2019 was an amazing year for comic books and graphic novels, as well as the franchises they spawned. Sequential art is a medium unlike any other and it appeals to a certain type of person. If you happen to be shopping for just such a person, then this list is sure to help you find the perfect gift this holiday season! There are so many choices to be had, though. We have Batman, John Wick, Hulk, Conan, Stranger Things, and even Lucifer from which to pick. Whatever your decision may be, just know that these were lovingly hand picked to be the best we found this past year. Sure, there are a few reissues, but many folks are discovering these titles for the first time anyway. Why should you not be the one to introduce your friends and relatives to some spectacular content?

So please dig into our Holiday Geek Gift Guide 2019: Comic Books and Graphic Novels below for our favorites from this year. We did all the hard work so you don’t have to!

Sons of Chaos
Hardcover | Kindle
Writer: Chris Jaymes
Illustrator: Ale Aragon
Publisher: IDW Publishing
Release date: June 2019

I’m a sucker for a good historical novel. Done right, it can drop you into a time period, introduce you to characters you see as dear friends or bitter enemies, and immerse you into historical events in a deeply meaningful way. The graphic novel Sons of Chaos by writer Chris Jaymes (Party of Five, Chicago Hope, Lost) illuminates the harrowing 19th-century events of the Greek War of Independence through the lens of tragic underdog Marcos Botsaris. Game of Thrones meets 300 in this bleak-yet-epic saga portraying the costs of brutal and anything-but-fair conflict with impressively natural pacing. Massive, lustrous pages serve as a backdrop to the grandiose, fantastical, and occasionally wincingly violent artwork illustrated by Ale Aragon (28 Days Later, Deadpool).

The Magicians #1
Created by Lev Grossman
Written by Lilah Sturges
Art by Pius Bak
Colors by Gabriel Cassata
Letters by Mike Fiorentino
Covers by Qistina Khalidah, Alexa Sharpe
Archaia Entertainment
Release Date: November 6, 2019
Cover Price: $3.99

Lev Grossman made my year when he wrote The Magicians. But he made my millennium when he continued the series and made it a trilogy. Syfy went a step further and turned it into a (not so accurate) television series that is still ongoing. And a few months ago I reviewed The Magicians: Alice’s Story. I therefore felt that I should alert any and all fans of the franchise to The Magicians #1, the first comic in a five-part mini-series.

Storm King Comics was formed in 2012 by Sandy King Carpenter and husband, Horror Master John Carpenter. They’ve been behind majorly successful titles like Asylum 1 – 2 and the annual Tales for a HalloweeNight anthologies. In the last few years they started a new series of monthly anthologies called John Carpenter’s Tales of Science Fiction. Twitch was one of the latest stories in the series and is now available in a paperback trade. Telling the story of an alien signal from outer space that is turning humankind into a collective hive-minded bunch of zombies, Twitch was written by Duane Swierczynski with art by Richard P. Clark and lettering by Janice Chiang. This past weekend at New York Comic-Com at the Jacob Javits Convention Center in midtown Manhattan, I got a chance to sit down with artist Richard P. Clark to talk about Twitch, his creative process, and working for Storm King.

Bury the Lede
Paperback | Kindle/comiXology
Written by Gaby Dunn
Illustrated by Claire Roe with Miquel Muerto
Publisher: BOOM! Studios
Release date: October 8, 2019

In Bury the Lede, Madison Jackson is an intern with the Lede, the top newspaper in Boston struggling to garner the attention she needs to turn her internship into a coveted full-time reporting gig. So when she’s invited along to the scene of a homicide with fellow Lede reporter Lexington “Lexi” Ford, she sees this as her opportunity and jumps at it.

The case revolves around the murder of a high-powered Boston man and his son by his socialite wife Dahlia Kennedy. Behind bars, no one has managed to get her to talk. So, on a desperate whim, Lexi sends in Madison… and the gamble pays off… the alleged murderess is now talking, but not necessarily the story that Kennedy and Lexi were expecting. To make matters even more complicated, Dahlia will now only talk to Madison, making the young intern a focal point of the investigation as opposed to the person reporting it, a position reporters never want to be in at any point.