By Alex, founder of Highstreett
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Best graphic novels 2026: sixteen new comics out by October, from memoir and manga to YA
Start with Charity and Sylvia for a true love story from 1800s Vermont, Anxietyland if you want to laugh, or Cocoon for a short, hard manga about war. Sixteen graphic novels follow, each first published in 2026 or first published in English this year, grouped by the kind of book they are and in no order of merit: literary graphic novels, memoir, nonfiction, European comics in translation, manga and Korean comics, and YA. Every one was on sale in Britain when we checked. Last verified 14 October 2026.
Edition and source checks: 14 October 2026.
What Highstreett returned for “the best new graphic novels and comics first published in 2026 (or first published in English in 2026): literary graphic novels, graphic memoir, nonfiction comics, translated bandes dessinées and manga, and YA graphic novels”
- Time Under Tension, M. S. Harkness (2023)
- Palestine, Joe Sacco (1994)
- The Art of Uncertainty: How to Navigate Chance, Ignorance, Risk and Luck, David Spiegelhalter (no year given)
- The Sky Is Blue with a Single Cloud, Kuniko Tsurita (2020)
- The Deep Dark, Molly Knox Ostertag (2024)
- The Book of Genesis Illustrated, R. Crumb (2009)
See this result · Run 13 October 2026. One request, without re-prompting.
Editor’s verdict: None of the six is a 2026 graphic novel. The search said so itself for Time Under Tension, which its own note dates to 2023. The one title it offered as new, The Art of Uncertainty, it called “a 2026 graphic adaptation”; Foyles lists it as David Spiegelhalter’s prose book, a 512-page Penguin paperback dated 25 June 2026 whose hardback came out in September 2024, so it is neither new nor a comic. The other four are older comics that do cover the strands asked for: comics journalism, translated gekiga, YA and an adaptation. That is the search’s strength and its limit: it knows the backlist and not this year’s releases, and nothing checks a claim about a publication year. Its checker dropped Persepolis and The Complete Maus for ISBN reasons, not for being old. None of the six is among the sixteen below; Palestine is in the handed line. The run started at 22:55 UK time on 13 October and the result is shown unedited.
How this list was made: it starts from the Highstreett book search results above, run 13 October 2026 and shown as they came back. Alex, founder of Highstreett, chose the final list.
You probably know these already, so they are named here rather than counted: Maus, Persepolis, Fun Home, Watchmen, Jimmy Corrigan, Ghost World, Building Stories, Asterios Polyp, Blankets, Palestine, Ducks, Sabrina, This One Summer, Heartstopper, and the earlier volumes of The Arab of the Future. None of them is a 2026 book; they are where most lists of the best graphic novels start.
The rule for this page: a graphic novel or comics memoir first published in 2026, or first published in English in 2026, and on sale in Britain by 14 October. A new edition of an older book does not count, and neither does a book first published in Britain in 2025 that reached America this year: Everything Amplified by Ziggy Hanaor and Sarah Lippett is on Publishers Weekly’s spring young adult list for its American edition, but Cicada published it in London on 18 September 2025. An adaptation counts when the comic itself is new, which is why Orlando is here.
The sixteen picks are grouped by what you want next: a literary graphic novel, a memoir, nonfiction, European comics in translation, manga and Korean comics, or a YA graphic novel. Translators are named because a translation is a version. Each pick carries a readability marker.
If you want a literary graphic novel
All three are on Publishers Weekly’s spring adult comics preview. The Shadower is also on Comic Book Herald’s running best-of-2026 list, whose critic says it has the best ending of any graphic novel he has read this year.
1. Charity and Sylvia, Tillie Walden (2026)
Graphic biography · two women in Vermont from 1807 · Readability: accessible, long
In February 1807 Charity Bryant arrives in Weybridge, Vermont, leaving rumours behind in Massachusetts, and meets Sylvia Drake, an unmarried woman keeping house for her sister’s family. The two lived together as a couple for 44 years. Walden builds their story from the archive of their own writing, with the century’s railroads, presidents, riots and plagues moving past them. Differs: a true story and a piece of history told in comics, not invented fiction.
Edition source: Drawn & Quarterly hardback, 16 June 2026, 260 pages; £25.00, usually dispatched within one to two days at Foyles on 14 October 2026. ISBN 9781770468382.
