The best comics of 2026 you may have missed
There's never been a better time to find comics from all over the world.
The Undertaker Vol. 1: The Gold Eater And Dance Of The Vultures (Abrams ComicArts); Royals (Image Comics); Ami Moon & The Galactic Peacekeepers (Levine Querido)
The U.S. comics industry has entered its global era. There’s never been a better time to find comics from all over the world, whether through long-running publishers like Drawn & Quarterly and Fantagraphics or the newer graphic novel imprints that have popped up at major publishing houses like Abrams ComicArts. The international scope means a wider array of perspectives for readers to engage with, and many of the year’s best comics have come from creators outside of the U.S. We’ve covered some of these in our monthly comic previews, but here are five of the best 2026 comics that might have flown under your radar.
Ami Moon & The Galactic Peacekeepers by Frances Lee (Levine Querido)
It’s refreshing to read a kids comic that doesn’t feel like it lives in the shadow of Dav Pilkey’s Dog Man or Raina Telgemeier’s Smile. Ami Moon & The Galactic Peacekeepers, the debut graphic novel from Canadian-Korean cartoonist Frances Lee, is a charming sci-fi adventure about a human girl stranded in another galaxy, trying to find her way back home to Earth while serving as a Galactic Peacekeeper with her two alien buddies. Ami, Sumo (a large rabbit), and Rosa (a small shark) travel to different cosmic locales on peacekeeping missions that range from delivering a birthday present to protecting a displaced tribe from a rampaging monster, and each new environment showcases Lee’s quirky design sensibility and aesthetic flexibility. What really sets the book apart is Lee’s visual style, which eschews traditional comic-book design principles by removing panel borders and gutters to have moments flow into each other. Lee plays around with perspective, layering, color, and texture to give each page its own distinct vibe, and the heightened level of formal ambition makes Lee an especially exciting new voice in the kids comic landscape.
Ami Moon & The Galactic Peacekeepers by Frances Lee (Levine Querido)
Opioids & Organs by Arizona O’Neill (Drawn & Quarterly)
Anger is the driving force of Canadian cartoonist Arizona O’Neill’s debut graphic novel, Opioids & Organs. Anger that she signed away her father’s organs when he died of a fentanyl overdose. Anger at a healthcare system that takes advantage of people that society deems lesser. Anger at a public that doesn’t want to confront the darker aspects of organ donation. O’Neill works through her grief by studying the troubling history of how the medical world has used dead bodies over time, from acquiring dead slaves for classroom cadavers in the 19th century to the current boom in available organs from victims of the opioid epidemic. She examines the past with empathy for those lost while approaching her own emotional journey with a self-effacing sense of humor, which comes through in O’Neill’s interactions with her companions: Frankenstein’s monster (“the first organ transplant patient”) and a lizard representing O’Neill’s most toxic traits. There’s a road trip quality to the story as O’Neill and company travel to Dublin, Cambridge, and Paris to gather information, and by envisioning herself in the past, the author turns the history lesson into a catalyst for personal discovery.
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