When One Person Dies the Whole World is Over by Mandy Ord

This year-long daily ‘diary comic’ follows Melbourne artist Mandy Ord through a year in her life, casting a magnifying glass on Ord’s quotidian thoughts and experiences and the people that surround her. Ord’s bold brush-work comics have a vivid, pulsing emotion to them, and are the perfect medium to convey her explorations of ageing, love, and loss, and how we might try to balance work and family and art in this confusing modern world. Funny, sad, and magnetic, When One Person Dies the Whole World is Over is an unashamedly personal work about that universal search for meaning.

Other recent Australian graphic novels:

• The Long Weekend in Alice Springs by Joshua Santospirito & Craig San Roque

Kid Gloves: Nine Months of Careful Chaos by Lucy Knisley

The author of Relish: My Life in the Kitchen and Something New is back with a memoir about her personal transition into motherhood. A wonderful narrator, Knisley retains all the trademark humour and wry sensitivity that made her previous books so easy to devour, but she also doesn’t flinch away from the brutal truth, which was that this experience wasn’t an easy one for her. Conceiving was harder than anything she’d ever attempted. Fertility problems were followed by miscarriages, and her eventual successful pregnancy was plagued by health issues. Throughout it all, she also illustrates the history and science of reproductive health from all angles. Highly recommended for readers who want more honest parenting memoirs.

Sexy Female Murderesses by Eloise Grills

Walkley-nominated Melbourne artist Eloise Grills’ part historical profile, part memoir, part poetic eruption defies easy categorisation. Saying the book is about female murderers in history (and society’s need to categorise and pathologise ‘bad’ women) feels like a disservice to the wickedly irreverent leaps of creativity packed in this slim volume. Grills slices up these figures of history, autobiography and speech, in a delightful springtime bloodbath for famously evil and evilly famous women—dead or alive, young and old.

Sexy Female Murderesses was one of six titles released late last year by new Melbourne comics imprint Glom Press, and their work in promoting weird and wonderful new books has been exciting to watch. Here’s to more from them this year!

Other recent genre-defying books from Glom Press

• Galapagos by Mandy Ord
• Swimsuit by Rachel Ang
• Psychic Hotline by Leonie Brialey
• My Big Life by Bailey Sharp
• Mystical Boy Scout #4 by Aaron Billings

Heartstopper Volume One by Alice Oseman

Sweet and charming, this new YA queer romance will tug at your feelings and send your inner teenage heart fluttering. Charlie and Nick are at the same school, but they’ve never met … until one day when they’re made to sit together. They quickly become friends, and soon Charlie is falling hard for Nick, even though he doesn’t think he has a chance. Heartstopper Volume One is about love, friendship, loyalty and mental illness and it’s the teen rom-com we’ve always wanted.

Other recent YA graphic novels about blushing young love

• Bloom by Kevin Panetta & Savanna Ganucheau

PTSD by Guillaume Singelin

After returning home from an unpopular war, pink-haired ex-sniper Jun becomes an outsider in an indifferent world. Jun’s tough exterior served her well in combat, but gets in the way of asking for help at home. With the support of her fellow vets, the kindness of a stranger who refuses to turn away, and the companionship of a dog named Red, Jun learns to navigate the psychological trauma that she experienced in the war. Gorgeous and cinematic in its art style, this is a moving meditation on trauma, the horrors of war and how people can heal.

Supers Book One by Frederic Maupome & Dawid

This winner of the first ever Youth Award from ACBD (the French Association of Comics Critics), Supers Book One is a rich blend of family tension, super-thrills, and classroom drama. Abandoned on planet Earth, hiding far from their home, siblings Matt, Lily, and Benji can’t even use their powers in public, for fear of being discovered. Starting at a new school is hard enough already… This children’s fantasy comic combines action-adventure and humour with well-drawn family dynamics. Though these three children are super-powered, they’re still alone in a foreign planet, struggling with relatable dilemmas such as sibling squabbles, cliques at school, and the balance between fitting in and standing out.