Hugo season is well underway—voting closes on August 8th—and as usual, I’m fascinated by the range of works that landed on the ballot for Best Graphic Story this year. It’s a diverse list—superheroes, cats, children, wizards, the living and the dead and those not entirely on either side of that question. A new take on a character who’s been published for decades, an installment of a webcomic that’s been running for twenty years, variations on a theme of deconstruction, an adaptation of a classic novel, and a brand-new tale about something as old as humanity—grief.
So, it’s time for me to look at these interesting and varied finalists. Here are my takes on the 2026 finalists for the Best Graphic Story Hugo award. In keeping with my previous practice, these works are in alphabetical order by title, not ranked by my preference or in any other way. (Note: These reviews may contain spoilers.)
Absolute Wonder Woman Volume 1: The Last Amazon
Writer Kelly Thompson
Artists Hayden Sherman, Mattia De Iulis
Colorist Jordie Bellaire
Letterer Becca Carey
Published by DC Comics
Wonder Woman Created By William Moulton Martson
Without the island paradise, without the sisterhood that shaped her, without a mission of peace…she’s still the Absolute Amazon!
Spiraling out of the catastrophic events of Absolute Power, a new side of the DC Universe is born—the Absolute Universe!
In a different, darker world, Diana of Themyscira was not raised in paradise, but instead was exiled to the underworld as a baby and raised by an enemy. Darkness and exile did not destroy her; instead, they made her all the stronger—honed into an even greater weapon by tragedy, danger, and magic. Long denied her Amazonian heritage, Diana has finally reached the time for her to rejoin the surface world. Armed with new weapons forged in Hell, and a mission that looks a bit more like justice than peace, Diana will not be stopped on her quest to save the world and discover her place in it, even if that means carving it herself!
Eisner Award-winning writer Kelly Thompson is joined by breakout superstar artist Hayden Sherman to reinvent Wonder Woman from the ground up! Collects Absolute Wonder Woman #1-7.
For those of you who aren’t aware—as I wasn’t until I read up on Absolute Wonder Woman a bit trying to sort out how I felt about it—there are a bunch of Absolute comics from DC. They’re all versions of the big iconic DC characters in a noticeably-worse version of the DC Universe where their lives are suckier and there haven’t been any superheroes until the Absolute narrative kicked off. Not having read any of the other comics in the line, I’m not totally clear what’s going on. I gather that it involves time travel, or Darkseid, or Darkseid doing time travel, all in the interest of a villainous scheme to stop superheroes from being a thing. Temporal shenanigans, in other words. Multiverse nonsense.
This first volume of Absolute Wonder Woman is self-contained and doesn’t tie into the broader Absolute comics line or factor in any of the other Absolute heroes. Key members of Wonder Woman’s supporting cast show up of course, along with someone who I think might have been Barbara Gordon/Batgirl/Oracle in the regular DC continuity. But otherwise the bigger narrative, whatever it is, isn’t foregrounded. And that’s a strength, honestly, because the last thing I need are more temporal shenanigans or multiverse nonsense.
This is a perfectly fine comic. The reimagining of Wonder Woman as the foster daughter of the sorceress Circe (?), raised in Hell (??) after the Greek gods did something malevolent to lock away—but apparently not kill—all the other Amazons and Paradise Island (???) is fine.
Writer Kelly Thompson has crafted a dynamic action-adventure story that effectively builds tension from chapter to chapter, and her grasp of Wonder Woman as a character is strong. Hayden Sherman’s art is kinetic without being confusing, and they capture the power of Wonder Woman really well. Plus, Sherman draws a good giant monster, and I have a soft spot for that.
Wonder Woman is an iconic character for a reason, and an approach like this, that puts her into a dark place to show how she shines not just despite of it, but because of it, is a good way of focusing on the best and most iconic elements of her. The idea that not even being brought up by a self-proclaimed evil witch in Literal Hell can stop Princess Diana from being her fundamentally good and heroic self may be dubious from the standpoint of science-informed child development, but it’s a solid place to launch a narrative from.
