And we’re back with BF’s Staff Picks feature for April 2026! This regular blog piece is where members of the team give a monthly overview of recommended new releases, designed to spotlight just a few key releases that appeal to us. This is not, then, intended as a comprehensive, exhaustive or extensive round-up but rather to point you in the direction of some top projects that caught the eyes of BF contributors. Please also remember these aren’t intended as reviews and full coverage of the comics/books below may follow in due course!
Comic of the Month
Oracles (Avery Hill Publishing)
Olivia Sullivan was one of our early intakes of Broken Frontier ‘Six to Watch’ creators back in 2017 and her often abstract comics work since then, bordering on graphic poetry, has established her as one of the most boundary-pushing artists in UK comics.
Oracles is her first major long-form work and she joins an ever growing number of Six to Watch-ers to have been picked up by publishers Avery Hill. This project is an exploration of grief, loss and healing from an artist with a distinct and genuinely unique approach to the form. A must for both anyone yet to discover Sullivan’s work and for those of us who have been there since the beginning.
– Andy Oliver
Bury Me Already (It’s Nice Down Here) (Black Dog & Leventhal)
Bury Me Already (It’s Nice Down Here) reads like a sequel to Julia Wertz’ last book Impossible People. She has left New York for a small town in Northern California, Oliver reappears, and they have a baby together. In fact, the book starts with a meta conversation with said ex-boyfriend turned spouse about whether she is going to write (and draw) another book about him. But newfound domesticity and motherhood are not the only subjects of her new memoir. In her quintessential mix of perceptive humor and enduring ability to observe life well, the story spans abortion, a miscarriage, the early years of the pandemic, her brother’s struggle with a year-long manic episode, a terrible accident, her own struggles with a difficult pregnancy, art amid everything else, existential crises, and more.
It is life in all its pesky complexity told in a series of chronological and interconnected short comics that tackle both the quotidian and the aberrant. Her usual style (including exceptionally detailed interiors with plants and household ephemera) is punctuated by panels featuring rudimentary stick figures and hand-lettering, a handful of photographs, a new sketchier, more mature style both delightfully reminiscent of Keiler Roberts and also completely her own, and pages that are essentially illustrated essays. There are a lot of words, but it is worth your time.
– Kay Sohini
Statics #3 (Floating World Comics)
Single artist anthologies in a regular comic book format were popular in the ’90s (Hate, Eightball, Peepshow), not so much anymore. After two issues released by Fantagraphics, musician and cartoonist Jeffrey (Fuff) Lewis returns with a third issue of his current take on this classic format. Lewis describes the series as mixing fiction, non-fiction, autobiography and superheroes.
– Gary Usher
Groo: The Prophecy #1 (Dark Horse Comics)
Comics’ most incompetent barbarian is back in another Dark Horse miniseries/story arc from Sergio Aragonés and Mark Evanier. A new Groo the Wanderer project is always of note and this one looks to be another treat.
This time the priestess Sybilia has had a most unlikely vision. Her town is in mortal peril and its only unlikely saviour is Groo! Let the slapstick mayhem commence in the pages of Groo: The Prophecy #1…
– Andy Oliver
Reincarnation Stories (Fantagraphics Books)
There’s something immediately compelling about Reincarnation Stories. Author and illustrator Kim Deitch uses a childhood run-in with a stranger, who insists our protagonist has lived a previous life and been brought back, as the jumping-off point for a much larger exciting exploration of past lives. What follows seems to be a kaleidoscopic drift through time, memory, and invention, packed with unexpected detours and a quirky cast of characters.
Deitch’s artwork, with its almost hypnotic quality, feels perfectly suited to a story that resists neat structure, instead embracing something much more fluid, revelling in its own strangeness. Coined as Deitch’s ‘odyssey’, for readers willing to dive right into the world of psychedelia, this looks like a memorable and rewarding ride.
– Lydia Turner
Comic Therapy: Meditations for Reflection (SelfMadeHero)
Kay Medaglia already has a proven track record in thoughtful comics work dealing with wellbeing with their One Year Wiser series. This month they add to that back catalogue with a new addition in the form of Comic Therapy: Meditations for Reflection from SelfMadeHero.
Medaglia looks to address the challenges we all face in life in a book of short strips focussing on mindfulness, meditation and self-care. All threaded through with their own distinct sense of consideration and humour. The kind of title we all need given the world around us in 2026.
– Andy Oliver
Nerd Inferno: The Essential Evan Dorkin (Dark Horse Books)
This one’s a bumper collection of essential work from Dark Horse that you just can’t afford to miss this month. We first teased Nerd Inferno: The Essential Evan Dorkin last Autumn at BF saying it was one to watch out for in 2026 for certain and we stand by that.
Work herein includes that carton of hate and wedge of spite Milk and Cheese, the complete The Eltingville Club, and plenty more Dorkin brilliance from the pages of Dork. 656 pages of satirical comics genius!
– Andy Oliver
Young Shadows & the Watchdogs (Fantagraphics Books)
There are few cartoonists out there with such a vivid and appealing imagination as Ben Sears so it’s wonderful to see him back with a new middle grade graphic novel that combines super-heroics, the supernatural and science fiction.
Young Shadows & the Watchdogs has a lovely premise too as the titular characters find themselves in a grudge baseball match with an undead team from beyond the grave to save their home of Bolt City. This one sounds fun for audiences of all ages.
– Andy Oliver
EC Archives: Panic Vol. 1 (Dark Horse Books)
Considered controversial at the time both for its content and the friction it caused as a “companion” comic to Harvey Kurtzman’s Mad, Al Feldstein’s humour title Panic ran for 12 issues n the 1950s as part of the EC line. With a line-up that included Feldstein, Jack Davis, Joe Orlando, Jack Kamen, Wally Wood, Bill Elder and Basil Wolverton, though, it was always going to be of historical note.
This month Dark Horse bring the first volume of six issues back to print as part of their paperback versions of the EC Archives line. Yes, some of the humour will be dated, and some of the references may be lost on you, but there’s also some real timeless gems herein, including that classic festive cover to Panic #1 and its Christmas contents. “This is no magazine… this is a Panic…” indeed.
– Andy Oliver
