Happy Pride Month, everyone!
The SFFnal awards cycle takes up months of discourse every year, and can dominate the conversation in ways that many of us can find wearying. And that’s understandable, but it’s also a pity. Because awards, at their best, are an amazing opportunity: They guide us towards works that we might otherwise have missed. If that phrase sounds a lot like one I’ve used before, it’s because it’s not all that different from my original mission statement for this column.
I like thinking of awards as signposts, and I value the guidance they provide. I particularly value the Lambda Literary Award Best LGBTQI+ Comics category, because it’s a great opportunity to read and celebrate works by queer creators from a broad and diverse range of genres. To be clear, I’m not sorry that my remit is SFFnal comics and graphic novels; I love my speculative genres. But I also love what I discover when I look across the big tent of the comics medium.
So, with that in mind, let’s examine the 2026 Lammy Finalists for Best LGBTQI+ Comics!
As with some of my previous looks at an entire awards shortlist, these graphic novels are listed alphabetically by title; the order in which my reviews appear doesn’t rank them in any other way. (Note: These reviews may contain spoilers!)
Gaysians
Written and drawn by Mike Curato
Published by Algonquin Books
An unabashedly earnest and heartfelt love letter to community and the people who build it, Gaysians might be too sincere to criticize — and that, to be clear, is praise, not veiled criticism. I like sincerity.
Set in Seattle’s queer community in the early Aughts, Gaysians is an ensemble piece that centres four young, queer Asian-Americans who meet by chance and build a found family — what another great American novelist, Armistead Maupin, called the logical family. They support one another, and share their struggles, as being queer separates them from their families and the (sometimes quite conservative) wider Asian-American community and they’re too often fetishized or simply overlooked by the predominantly white queer scene. Over time, they accept themselves and one another, and the strength they find helps them to connect with and build Asian-American queer community.
This is, as I said, a deeply sincere work and a fundamentally optimistic one, but it’s not naïve. Gaysians takes a realistic look at the harm that homophobia, transphobia, and racism do to its protagonists in big and small ways, and it’s grounded, well-observed, and truthful throughout. It speaks to the lived experience young gay men in vivid and honest detail. I don’t think I’ve ever seen, for instance, a graphic novel focused on gay men and their sex lives that refers in such a casual and forthright way to someone using an enema to prep for imminent casual anal sex — or how him doing so irritates his roommate thanks to the smell.
The character art is clear and confident. It’s effective, but can be loose. Given Curato’s keen eye for detail in depicting the book’s period setting that’s most likely a deliberate choice (and yes, as someone who was already very much an adult during that era, it hurts my soul to refer to the early 2000s as a “period setting”). However, there are a few points where that looseness doesn’t quite work, leaving the characters awkwardly posed while in motion, or with oddly in-between expressions, like they were drawn from photographic references of people who were captured in not-quite-the-right-moment of moving their faces and bodies.
That’s a very minor quibble. This is a fine graphic novel that centres a part of the LGBTQI+ community that too rarely takes centre stage, and does so with wit, affection, and grace. I recommend it.
Love, Misha
Written and drawn by Askel Aden
Published by First Second Books
Let’s get this out of the way right up front: Yes, it’s absolutely a trans take on Spirited Away. Whether or not you resonate with Askel Aden’s YA graphic novel about a newly-out enby trans teen on a road trip with their estranged mother that leads to them both getting lost in the Spirit World is mostly going to be down to whether that delights you or feels too heavy-handed.
I don’t want to reduce Love, Misha to the question of whether it works as a Ghibli homage, but having raised the issue I should probably say that for the most part, it does. The art shifts along with the narrative from the whimsical to the eerie to a thoroughly Miyazakian combination of both, and there are some set pieces that powerfully channel the sense of awe, mystery, and danger that suffuses Aden’s take on the Spirit World. In a nice touch, human characters like Misha and their mom are drawn slightly more realistically than the more cartoonishly-depicted spirits that they’re trapped among — while still, themselves, being sufficiently cartoony that their presence in the story’s environments seems stylistically coherent.
Unfortunately, when considered as a work of fantasy, the lovely set pieces establish a bar that the book doesn’t always manage to hit. For what’s essentially a portal fantasy, Love, Misha isn’t consistently successful in its world-building. I think that’s because the book’s take on the spirit world is visually Ghibli-esque without as far as I can tell being rooted in any actual real-world mythology, folklore, or spiritual traditions. It accordingly lacks some of the depth and rich symbolism of the works it’s inspired by. This Spirit World sometimes lacks the texture to feel fully realized, and when the seams show it’s to the story’s detriment.
Misha is likable and believable, and their struggle to re-connect with their estranged mother Audrey — who is equally believable, if less likable, having not entirely come to terms with their child’s true gender, and also just being kind of a fuck-up — provides a strong narrative thread. The book’s take on all its main characters, including the spirit Odun, who acts as a guide and mentor to Misha and Audrey but also clearly doesn’t always have their best interests at heart, is psychologically realistic, thoughtful and compassionate.
When Love, Misha works it works very well indeed, and the strengths on balance are greater than the weaknesses. It’s a slightly qualified recommendation, but I recommend it.
Precious Rubbish
Written and drawn by Kayla E.
Published by Fantagraphics Books
I ran into a few problems reading this for review. In the first place, it’s one of the books I couldn’t find in hard copy and read an electronic copy of — and this is a graphic novel for which the visual design, format, and structure as a physical book matters.
In the second place, and more importantly, this is a harrowing account of childhood physical, emotional, religious and sexual abuse, and it was difficult to push my way through the very believable horrors it depicted.
As best as I can tell, Precious Rubbish is a work of memoir, and knowing that amplifies the horror of the abuse it depicts. As only one comparatively minor example, Kayla E. includes an apparently real, emotionally abusive text from her real-life mother that’s in line with her depiction in the book, and that’s as the back cover copy. From start to end, it’s unsparing. Unrelenting.