But the whole idea of paring down a character is confounded by the nature of these universe-gone-wrong stories. Having pared Wonder Woman down to the core, over time the story has to bring in all the things that were cut away over time. That’s part of making the world right again, in a long-running corporate-IP superhero comic, where “right” and “aligns with decades of established continuity, including everyone’s favorite supporting characters” means the same thing in the end.
It’s fun seeing a Wonder Woman who’s even more fire-forged using a giant-ass sword to fight monsters, but knowing that the nature of a corporate-IP comics narrative will always push towards undoing the core things that make this story different, it all feels like moving around deck chairs. “A decent enough remix of Wonder Woman lore” isn’t a high enough bar for me to be able to recommend this.
A Girl and Her Fed
Writer KB Spangler
Artist Ale Presser
This comic has several summaries and introductions, but they all seem to be in comics format, including the one in the Hugo packet and the one on the website. I can’t really reproduce those here, but you can go ahead and read them if you haven’t already. If you need a really brief version, I’ll just quote Speedy, a superintelligent genetically enhanced koala:
“This is a webcomic. The story explores what it means to be a person in a world constantly redefined by forces both of our own making and beyond our control. With dick jokes.”
There are, in fact, not all that many dick jokes in the excerpt from this long-running webcomic (first launched in 2006, with a number of hiatuses) included in the Hugo Packet.
Length and breadth and the difficulty in pulling out a reasonably complete unit of story are perennial problems with nominating long-running webcomics for the Hugos. It’s why I despair of Questionable Content ever getting nominated, for instance.
And that is an issue here. To be strictly apples-to-apples fair, for the purposes of this review I’m only going to discuss the pages of A Girl and Her Fed that were provided to Hugo voters. And while K. B. Spangler and Ale Presser present a pretty effective narrative segment of the comic considering that it’s the back half of a single chapter deeply into their story, it’s still a lot. This is very in media res. You are not going to know who most of these characters are, or their relationships, or how the story got to this point, and you’re going to need to pick all of that up from context clues. But hey, we’re SF&F, picking up the details of a world from context clues is what we do!
In short, this is a good story and good comics, but challenging to evaluate in comparison to the other finalists, all of which are either complete stories, or are planned and presented as first installments of ongoing series. That being said, there are a lot of strengths here.
I want to particularly note that this arc of A Girl and Her Fed has a fascinating speculative fiction premise. Ghosts are real (although they seem to also be at least partially powered by belief—tulpas, in the New-Age-and-related-oddball-SFF sense rather than the Actual Buddhism sense), and recently-developed cybernetic technology not only allows people to interact with them, but could potentially break down the barriers between the world of the living and the dead completely, causing massive social upheaval at best.
While several of this year’s other finalists have a genuinely speculative component (and others are purely fantastical), this one may be the one that genuinely interrogates its premise in the most science-fictional way: What will a new technology do? What are the ethics around the way it will change the world? What happens when that future, to paraphrase Gibson, is unevenly distributed? Who will benefit, and who will suffer? Is it right to impose these changes on others without their consent? Does avoiding harming those who will suffer justify doing harm to the people trying to impose the change?
For a webcomic that sold itself on talking koalas and dick jokes, that’s a real focus on philosophy, ethics, and the idea as character. That’s an achievement as a work of science fiction.
Ale Presser’s art, in a soft, cartoony style that seems inspired by modern animation, lends itself admirably to the proceedings. She shifts the characters smoothly from action to comedy, across huge swathes of emotion, from exuberant to horny to deadly serious to grieving, sometimes all on the same page. And the characters all pop, clear and visually distinct in their appearance, mannerisms, and actions. That was a real boon for someone like me who’s still figuring out who everyone is.
I was genuinely not sure what to expert from a comic called A Girl and Her Fed, and I’m delighted. Even though I just got spoiled for a whole bunch of the intervening story, I now really want to go back to the archives and get properly caught up. I very much recommend it.
