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Comics Academy--Jake West

The TOP 20 New Independent Comics To Read and Order in January

Welcome to Comic Book Yeti!


I am your host, Jake West from Comics Academy!

Missed last week's list? Here're the basics:

  • This is a list of currently pre-orderable titles you can find in Previews either online or from their monthly catalog. Ask a person at your local comics shop if you're interested in ordering titles in the future! You can also find all of these titles for sale online or digitally!

  • If you want to order any of these comics, you can use the link in each entry for that issue as well as its previous issues and volumes.

  • The "New Readers" descriptions were taken directly from their first issue or trade paperback, so there are no story spoilers. The "Returning Readers" descriptions were taken from the current issue for people who have already read up to the current issue and want to stay up-to-date.

  • If you are interested in checking out more content from Comics Academy, including video reviews, live comic creator interviews, comic community events and more, then click here!

  • I also do weekly lists on Comic Book Yeti for the top manga, Marvel and DC comics and Kickstarters every month. There’s a list for any comics reader!

1. WICKED THINGS #1


(W) John Allison (A/CA) Max Sarin

Get the Diamond Order Code for this issue:

For New Readers (No Spoilers): The Eisner Award-winning team of John Allison and Max Sarin return to the world of Giant Days for a new series about everyone's favorite child detective; Charlotte Grote.

Nineteen-year-old Charlotte Grote has her whole life ahead of her; headed straight to Oxford and a future as a real detective –until she's framed for murder!

Given the choice between going to jail basically forever or joining the police, Lottie decides to hit the beat, all while trying to find the real murderer. Lottie may have been running rings about the police since her 9th birthday, but she's never been on this side of the security tape.

Could the future of law enforcement be 5'2" with an extremely strong bangs game? Yes. Very yes.


2. MIRKA ANDOLFO'S MERCY #1


(W/A/CA) Mirka Andolfo


Get the Diamond Order Code for this issue: https://previewsworld.com/Search?mode=A&q=mirka%20mercy

For New Readers (No Spoilers):

When the placid mining village of Woodsburgh is disturbed by a series of brutal murders, the settlement is in turmoil. And as the first snow covers the chaos in a white blanket, a mysterious woman in black arrives, eliciting a totally different kind of unrest. But who is Lady Hellaine, really? And what's her secret agenda?


Acclaimed UNNATURAL creator MIRKA ANDOLFO presents a sensual Victorian gothic horror about otherness, damnation, redemption, and what it means to be a monster in a horror tale perfect for fans of Penny Dreadful, Crimson Peak, The Alienist, Parasol Protectorate, and Dark Shadows.


3. X-RAY ROBOT #1


(W/A/CA) Mike Allred Get the Diamond Order Code for this issue:

For New Readers (No Spoilers):

Max is a family man seeking a more interesting life. While conducting a new experiment at work, the fabric of his reality is torn before his eyes, and a robotic figure appears, claiming to be his 277-year-old self.


The robot is able to "X-Ray" multiple dimensions and battles a nihilistic entity from another dimension who wants to take all life to its "Pre-Big Bang" status. Max and the robot embark on an interdimensional road trip through past and future to take down the "Nihilist" and save the universe!


4. NO ONE'S ROSE #1


(W) Zac Thompson & Emily Horn (A/CA) Alberto Alburquerque (Colorist) Raul Angulo (L) Hassan Ostmane-Elhaou Get the Diamond Order Code for this issue: https://previewsworld.com/Search?mode=A&q=no%20one%27s%20rose

For New Readers (No Spoilers): Centuries after the fall of the Anthropocene, the last vestiges of human civilization are housed in a massive domed city powered by renewable energy, known as The Green Zone. Inside lives teenager Tenn Gavrilo, a brilliant bio-engineer who could rebuild the planet. But there's one problem: her resentful brother Seren is eager to dismantle the precarious Utopia.   

From the minds of Zac Thompson (X-Men, Yondu) and debut writer Emily Horn with artist Alberto Jimenez Alburquerque (Letter 44, Avengers) comes a gorgeous and green solar-punk world filled with strange biotechnology, harsh superstorms, and divisive ideologies –ideologies that will tear Tenn and Seren down to their roots as they fight for a better Earth.

5. DECORUM #1

(W) Johnathan Hickman (A/CA) Mike Huddleston Get the Diamond Order Code for this issue and previous issues: https://previewsworld.com/Search?mode=A&q=decorum


For New Readers (No Spoilers):

There are many assassins in the known universe. This is the story of the most well-mannered one.


"Manners are a sensitive awareness of the feelings of others. If you have that awareness, you have good manners, no matter what knife you use."



