity’s visit is a guise, she is coming to Vermont to start over after heartbreak and rumours—so many rumours—that have grown too loud back in Massachusetts.

Being openly gay in 19th century New England is not an easy row to hoe. But Charity can only be herself, and she immediately catches—and holds—the eye of none other than Sylvia Drake. From this point on, for 44 years, the two would be inseparable, building a life together despite all odds and living as a lesbian couple in small town Vermont.

The true, exceptional story of these remarkable women is brought to life with humor and passion by the unparalleled and award-winning Tillie Walden (Spinning, On A Sunbeam). We see America grow alongside these women over a period that brings about the railroad, many novels, 14 Presidents, riots, rebellion, plagues, and poetry. Based on extensive archives of their writing, Charity and Sylvia is a groundbreaking biography that is also the story of 19th century America.

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Marshall Walter “Major” Taylor was one of the greatest American athletes of the early 20th century, setting records in regional bike races as a teen and winning his first world championship by the age of twenty. But Taylor was born in 1878 in Indianapolis and came of age during the height of the Jim Crow era, facing racism at every turn.

Cartoonist Frederick Noland is a cyclist himself and in this epic 400 page graphic biography of America’s first Black world champion, he thrills in the records Taylor broke and the adoring public he found across North America, Europe, and Australia, all the while showing how the invention of the bicycle changed society. Yet Noland also documents how racism inflected Black life in the post Civil War era: cyclists would collude to injure Taylor, and he faced segregationist policies even in liberal cities such as San Francisco. And while Taylor found respite racing overseas, he soon found American-style racism exported internationally to sell tickets.

Noland pens a gorgeous, humane, graphic paean to Major Taylor, illustrating how the fastest man in America also had a deep well of integrity and fortitude not just to succeed, but to overcome the racist abuse he faced from fellow athletes and society at large. Major Taylor is a loving tribute to an exceptional American.

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October 4, 1957: The launch of Sputnik—a piece of orbital space junk that goes “beep beep”—kicks off a battle for celestial supremacy between the USSR and the USA, rival superpowers armed with massive rockets, galaxy-sized egos, and zero chill. Over the course of a decade, scientists, politicians, and regular folks on both sides of the Iron Curtain grapple with the big questions: How do you convince a dog to volunteer for a one-way trip into orbit? Wouldn’t it be easier to just fake the whole “moon landing” thing in a movie studio? And how are we supposed to sell commemorative T-shirts and coffee mugs if we don’t get a sweet logo designed ASAP?

Writer Alexandre Fontaine Rousseau (Vampire Cousins) and artist Francis Desharnais (Art Wars) blast off on a ridiculous, irreverent, and utterly un-factual journey through the twists and turns of the Space Race. Across a series of hilarious episodes, the duo takes aim at the excesses of capitalism, the dark side of communism, and the questionable wisdom of launching billions of dollars into the void. The Conquest of the Cosmos is a withering satire of politics, ideology, and human ambition that couldn’t be more relevant to our current moment.

Fans of Tom Gauld, Kate Beaton, and Monty Python will delight in the deadpan humour and minimalist illustrations in this biting comedy!

Winner of the BDGest’Arts Award for Best Comic!

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On an island located an hour from Seoul, North Korea sits visible from cartoonist Keum Suk Gendry-Kim’s home and studio. The specter of the infamous dictatorship and nuclear power looms over daily life. Artillery fire, helicopters, and sirens from a nearby military base paint the acoustic landscape. In her award-winning books Grass and The Waiting, Gendry-Kim documents the pain and heartbreak of Korea’s history. In My Friend Kim Jong-Un, she looks to the present—to the man currently responsible for upholding the national divide created after World War Two.