2. The Shadower, Peter Hoey and Maria Hoey, with C. P. Freund (2026)
Fiction · a drama student turned spy in a divided city · Readability: moderate, deliberately cold
In an unnamed city split in two by a truce, a drama student called Nadia is recruited by one faction to spy on another, posing as a café waitress named Miriam. She follows her late father’s rule for actors, to leave no trace of yourself, and the role begins to replace her. Publishers Weekly’s review compares the flat, diagrammatic drawing to Chris Ware. Differs: a Cold War-style spy story told with deliberate coldness, more about performance and paranoia than plot.
Edition source: Top Shelf paperback, 24 March 2026, 192 pages; £17.99, usually dispatched within one to two days at Foyles on 14 October 2026. ISBN 9781603095853.
3. Orlando, Virginia Woolf; adapted by Jules Scheele (1928; this adaptation 2026)
Adaptation · Woolf’s poet who lives for centuries · Readability: accessible
Scheele adapts Woolf’s 1928 novel about a poet who lives for centuries, beginning as a young nobleman and later waking up as a woman. It is one of only three books on this page first published by a British publisher, the small press Avery Hill. Differs: an adaptation rather than an original story, so read it for the drawing, or as a way into Woolf.
Edition source: Avery Hill paperback, 18 June 2026; £16.99, usually dispatched within one to two days at Foyles on 14 October 2026. ISBN 9781917355247.
If you want a graphic memoir
Both are in Publishers Weekly’s spring top ten for adult comics; neither is on Comic Book Herald’s list. Sattouf’s memoir is in the translated section below.
4. Anxietyland, Gemma Correll (2026)
Memoir · living with anxiety · Readability: accessible, long but built from short gags
Correll turns her anxiety into a theme park, with the Train of Overthinking, the Overcaffeinated Teacups and the Parade of the Therapists, and under the jokes follows her through years of anxiety, the search for anything that helps and the point where she feels all right again. Publishers Weekly calls it her first full-length graphic memoir for adults. Differs: the funniest book here, and easy to read in short sittings despite its length.
Edition source: Penguin hardback, 28 April 2026, 448 pages; £25.00, usually dispatched within one to two days at Foyles on 14 October 2026. Gallery published the US edition the same day. ISBN 9780241572894.
5. Bury Me Already (It’s Nice Down Here): Comics on Pregnancy and Parenthood, Julia Wertz (2026)
Memoir · pregnancy and a baby in the pandemic · Readability: accessible
Picking up from Impossible People, Wertz moves back from New York to Northern California, settles with her on-and-off partner, loses a pregnancy, decides she wants a child, and gives birth during the Covid lockdowns while her son is monitored for a possible heart problem and wildfires burn nearby. Publishers Weekly’s review notes how she mixes gag strips, illustrated text and photographs of her son. Differs: a parenthood memoir that is funny and candid rather than tender; it helps to know her earlier books, but you do not need to.
Edition source: US hardback from Black Dog & Leventhal (Foyles lists the publisher as Running Press), 16 April 2026, 304 pages; £28.00, usually dispatched within six days at Foyles on 14 October 2026. ISBN 9780762468287.
If you want nonfiction comics: reportage and investigation
Both are on the longlist of Publishers Weekly’s spring adult comics preview and on none of the other lists we checked.
6. Noisy Valley: The Art of Protest, Myfanwy Tristram (2026)
Graphic nonfiction · protest in the Rhondda Valley · Readability: accessible, short
Tristram went to the Rhondda Valley in South Wales and asked local people to tell her about the times they had refused to take things lying down. The book draws their memories and makes the case that protest matters, at a time when, as its publisher puts it, the right to dissent has been eroded in law. Differs: the only book here about Britain, and one of the shortest.
Edition source: SelfMadeHero paperback, 14 May 2026, 144 pages; £14.99, usually dispatched within one to two days at Foyles on 14 October 2026. ISBN 9781914224430.
7. Opioids and Organs, Arizona O’Neill (2026)
Memoir and investigation · organ donation and the opioid crisis · Readability: moderate, long and painful
O’Neill sits at the bedside of her father, a man she hardly knew, brain dead after a fentanyl overdose, while doctors press her to decide quickly about organ donation. The decision stays with her, and the book follows her into how the organ industry depends on the opioid crisis, with her parents’ youth in 1990s Montreal and the city’s medical history alongside. Differs: a debut that is half grief memoir and half investigation, and critical of an industry her publisher says exploits marginalised people.