6. WHITE ASH #3

(W) Charlie Stickney (A/CA) Conor Hughs (L) Fin Cramb Get the Diamond Order Code for this issue and previous issues: https://previewsworld.com/Search?mode=A&q=white%20ash For New Readers (No Spoilers): It's Romeo and Juliet meets Lord of the Rings... in rural Pennsylvania. "He's a what?" After the stunning revelation at the end of last issue, Aleck tries to make sense of the new status quo. But that's not going to be easy. With Lillian around, things are about to get a whole lot more complicated... and dangerous.


7. OUTER DARKNESS/CHEW #1

(W) John Layman (A) Rob Guillory (A/CA) Afu Chan

Get the Diamond Order Code for this issue and previous issues: https://previewsworld.com/Search?mode=A&q=outer%20darkness/chew


For New Readers (No Spoilers): THE GREATEST CROSSOVER EVER!


Tony Chu is a modern-day cop who gets psychic impressions from what he eats. Joshua Rigg is a 28th-century starship captain who flies through an outer space filled with demons, monsters, and ghosts. Sounds like a perfect recipe for a comic book crossover, don't it?  


Well, be careful what you wish for, because CHEW/OUTER DARKNESS is warping your way, bringing together the reunited multiple Eisner Award-winning CHEW team, writer JOHN LAYMAN and artist ROB GUILLORY, with OUTER DARKNESS' regular resident artistic genius, AFU CHAN!


8. FINGER GUNS #2

(W) Justin Richards (A) Val Halvorson Get the Diamond Order Code for this issue and previous issues: https://previewsworld.com/Search?mode=A&q=finger%20guns

For New Readers (No Spoilers):

Two troubled teenagers discover they can manipulate emotions by firing finger guns. There will be laughs. There will be tears. There will be uncomfortable teen feelings and angst.


Oh yeah...and chaos.


So much chaos.

For Returning Readers (Possible Spoilers): "The darker side of home life has Sadie pushing Wes to help discover more about their powers. The true discovery ends up being a friendship built – in no small part –around Bryan Adams sing-a-longs and a dog named Chester. If only the good days could stop the bad.


9. CROWDED #12

(W) Christopher Sebela (A/CA) Ro Stein, Ted Brandt, Triona Farrell

Get the Diamond Order Code for this issue and previous issues: https://previewsworld.com/Search?mode=A&q=crowded

For New Readers (No Spoilers):

Ten minutes in the future, the world runs on an economy of job shares and apps, including Reapr: a crowdfunding platform to fund assassinations. Charlie Ellison leads a quiet, normal life until she's suddenly targeted by a million-dollar Reapr campaign. Hunted by all of Los Angeles, Charlie hires Vita, the lowest-rated bodyguard on the Dfend app.

As the campaign picks up speed, they'll have to figure out who wants Charlie dead before the campaign's 30 days – or their lives – are over.

For Returning Readers (Possible Spoilers): END OF STORY ARC!


Charlie and Vita are trapped in a decommissioned missile silo full of crazy cultists who want to murder them while hiding from a world full of regular people who want to murder them. If they manage to survive all that, they'll still have to face their biggest threat: each other.

10. SOMETHING IS KILLING THE CHILDREN #6

(W) James Tynion IV (A/CA) Werther Dell'Edera Get the Diamond Order Code for this graphic novel:

https://previewsworld.com/Search?mode=A&q=something%20is%20killing For New Readers (No Spoilers): When the children of Archer's Peak begin to go missing, everything seems hopeless. Most children never return, but the ones that do have terrible stories – impossible stories of terrifying creatures that live in the shadows.

Their only hope of finding and eliminating the threat is the arrival of a mysterious stranger, one who believes the children and claims to see what they can see.

Her name is Erica Slaughter. She kills monsters. That is all she does, and she bears the cost because it MUST be done


For Returning Readers (Possible Spoilers): Erica may have slain the beast terrorizing Archer's Peak, but the town is far from safe. As James recuperates from the horrible events of the last issue, Tommy also struggles to find his place in the new status quo of his life.


11. HEXAGON #1

(W) Michael Moreci (A) Jheremy Raapack (CA) Jorge Corona Get the Diamond Order Code for this issue: https://previewsworld.com/Search?mode=A&q=hexagon

For New Readers (No Spoilers): It's the 1980s and all twelve-year-old Don wants to do is play video games at the local arcade. Don's father, however, refuses to let him play. Egged on by his friends and trying to impress a girl, Don sneaks out to join an all-night game-a-thon. Defying the odds (and on his first quarter ever!), Don beats Crucible, a game long considered unbeatable.


In an instant, his world is turned upside-down when his victory triggers an alien invasion and sucks him into an intergalactic battle that has been raging for years, a battle his father was desperately trying to protect him from!