The Invisible Parade
By Leigh Bardugo and John Picacio
Published by Little, Brown Books
It’s time to join the party! Adventure awaits readers of all ages on Día de Muertos in this stunningly original and lushly illustrated tour de force about family, love, and overcoming grief.
Everyone in the neighborhood was getting ready for the party.
Everyone knew somebody on the guest list . . .
This was the day the dead returned.
There’s a party tonight, but Cala doesn’t want to go. While her family prepares for the celebration, Cala grieves her grandfather and tries to pretend she’s not afraid.
But when she is separated from her family at the cemetery, Cala encounters four mysterious riders who will show her she is actually quite brave after all.
Brimming with magic and humor, The Invisible Parade is the first picture-book collaboration between award-winner John Picacio and New York Times bestselling Leigh Bardugo. Set on the night of Día de Muertos, Cala’s story is one of love, loss, and the courage that can be found in unexpected places.
Every time Hugo season comes around, I once again need to be reminded that the name of the category is Best Graphic Story and not Best Comic or Graphic Novel. I’m aware that’s a me problem, to be clear; regardless, this is the nominee this year that tests me by being on the borderline between “illustrated story” and “comic”.
I don’t want to take up too much time trying to re-litigate my definition of comics (my thoughts come up in our podcast with Free Planet co-creator and writer Aubrey Sitterson, for those who are interested) but suffice it to say there are works that fall squarely within the bounds of the comics medium and works that fall squarely within the bounds of the illustrated prose story. And then, and most appropriately in this case, there are liminal works, that rest between those two states. Because those boundaries aren’t fixed, and there are times the veil between them thins.
All of which is to say that The Invisible Parade is a story where the art and the writing are inseparable even though it’s mainly not in anything like a traditional comics format.
And the art is astonishing. Rich, vivid, full of detail, full of life (which is yes, ironic, given the subject matter), and lush. John Picacio’s art has been celebrated and acclaimed for years but the sheer beauty he brings to his depiction of the grieving living and the invisible parade of the dead is remarkable.
Bardugo’s story is deep without being overly complicated, highly suitable for children. Cala’s grief for her beloved grandfather rings perfectly true, and the way her experiences on Dia de Muertos allow her to begin to come to terms with it is honest, empathetic, and profound.
I’m sure that, given the subject matter, this book has been frequently compared to Pixar’s Coco. And no shade on Coco, but The Invisible Parade might just be better. It’s gorgeous, visually and narratively. I recommend it.
The Power Fantasy Volume 1: The Superpowers
Kieron Gillen | Writer
Caspar Wijngaard | Artist
Clayton Cowles | Letterer
Rian Hughes | Designer
Katie West | Editor
Published by Image Comics
It’s 1999. Six indescribably powerful people each have the destructive capability of America’s nuclear arsenal.
If they come into conflict, the world ends.
The Power Fantasy is a pop culture-infused, superpowered, Cold War thriller about the spying, scheming, and violence these people will do to avoid coming into open conflict.
Come dance to the ticking of the doomsday clock with KIERON GILLEN (The Wicked + The Divine, DIE) and CASPAR WIJNGAARD (Homesick Pilots, All Against All).
The eternal fight against fighting starts now.
Look, I love a good play on words. I love it even more when a good play on words leads to an idea that takes on a life of its own, beyond the initial joke. And that’s pretty clearly how the core premise of The Power Fantasy came about, right? The multiple meanings of the word “superpowers”. So, what if comic book superpowers were like real-world superpowers, complete with Mutually Assured Destruction? That’s a solid hook!
I’m also on record as being a huge fan of Kieron Gillen—specifically of DIE, which like The Power Fantasy is a work of deconstruction (albeit of role-playing games and portal fantasies, rather than superheroics).
And this is without a doubt a work that takes a speculative premise and uses it to center philosophical debate and questions of ethics, which I just effusively praised A Girl and Her Fed for doing.
So, why am I left just a little bit cold by The Power Fantasy?
I think I’m just over superheroes, and also over superhero deconstruction. Thirty years ago, twenty, even ten, I would have been all over this series. Now, it just makes me kind of sad.
