We’re back with BF’s Staff Picks feature for June 2026, including some cool Pride Month-related titles! 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 titles 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
Orlando (Avery Hill Publishing)
Jules Scheele has been a long-term subject of coverage here at Broken Frontier over the years, initially for self and micropublished small press work and, more recently, for collaborations with Meg-John Barker on titles like Gender: A Graphic Guide and Sexuality: A Graphic Guide.
His latest project is an adaptation of Virginia Woolf’s classic novel Orlando: A Biography, the queer, ages-spanning, satirical story of a wandering poet that begins in Elizabethan times and ends in a contemporary modern era. Check out the gorgeous preview pages here on the Avery Hill site because this is, frankly, career-defining work. Not simply a ‘Comic of the Month’ but potentially a ‘Comic of the Year’ as well.
– Andy Oliver
Buuza!! Vol. 1: Good Morning, Salwa (Abrams Fanfare)
Shazleen Khan’s multiple Broken Frontier Award-winning series – originally a webcomic and then self-published in print – has been picked up by Abrams and this month will hopefully reach an even more expanded audience. And it deserves to!
This series about “found family, diaspora and religion” has been a joy to follow over the year (see our review of its first self-published print volume here) and it’s wonderful to know it’s about to find a whole new generation of fans. Set in the real world parallel fantasy environment of Dawlat Al-Harir, it’s beautifully illustrated by Khan and brings us fully into the lives of a group of characters we feel instantly invested in. It’s currently being promoted as a queer YA romance story but it’s also a very layered piece of storytelling that defies easy genre definitions. Shazleen Khan already has a considerable readership but they are due an even broader one. Jump on this when it comes out this month, folks. It’s magical in multiple ways.
– Andy Oliver
One Path Book 2: The White King (Mad Cave Studios)
One Path Book 2: The White King by Greg Broadmore and Andy Lanning looks set to put its characters through the wringer. In this second volume, One Path’s journey across the prehistoric landscape sounds increasingly desperate, and is complicated by warring tribes, ancient legends, and predators that would rather see her dead than alive. The scale of the world-building continues to be great; rather than treating its dinosaur-filled setting as a backdrop, the series seems determined to make it feel lived in, with its own histories, beliefs, and power struggles.
The artwork looks equally ambitious, promising sweeping wildernesses alongside moments of brutal action and tension. For readers who enjoy high-stakes adventures with a healthy dose of spectacle, this looks like one to watch.
– Lydia Turner
Upstate Five (Self-published)
School of Visual Arts (NYC) graduate Stephen Pellnat has been self-publishing Upstate on a more or less annual basis since 2021. The series follows the disparate members of a family in modern day small town upstate New York. This newest issue is a change of pace which focuses on a member of the family who was a veteran of WWI on the German side. He emigrates to the titular upstate New York, where Pellnat examines his intergenerational affect on his future family.
– Gary Usher
Charity & Sylvia (Drawn & Quarterly)
New Tillie Walden work is enough to celebrate in and of itself but this latest graphic novel from one of the finest cartoonists of the last decade also feels particularly resonant in Pride Month.
Bringing a true story to the comics page, and based on the writing of the titular characters, this is an account of a lesbian couple who lived an openly queer life in 19th century New England. Set across a historical backdrop, its densely detailed pages and idiosyncratic approach to its subject ensure it’s going to be yet another must-read Walden offering.
– Andy Oliver
Brownfield Action Family #2 (Revival House Press)
Ted May is part of a group of Midwestern U.S. mini-comics artists from the late 90s who is still putting out new work. Back in the 00s to Teens May created Injury Comics and Men’s Feelings (the latter also from micro press, Revival House). This newest series follows Johnny, a down on his luck ex-martial artist, and his reluctant adventures where he seems to get drawn into his old violent ways. Drawn in a wonderful cartoony manner perfect for the hyper dramatic goings on. Looks like fun.
– Gary Usher
Dogs on Dates (Drawn & Quarterly)
Luke Healy’s work is always good value and this latest graphic novel, via Drawn & Quarterly, looks set to play to his more comedic strengths. Its premise centres on two anthropomorphized dogs. Bernie and Brad, whose “gay dog meet cute” comes from the most unlikely of circumstances.
Another top pick for Pride Month, this rom com fused with misadventure, mayhem and Healy’s piercing wit will be the subject of a full BF review in the not too distant future.
– Andy Oliver
Love and Desire in the Promised Land: The Private Lives of Israelis and Palestinians (Fantagraphics Books)
Giving a different perspective on current events Love and Desire in the Promised Land: The Private Lives of Israelis and Palestinians is described as “a humanizing journalistic portrait of the intimate lives of ordinary people in Israel and Gaza.”
From interviews conducted by journalist Salomé Parent-Rachdi before the recent escalation in conflict, artist Deloupy brings these very human stories of love that crosses “borders and boundaries” to the comics page. This looks like a key release in the graphic journalism genre for 2026.
– Andy Oliver