12. SWEET HEART #1

(W) Dillon Gilbertson (A/CA) Francesco Iaquinta Get the Diamond Order Code for this issue and previous issues: https://previewsworld.com/Search?mode=A&q=sweet%20heart For New Readers (No Spoilers): Being hunted is an everyday risk in Ellicott City and the town itself is designed to make life comfortable for its citizens while being actively stalked by the eerie, insatiable creatures that live among them.


But when Ben is chosen by one of the creatures near his home, his mother struggles to cope with the certainty of her son's death.

13. HAPPINESS WILL FOLLOW GN

(W/A/CA) Mike Hawthorne

Get the Diamond Order Code for this issue and previous issues:

https://previewsworld.com/Catalog/JAN201323 For New Readers (No Spoilers):

For the first time ever, Eisner Award-nominated artist Mike Hawthorne (Superior Spider-Man) tells the true and tragic story of enduring abuse, discovering a love of art and a passion that helped him to build the home he never had in this graphic novel memoir about family, survival, and what it means to be Puerto Rican in America.

Mike Hawthorne's mother is left alone to raise her son in New York City, a city that torments them both with its unforgiving nature. But when Mike falls victim to an old-world Santeria death curse, a haunting sign from the old country of something his mother could never truly escape-she begins a series of events that drive him away both physically and emotionally.


14. BITTER ROOT #7


(W) David Walker, Chuck Brown (A/CA) Sanford Greene

Get the Diamond Order Code for this graphic novel: https://previewsworld.com/Search?mode=A&q=bitter%20root


For New Readers (No Spoilers):

Once known as the greatest monster hunters of all time, the Sangerye family specialized in curing the souls of those infected by hate. But those days are fading. A terrible tragedy has claimed most of the family, leaving the surviving cousins divided between the desire to cure monsters or to kill them. Now, though, there's a new breed of monster loose on the streets of Harlem, and the Sangerye family must either come together or watch the human race fall to untold evil.


For Returning Readers (Possible Spoilers): Sylvester continues to plot his revenge against the Sangerye family, and now he has help – the demon Ardo has arrived on Earth. The Sangeryes, and the world, are not prepared.


15. PANORAMA GN


(W/A/CA) Michel Fiffe Get the Diamond Order Code for this issue and previous issues: https://previewsworld.com/Catalog/JAN200332

For New Readers (No Spoilers): From the archives of Copra creator, Michel Fiffe, comes a body-horror romance of epic proportions.

Panorama follows the adventures of teenage couple Kim & Augustus as they navigate their way through a shared, unwanted ability they can't control.


Panorama blends chiaroscuro with a kinetic line that perfectly captures runaways trying to find love, define identity, and survive a metamorphosis unlike anything ever seen before.


16. ONCE & FUTURE #7

(W) Kieron Gillen (A/CA) Dan Mora Get the Diamond Order Code for this issue and previous issues: https://previewsworld.com/Search?mode=A&q=once&CreatorName1=kieron%20gillen For New Readers (No Spoilers):

The King is Undead. Long live the King. When a group of Nationalists uses an ancient artifact to bring a villain from Arthurian myth back from the dead to gain power, ex-monster hunter Bridgette McGuire escapes her retirement home and pulls her unsuspecting grandson Duncan, a museum curator, into a world of magic and mysticism to defeat a legendary threat.

For Returning Readers (Possible Spoilers): NEW STORY ARC


Although Bridgette and Duncan were able to escape the Otherworld, their adventure is only just beginning! As the chaos of Arthur's return reaches London, an artifact at the British Museum is stolen. But is it Arthur who's interested in the relic...or someone, or something, new?


17. PROTECTOR #3

(W) Simon Roy, Daniel M. Bensen (A) Artyom Trakhanov (CA) James Harren (L) Jason Wordie, Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou

Get the Diamond Order Code for this issue and previous issues: https://previewsworld.com/Search?mode=A&q=protector For New Readers (No Spoilers): From SIMON ROY (Prophet), Sideways Award-winning author DANIEL M. BENSEN (Junction), ARTYOM TRAKHANOV (UNDERTOW), JASON WORDIE (GOD COUNTRY), and HASSAN OTSMANE-ELHAOU (Red Sonja) comes a sci-fi adventure equal parts Conan the Barbarian, Mad Max, and The Expanse.

Of all the tribes that dwell in the hot ruins of far-future North America, the Hudsoni reign supreme, but even they fear and obey the godlike Devas. When the Devas warn of an old-world demon in the conquered city of Shikka-Go, Hudsoni war chief First Knife decides to deal with the threat personally.