Edition source: Drawn & Quarterly hardback, 19 May 2026, 374 pages at Foyles (380 on the publisher’s page); £25.00, usually dispatched within three to five days at Foyles on 14 October 2026. ISBN 9781770468450.
If you want European comics in translation
All three are on Publishers Weekly’s spring adult comics preview, Sattouf in its top ten. Each is named with its translator.
8. The End of the Arab of the Future: A Youth in the Middle East, Vol. 1, Riad Sattouf; translated from the French by Sam Taylor (2026 in English)
Memoir in translation · a teenager in Brittany whose brother has been taken to Syria · Readability: accessible
Riad is fourteen and living in Brittany with his mother and brother. His authoritarian father, fixated on dictators and a utopian Arab future, has already taken Riad’s younger brother Fadi to Syria, and Riad gets through puberty and loneliness on books, heavy metal and drawing. This is the first of two volumes that conclude Sattouf’s Arab of the Future, now published in English by Fantagraphics. Differs: the best-known name on the page; you can start here, but the earlier volumes give the father’s story its weight.
Edition source: Fantagraphics paperback, 19 May 2026, 184 pages; £19.99, usually dispatched within one to two days at Foyles on 14 October 2026. We found no separate UK edition. ISBN 9798875002373.
9. Soviet Land: A Tragicomic Thriller, Pierre-Henry Gomont; translated from the French by Edward Gauvin (2026 in English)
Fiction in translation · scavengers in 1990s Russia · Readability: accessible, fast
In 1990s Russia, after the Soviet Union has gone, Slava, a painter who has given up art, scavenges the ruins for things rich investors might buy, with his old schoolmate Lavrin, a con man who believes anything can now be bought and sold. Abrams sells it as dark comedy and suspense about loyalty and survival in a country in transition. Differs: the most plot-driven book here, a caper rather than a memoir or a meditation.
Edition source: Abrams ComicArts hardback, 320 pages; Abrams gives 28 April 2026 and Foyles 28 May 2026; £26.00, usually dispatched within one to two days at Foyles on 14 October 2026. ISBN 9781419788857.
10. Mary Pain, Lola Lorente; translated from the Spanish by Andrea Rosenberg (2026 in English)
Fiction in translation · going home to a small town · Readability: accessible, adult themes
Unemployed and out of options, Mary Pain takes a one-way bus back to the town she grew up in, where she has to save the family house from foreclosure, look after her ailing grandfather and make peace with her dead mother, whose calls still come in on the old kitchen landline. It is Lorente’s first book in English, and Drawn & Quarterly lists a Harvey Award nomination for Best International Book. Differs: melancholy but hopeful, in black ink, with sex and mature themes.
Edition source: Drawn & Quarterly hardback, 12 May 2026, 224 pages at Foyles (216 on the publisher’s page); £20.00, usually dispatched within one to two days at Foyles on 14 October 2026. ISBN 9781770468535.
If you want manga and Korean comics
Cocoon and Fish and Water are in Publishers Weekly’s spring manga top ten; Narrow Rooms is on its longlist.
11. Cocoon, Machiko Kyo; translated from the Japanese by Jan Mitsuko Cash (2026 in English)
Manga in translation · schoolgirl nurses in the Second World War · Readability: accessible, harrowing
San and her best friend Mayu are pupils at a girls’ boarding school on Japan’s southern island when they are sent to work as assistant nurses in the caves of a field hospital. Kyo drew on the true story of the Himeyuri student nurses of Okinawa. Differs: soft, pretty drawing over war and death; Aftermath’s review warns of gore and sexual assault. It is also the cheapest book here.
Edition source: Viz Media paperback, 226 pages; 16 June 2026 in the US and 16 July 2026 at Foyles; £10.99, usually dispatched within one to two days at Foyles on 14 October 2026. ISBN 9781974716845.
12. Fish and Water, Gengoroh Tagame; translated from the Japanese by Anne M. Ishii (2026 in English)
Manga in translation · two friends in the pandemic · Readability: accessible, short
Akira, who works in sales, and Koji, a freelance writer who loves to cook, become close after meeting at a friend’s wedding, and through the pandemic their friendship becomes a question of whether they are something more. Tagame also wrote My Brother’s Husband. Differs: a quiet everyday comedy, the gentlest of the manga here.