I understand that irony in the title is deliberate. This is a story that takes the much-noted adolescent power fantasy of the superhero, extrapolates from it in a psychologically realistic way, and imagines a world where not only do ordinary people have to live in fear of being annihilated not just by war or climate change, but also by vastly-powerful and unaccountable superheroes. Most of the people in this world aren’t made safer by superheroes. They’re quite reasonably terrified that they might have to interact with one and be crushed like an insect. The presence of superheroes means that ordinary people don’t have power. But vitally, neither do the superheroes. They’re instead locked into the trap of mutually assured destruction, justifying any amount of collateral damage in the name of preserving an inherently unstable status quo.
It’s clever! It’s smart and thoughtful but like every attempt to deconstruct and realistically portray a world of superheroes (for, yes, certain values of realism) I find myself wondering if we should have just let Watchmen be the nail in the coffin of the genre, like Alan Moore intended. The point has been made over and over for decades: A world of superheroes would suck.
Caspar Wijngaard’s art is beautiful, but very focused on the awe, grandeur, and terror of superheroes. I admire his clarity of presentation and ability to depict hyperkinetic violence, mind-bending psionics, and world-breaking power being wielded. But much like the story, I’m left a little cold by it all. There are so few moments of humanity and warmth, both visually and narratively, and while they matter, the overall tone is so overwhelmingly bleak that they get lost.
I’m torn about how to conclude, here, because I really do admire Kieron Gillen, and this is a well-told Big Idea story that commits to its premise boldly and thoughtfully. But that same commitment makes it a hard story for me to love. I can’t say that I recommend it, but I also can’t say that I don’t recommend it. It’s a fine work and a worthy Hugo finalist that ultimately isn’t for me.
The Space Cat
Written by Nnedi Okorafor
Art by Tana Ford
Published by First Second
Invaders from outer space have descended on Nigeria. They have no idea whose home they’re messing with.
Ah, yes, the luxurious life of a well-loved cat. It’s the best. And Periwinkle has it the cushiest. But there’s more to this pampered pet than meets the eye. He’s not just a house cat. He’s a space cat. By day, he’s showered with scritches, cuddles, and delicious chicken fillets. By night, he races through the cosmos in his custom-built spaceship.
Between epic battles with squeaky toys and working on ways to improve his ship, Periwinkle is never bored. And when his humans decide to leave the United States and move to the small but bustling town of Kaleria, Nigeria, he’s excited to explore his new home―even after he learns that many Nigerians hate cats. After all, a born adventurer like Periwinkle doesn’t shy away from new experiences. But not everything in Kaleria is as it seems. Soon enough, Periwinkle finds himself on his most out-of-this-world adventure yet, right here on Earth.
There’s a long-standing practice in SFFH of writers immortalizing their own cats in prose. Nnedi Okorafor’s story about her (real-life) cat Periwinkle’s (probably not real-life) adventures is a fine thing in that tradition. Initially, the story feels a bit meandering and episodic, with general cat mischief taking up a fair share of the plot. It’s charming but also recognizably within the parameters of the Cute Pet Shenanigans genre (although even here, Okorafor brings a fun speculative and fantastical component). But it’s when Okorafor, her daughter, and Periwinkle relocate to Nigeria temporarily that the story really gets going—and becomes more than a light-hearted celebration of a beloved pet. Okorafor applies a cross-cultural lens to Periwinkle’s experiences in his new home, and the heroic cat’s ability to build friendships and alliances across many cultural divides is key to resolving what turns out to be a covert alien invasion.
Tana Ford’s art is delightful, full of dynamic and expressive layouts that help convey both comedy and action. It’s cartoony in a grounded, realistic way that sells the whimsy while also very effectively establishing people (and cats, and other animals) and essentially for this story, places. It’s easy to imagine an art style that tipped one way or the other, to the story’s detriment, but Ford’s deft hand navigates the lines adeptly.