For Returning Readers (Possible Spoilers): Captured by their former slaves, First Knife and his warriors find themselves at the mercy of the High Priestess Mari and the metal-skinned relic she worships. Only First Knife's cunning can keep his men from a sacrificial death atop the Yanqui Ziggurat.


18. BLACK STARS ABOVE #5

(W) Lonnie Nadler (A/CA) Jenna Cha Get the Diamond Order Code for this issue and previous issues: https://previewsworld.com/Search?mode=A&q=black%20stars%20above For New Readers (No Spoilers): A young fur trapper flees her overbearing family only to get lost in dreamlike winter wilderness that harbors a cosmic threat.

The year is 1887 and a storm brews. Eulalie Dubois has spent her entire life tending to her family's trapline, isolated from the world. A chance at freedom comes in the form of a parcel that needs delivering to a nameless town north of the wilderness. Little does Eulalie know, something sinister hides in those woods and it yearns for what she carries. A chilling historical cosmic horror tale of survival from the deranged minds of Lonnie Nadler (The Dregs, Marvelous X-Men) and debut artist Jenna Cha.

For Returning Readers (Possible Spoilers): Eulalie awakens in a place both familiar and strange, alone once more. The nameless northern town is not what it seems. Though she hoped this would be her way out of the woods, Eulalie finds herself deeper in nature than she ever thought possible, surrounded by those who seek to shatter its rule. When she's promised everything for which she's ever yearned, Eulalie must accept providence or refuse the guidance of the Black Stars.


19. TARTARUS #2

(W) Johnnie Christmas (A/CA) Jack Cole Get the Diamond Order Code for this issue and previous issues: https://previewsworld.com/Search?mode=A&q=tartarus For New Readers (No Spoilers): A new adventure series with all the sci-fi drama of Breaking Bad set in Mos Eisley! Promising young cadet Tilde is framed for crimes against the empire after discovering her mother was the ruthless warlord of the deadly colony Tartarus, a vital player in the galactic war. Now, Tilde's only way home may be to reclaim her mother's dark crown.

For Returning Readers (Possible Spoilers): "HOMEGOING"


Tilde's on the run from an empire. Klinzu has a date in a war zone. Their plan, a fiery escape to the most dangerous place in the galaxy: Tartarus. Includes "LIFE," a new backup story by STEPHANIE COOKE and MEGAN HUANG, exclusively in single issues.


20. REAVER #7

(W) Justin Jordan (A) Niko Henrichon (CA) Becky Cloonan

Get the Diamond Order Code for this issue and previous issues: https://previewsworld.com/Search?mode=A&q=reaver For New Readers (No Spoilers): Deep within the untamed continent of Madaras, a darkness builds that must be stopped at all costs. To prevent the end of this new world, the Imperials assemble six of their most despicable prisoners-a turncoat, a skin eater, a sorcerer, his bodyguard, a serial killer, and the Devil's Son. They are Hell's Half-Dozen.


For Returning Readers (Possible Spoilers): NEW STORY ARC!


Essen Breaker is tired of violence. He's traveled to Haas Haaden, the city at the edge of the world, to escape it. But where Breaker goes, death follows. Join writer JUSTIN JORDAN and new series artist NIKO HENRICHON (Pride of Baghdad) for the start of a brand-new story arc, featuring murder, mystery, and lots and lots of blood.


Special Mention! Strange Adventures #1



(W) Tom King (A) Evan Shaner (A/CA) Mitch Gerads


Get the Diamond Order Code for this issue and previous issues:

For New Readers (No Spoilers): After winning five Eisner Awards and topping year-end "best of lists," the comic book of 2019 was Mister Miracle. The comic book of 2020 will be Strange Adventures.

The Mister Miracle team of writer Tom King and artist Mitch Gerads are joined by fan-favorite artist Evan "Doc" Shaner to bring you an epic tale in the tradition of Watchmen, The Dark Knight Returns, and DC: The New Frontier – a story of blood, war, and love that readers will be talking about for years to come.

Adam Strange is the hero of Rann, a man famous throughout the galaxy for his bravery and honor. After leading his adopted home to victory in a great planetary war, Adam and his wife Alanna retire to Earth, where they are greeted by cheers, awards, and parades. But not all is as happy and nice as it seems, as the decisions Adam made during battles on Rann come back to haunt his family and threaten the entire DC Universe. And now a surprise DC hero will have to choose between saving Adam Strange and saving the world. 

  A story like no other, Strange Adventures is an ambitious, thrilling, shocking, and beautiful 12-issue saga that will push Adam Strange to the breaking point – and beyond!

 

Thanks so much for reading! Come back next week for the Top Kickstarters for January!



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