Edition source: Pantheon hardback (Foyles lists Random House USA), 23 June 2026, 192 pages; £25.00, usually dispatched within three to five days at Foyles on 14 October 2026. ISBN 9780593702222.
13. Narrow Rooms, Choi Sungmin; translated from the Korean by Janet Hong (2026 in English)
Korean comic in translation · obsession in a Seoul boarding room · Readability: accessible, long and unsettling
A young woman leaves her rural hometown to study in Seoul, attracts unwanted attention from her teacher, and in a cramped, badly soundproofed room becomes fixated on her new neighbour, collecting what he throws away, until she finds out something troubling about him and has to face her own behaviour. It began as a webtoon. Differs: Korean rather than Japanese, a slow psychological thriller in milky colours rather than an adventure.
Edition source: Drawn & Quarterly paperback, 19 May 2026; Foyles gives 400 pages, the publisher 516; £25.00, usually dispatched within one to two days at Foyles on 14 October 2026. ISBN 9781770468528.
If you want a YA graphic novel
All three are on Publishers Weekly’s spring young adult comics preview, Before We Wake in its top ten. Armaveni is also on Comic Book Herald’s best-of-2026 list.
14. Wake Now in the Fire: A Story of Censorship, Action, Love, and Hope, Jarrett Dapier; illustrated by AJ Dungo (2026)
YA fiction from real events · students fight a book ban · Readability: accessible, long; Publishers Weekly says 14 and up
A fictionalised account of Chicago Public Schools’ removal of Persepolis from school libraries in 2013. Two seniors learn of the ban when a teacher’s classroom copies are taken away, and organise a protest with their school’s banned-books club and student journalists; as it draws national attention, they weigh what their activism will cost. Differs: a book about a graphic novel, and about censorship, rather than a memoir or a romance.
Edition source: Ten Speed Graphic paperback, 3 February 2026, 464 pages; £20.00, usually dispatched within three to five days at Foyles on 14 October 2026 (hardback £32.00). ISBN 9780593838037.
15. Armaveni, Nadine Takvorian (2026)
Memoir and family history · the Armenian genocide · Readability: accessible, hard subject; Foyles gives an interest age from 12
Nadine wants to know how her family came from Armenia and Turkey to America, and her mother, who loves telling stories, will not tell that one, until she does. Through those stories and a trip to their homelands, Nadine learns what the genocide did to her family. Comic Book Herald’s critic calls one of its depictions of the genocide among the most searing he has read. Differs: a debut that mixes history, the present day and fantasy, for teenagers and adults alike.
Edition source: Levine Querido paperback, 344 pages; 10 March 2026 in the US per Publishers Weekly, 19 March 2026 at Foyles; £13.99, usually dispatched within three to five days at Foyles on 14 October 2026. ISBN 9781646146536.
16. Before We Wake, Sophia Glock (2026)
YA fiction · a romance in lucid dreams · Readability: accessible
Haunted by a recurring dream, Alicia learns to dream lucidly and welcomes her best friend’s boyfriend into her dreamworld, until he tells her, awake, that he remembers everything that happened while they slept. Her waking life is drawn muted and her dreams in full colour. Differs: the lightest book in this section, a paranormal romance rather than history or protest.
Edition source: Little, Brown paperback, 26 February 2026, 288 pages; £14.99, usually dispatched within six days at Foyles on 14 October 2026. ISBN 9780316459037.
The editions behind these choices
The ISBN beside each book is the edition Foyles sells in Britain, and each source link is that Foyles page, read on 14 October 2026. Prices and dispatch times are what those pages showed that day; they change. None of the sixteen was shown as unavailable. Where Foyles and the publisher disagree on a date or a page count (Opioids and Organs, Soviet Land, Mary Pain, Cocoon, Narrow Rooms and Armaveni), the entry gives both. The translators of Soviet Land, Cocoon and Fish and Water are as credited in Publishers Weekly’s spring previews, because the publisher pages we read did not name them. Thirteen of the sixteen are American or Canadian editions; Anxietyland, Noisy Valley and Orlando are the British ones.