The Space Cat is great fun. It’s big-hearted, a celebration of the joys of loving, being loved, of seeing new places, trying new things, and befriending new people. And also fighting off the occasional alien invasion. I guess if you don’t like cats it might not be for you? I like cats, I now like Periwinkle specifically, and I recommend this.
A Wizard of Earthsea: A Graphic Novel
By Ursula K. Le Guin
Adapted and Illustrated by Fred Fordham
Published by Harper Alley
Ursula K. Le Guin’s timeless and revered A Wizard of Earthsea is reimagined in a richly expansive graphic novel by acclaimed artist Fred Fordham, creator of stunning adaptations To Kill a Mockingbird and Brave New World.
Ged was the greatest sorcerer in Earthsea, but in his youth he was the reckless Sparrowhawk. In his hunger for power and knowledge, he tampered with long-held secrets and unleashed a terrible shadow upon the world. This is the tumultuous tale of his testing, how he mastered the mighty words of power, tamed an ancient dragon, and crossed death’s threshold to restore the balance.
Experience the bestselling first adventure of Ursula K. Le Guin’s Books of Earthsea as a masterly crafted graphic novel. Fred Fordham brings new life to Le Guin’s iconic fantasy classic with his breathtaking illustrations and thoughtful text adaptation.
I have to admit, I was conflicted going into this one.
As someone who sees part of my role as being an advocate for science fiction and fantasy graphic novels that I think are deserving of wider recognition, I’m always a little disappointed when an adaptation of an already-well-known classic work of prose in the genre or (as I mentioned above) a work of corporate-owned superhero IP, gets nominated for a Best Graphic Story Hugo. I know that this isn’t fair on my part, to be clear. The Hugos are about recognizing excellence in science fiction and fantasy (as determined by the voters), and there’s nothing in that mandate that means that the awards must also serve to help people discover less-well-known works that I was hoping they’d discover. This is just a case where what I want the Hugos to achieve is separate from what they’re actually for. Which is, yes, very much another “me” problem.
But the upshot is that I probably took a Hugo nomination for this adaptation of one of the greatest and most beloved works by one of our greatest and most beloved authors a little too personally.
And the really annoying thing? I was wrong. It’s great.
Fordham’s adaptation of A Wizard of Earthsea eschews every single potential pitfall of a comics-format adaptation of a classic novel; it’s clearly based in a deep love of Le Guin’s novel, but isn’t so reverential that it becomes frozen by its own sense of obligation to the source. It allows itself to be a graphic novel, and succeeds admirably as one.
The art is beautiful; fluid and alive and full of the sense of awe and beauty in the natural world and the people in it that suffuses Le Guin’s oeuvre. The pacing doesn’t suffer via the act of adaptation and while it’s been quite a while since I read the original, it honestly feels like nothing important was omitted. That’s impressive; so many comics adaptations of prose novels read like a summary. I suppose it helps that A Wizard of Earthsea is a comparatively brief novel; the graphic novel might actually have a higher page count, but that’s all to the good. Fordham had the wisdom to give his art room to breathe, to let the images take their time to unfold and speak for themselves.
While I’m still sad about some of the works original to the comics format that weren’t on the final ballot, I can’t regret the presence of A Wizard of Earthsea. It’s excellent both as an adaptation and as a graphic novel. And it’s a worthy nominee. I recommend it.
As Always, Not Really A Conclusion
I always try to look for the good in the comics and graphic novels I review, but this year it’s undeniably true that while there’s something to admire in all the Hugo finalists, not all of them are to my taste. There’s lots to consider! I haven’t decided yet how I’ll be voting (although you can probably infer a fair bit from my reviews), let alone given any thought to how other people will vote—and that kind of awards Kremlinology is a mug’s game anyway.
My hope is that, especially but not only if you’re a Hugo voter, you take full advantage of this wonderfully disparate list of finalists. I can’t wait to see what we decide and who takes home the Hugo. Happy reading and happy voting!
Disclaimer: I have no personal or professional relationships with any of the publishers or creators. I obtained copies of the nominated works for review via my public library and the Hugo Voters’ Packet.