While the rest of the world partakes in the popularity of Korean culture, a certain unease and anxiety hangs in the air in South Korea as its people still grapple with the distrust and anger of one culture split into two distinct societies. Gendry-Kim explores the life of the supreme leader, searching for commonalities to make sense of the daily fear: from his birth to his international education, his hobbies, and his relationships. She weaves her personal accounts and includes interviews with former South Korean president Moon Jae-in, North Korean defectors, researchers, journalists, and even Kim’s former chef.

Translated by the award-winning Janet Hong, My Friend… is a cautionary tale on what makes a dictator, at a time when these lessons are more relevant in the West than ever.

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It’s dogs. And they are on dates.

Bernie—a confident, chill, and world-wise gay, trans, short Seth Rogen type—is fresh from telling his college advisor that he’s dropping out of art school. Absentmindedly, he walks into a plate glass window, bashing his face. Before he can even formulate gratitude for the window not breaking …

Brad—a sweet-natured, kindhearted romantic, who is not cool, but nice, which is actually better—arrives at the school for a gig to teach students about the merits of caring for the environment. Dressed as an earth mascot, “Earthy,” he walks into the glass from the other side. But this time, it smashes. In totality.

With Bernie and Brad off to the hospital together, is this the gay dog meet-cute we’ve all been searching for? Of course, dating is never so simple. Hilariousness and awkwardness ensue as our two love dogs face misadventures, mishaps, and missteps…but also flowers, pasta, sandwiches, and maybe even love.

In Luke Healy’s wonderfully precise yet loose line and careful wit, Dogs on Dates will quickly become your favorite comics rom-com.

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Cartoonist Cedar Van Tassel has created the great new comic strip of the modern era: a perfect jewel in an underappreciated genre in the comics field—the serial buddy comedy. Using rural agriculture as a stepping-off point, he tackles climate change, small-town politics, psychedelics, mysticism, and friendship.

Appleguy & Beefwood’s rapid-fire dialogue and tightly wound humour is reminiscent of classic buddy comics as wide-ranging as Calvin and Hobbes or Mutt and Jeff. Van Tassel’s wiry, delightfully jagged characters walk and talk as the world grows both physically and spiritually around them.

This approachably hilarious take on the existential and esoteric distills the absurdities of the modern everyday into four panels with forthright wit and a discerning eye.

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Everyone’s favourite Streakers characters—Xavier, Doug, and Tim—return in Nick Maandag’s first full-length graphic novel, Betas. The three friends work in a restaurant together and are desperately trying to find Ms. Right. Tim’s too shy to make any headway, Doug’s constantly putting his foot in his mouth, and Xavier is too pig-headed to even listen to what people are saying. Bad-faith arguments and poorly planned schemes tumble after each other in this pitch black comedy of manners from one of the most gifted satirists in comics.

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Chris Oliveros sets out to dispel common misconceptions about the birth and early years of a now-defunct movement whose legacy still holds a tight grip on Canadian politics and the hearts and minds of Quebec. The Front de libération du Québec (or in English, the Quebec Liberation Front), began as a socialist movement with a goal of championing workers’ rights among the province’s French-speaking majority. Their goal? Ridding the province of English business owner oppression by any means necessary–including violent revolution.

Using dozens of obscure and long-forgotten sources, Oliveros skillfully weaves a comics oral history where the activists, employers, politicians, and secretaries piece together the sequence of events. At times humorous, other times dramatic, and always informative, Are You Willing To Die For The Cause? shines a light on how just little it takes to organize dissent and who people trust to overthrow the government.

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In the aftermath of a devastating loss, Júlia finds herself living with her unemployed brother Joel in their grandmother’s beach house, uncertain of what comes next. Júlia tries to convince her family and friends that she’s doing just fine, but when her nascent garden plot is destroyed one night, Júlia becomes obsessed with finding the culprit… A mongoose whose existence no one else seems to believe in.

A powerful tale of grief from one of Europe’s most exciting young talents, The Mongoose is a stunning, formally-inventive graphic novel in the vein of Nick Drnaso’s Sabrina and Richard McGuire’s Here.

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