The honest bit
This is a checked list, not a ranking, and it leans on publishers. Every pick appears in one of Publishers Weekly’s spring 2026 previews, which list what publishers put forward; only two, The Shadower and Armaveni, are also on a critic’s running best-of-2026 list. Year-end lists are not out yet, so read this as a guide to what is out, not a verdict on the year.
Most of these are American or Canadian editions imported into Britain. Only Anxietyland (Penguin), Noisy Valley (SelfMadeHero) and Orlando (Avery Hill) have British publishers, and the prices given are Foyles’ prices for the rest.
Left out although they qualify: The Lights of Niterói by Marcello Quintanilha, translated from the Portuguese by Bruna Dantas Lobato (Fantagraphics, March), which Foyles showed as taking two weeks to dispatch; Gigs by Mark Mosedale and Si Smith (Top Shelf, June), on Comic Book Herald’s list; The Children of Light by Jean Pleyers (New York Review Comics, August), a 1980s Belgian science-fiction comic in English for the first time; and The Credits Roll into the Sea by John Tarachine (Dark Horse), a manga about a widowed grandmother at film school, already two volumes in. Genre series and superhero collections are left out because this page leans literary; The Voice Said Kill by Si Spurrier and Vanesa Del Rey, a horror story set in a swamp, is the one we would add first.
Not out on 14 October, so not here: Joe Sacco’s Requiem for Gaza (Vintage; Foyles gives 15 October), Bitter Pill by Xavier and Héloïse Chochois, about the journalist Randy Shilts and the start of the AIDS epidemic (Abrams; Publishers Weekly listed it for 30 June, Foyles now shows 12 November), and Rupay, a comics history of political violence in Peru in the 1980s (Seven Stories; Foyles shows 1 December). We will look at them when we next check this list. The search result above is unedited.
Questions
What are the best graphic novels of 2026 so far?
It depends what you want. For a literary graphic novel, Tillie Walden’s Charity and Sylvia; for memoir, Gemma Correll’s Anxietyland or Julia Wertz’s Bury Me Already; in translation, Riad Sattouf’s The End of the Arab of the Future; for manga, Machiko Kyo’s Cocoon; for teenagers, Wake Now in the Fire by Jarrett Dapier and AJ Dungo. All sixteen on this page were on sale in Britain by 14 October 2026.
Is there a new Arab of the Future book in English?
Yes. The End of the Arab of the Future: A Youth in the Middle East, Vol. 1, translated by Sam Taylor, was published by Fantagraphics on 19 May 2026. It is the first of two volumes that conclude Riad Sattouf’s memoir series.
Is Joe Sacco’s Requiem for Gaza out yet?
Not on 14 October 2026. Foyles lists the Vintage hardback for 15 October 2026, so it is not on this list yet; we will look at it when we next check the page.
Book search is better at the graphic novels that already have a reputation than at this year’s. Describe what you want, such as a graphic memoir about grief or a first manga for someone who has never read one, and it will look across the backlist.
Describe the graphic novel you want next
Best translated fiction books 2026: for this year’s novels in translation, if Mary Pain or Soviet Land sends you looking for prose.
Best literary fiction books 2026: for the year’s new literary novels written in English.
How the comparison was bounded
On 13 and 14 October 2026 we read five lists: Comic Book Herald’s The Best Comics of 2026! (So Far!) (one critic’s ranked list, last updated 24 September 2026), Publishers Weekly’s spring 2026 previews of adult comics, manga and young adult comics (January 2026), and Book Riot’s most anticipated graphic novels of the year (7 January 2026; the copy we could read named five titles). Every pick is in at least one Publishers Weekly preview, which lists what publishers put forward rather than what critics chose. Two, The Shadower and Armaveni, are also on Comic Book Herald’s list, and none is on Book Riot’s. We found no British critic’s list of the year’s graphic novels so far, so none is counted.
- Comic Book Herald: The Best Comics of 2026! (So Far!)
- Publishers Weekly: Spring 2026 preview, adult comics
- Publishers Weekly: Spring 2026 preview, manga
- Publishers Weekly: Spring 2026 preview, young adult comics
- Book Riot: The most anticipated graphic novels of the year
- Fantagraphics: The End of the Arab of the Future, Vol. 1
- Aftermath: review of Cocoon