Less importantly, but easier to discuss, Precious Rubbish is part of a comics tradition of comics art that simply doesn’t speak to me, one that uses a strong sense of graphic design and clean lines to ironically juxtapose art inspired by mid-20th century comic strips, children’s books and comics with extreme childhood trauma and pain, and the psychological toll it takes throughout the lives of the people who experienced it. The comics uses a cartoony cute-grotesque style, very much in the American comic strip tradition, and chapters and vignettes are punctuated by illustrations, puzzles, and games that further the narrative, foreshadow, and reinforce Kayla-the-character’s pain, shame, and isolation.
That Kayla E. is strongly influenced by Chris Ware (creator of Acme Novelty Library) was obvious even to someone like me who bounced off of most of Ware. Her other great inspiration, Ivan Brunetti, I’m even less familiar with (to the extent that other reviews and her own acknowledgements are the reason I’m aware of the connection). It’s a stylistic approach that leaves me cold, which made engaging with the content even more difficult, but I can’t deny that she’s a superlative artist and designer. Precious Rubbish is an expertly composed graphic novel.
This is an important and maybe even brilliant book that I never want to read or have to think about ever again. Because of that, I’m genuinely torn about how to frame my response. As a work of comics art, I recommend it, but with a very strong content warning for anyone who might find the material triggering.
Bread Tarleton
Soften the Blow
Written and drawn by Bread Tarleton
Published by Fieldmouse Press
After Precious Rubbish, I was honestly a little afraid to read Soften the Blow. Bread Tarleton’s graphic novel isn’t a memoir, but the first few pages seemed to indicate that it similarly features an art style I find it a challenge to engage with, and a protagonist whose life is full of trauma and pain. I pushed myself to read it anyway. I’m glad I did.
Audrey, a trans woman and former pro wrestler, has cut herself off from the world and other people after transphobia and her own struggles with addiction, a tragic accident, and her sometimes violent rage blew up her career. She grapples with dysmorphia and overwhelming self-loathing, turning her anger against herself. An injury leads her to the hospital, where she gets connected — against her every screaming impulse to avoid human contact — with a support group. And slowly, with a lot of work, in fits and starts, she begins to heal.
But that summary doesn’t really do justice to Soften the Blow, which goes to astonishing lengths to depict the painful, often-interrupted journey that we sum up as healing from trauma and learning to love ourselves. Audrey is a woman locked in an exhausting wrestling match with her past, with her life hanging in the balance, and the book never shies away from showing the cost to her.
Of all the works on this year’s Lammy short list, this is the one that makes the most creative use of the comics medium — only Precious Rubbish comes close, and in a very different way. Soften the Blow concretizes its metaphor constantly by showing Audrey’s internal struggles on the page in many, often overlapping ways: internal monologues presented as dialogues with herself; past selves as predatory monsters that could swallow her up; intrusive thoughts looming large; panel borders that enclose her, literally setting her apart from the rest of the page and the world; and often, recurringly, her form becoming elongated and twisted as she contorts herself, trying to wrestle with her anger and pain.
This is a visually stunning, honest and unblinking, but in the end deeply hopeful book.
It’s also a challenging read. It’s tough to spend so much time inside the head of someone who hates herself so much for so long. But it’s rewarding. I recommend it.
Spent
Written and drawn by Alison Bechdel
Coloring by Holly Rae Taylor
Shadowing by Jon Chad
Published by Mariner Books
Alison Bechdel’s latest is wildly meta.
Bechdel was best-known for her acclaimed, long-running comic strip Dykes to Watch Out For, until she became even more acclaimed for her graphic memoirs, starting with Fun Home.
Spent, her most recent graphic novel, mashes up all of her life’s works in a self-described comic novel that features a very tongue-in-cheek, fictionalized Alison Bechdel, and her life-long friends, the cast of Dykes.
It’s a trip. The story brings the cast of Dykes to the present day, still living communal, not-even-a-little-heteronormative lives. Meanwhile, the narrative foregrounds the fictional Bechdel as she grapples with jealously, family drama, and shame and stress over her financial success while also being creatively blocked in her work on a new graphic novel.
So yeah, meta. Also fun, albeit challenging for someone who isn’t familiar with literally all of Bechdel’s oeuvre to fully appreciate. (As someone who never read Dykes To Watch Out For, I frequently felt lost watching decades-spanning plotlines play out.)
The art is engaging, and all the characters pop visually and emotionally. Bechdel has lots of practice turning a critical eye on herself via her memoirs, and having a fictional Alison to play with is clearly allowing her to have a great time turning her own anxieties and foibles up to eleven.
It feels, in the end, like Bechdel mainly wrote this for herself and for the completists among her readers. That’s not a bad thing! It’s enjoyable, probably moreso for the aforementioned completists. I recommend it, with the qualifier that I wouldn’t make this your first Bechdel — you’ll be very confused.
Who’s going to take home the Lammy? No idea!
The Lammy Awards ceremony will take place on June 12, 2026. This is, once again, a fascinatingly diverse list, with works that range widely in art style and content, and in tone from light to very, very dark. And yeah, I have no idea which of these the judges will choose to award. Regardless, this is a thoughtfully curated list of some of the best among last year’s LGTBQI+ comics and graphic novels. Not all of them are fun, exactly, but they’re all worth reading and most of them are works I’d never have encountered outside of an awards list. And that, right there, shows the value of awards at their best.
Once again, happy Pride, and happy reading!
Disclaimer: I have no personal or professional relationships with any of the publishers or creators. The publisher of Soften the Blow provided a complimentary electronic copy for review; the other works I borrowed from my local library.
