2026 Eisner Nominees: Teens

This post is the third in a series of three.

Last week I reviewed this year's Eisner nominees for Kids and Early Readers. Today, finally, I review the nominees for Teens (see my post of May 19 for a summary of all young readers’ categories). The voting deadline, gulp, is this Friday, June 5!

I have to say, I am very sorry not to see Ngozi Ukazu's Flip, one of last year's best graphic novels, in this category. Not to gripe, but, man, Flip is great: a body-swap story about self-loathing, self-love, class, race, gender, privilege, and a bunch of other things we may think we understand but don't, and can't, never enough. It steers into controversy but avoids cant in favor of well-earned, and delightful, characterization. It's laugh-out-loud funny yet sometimes hits like a cold slap. The plot is expertly rigged, knotted and surprising and never obvious. Ngozi is a terrific cartoonist, she knows her characters inside and out, her writing is generous, never cheap, and this is a book I'll always remember. I taught Flip this past semester, and I'll be teaching it again this fall. If you don't know it, check it out!

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Even without Flip, oof, this is a VERY hard category to judge. Every book below is good -- not just pretty good but genuinely good: distinctive, memorable, and gutsy. Most are excellent, so I've been wracking my brain trying to decide which one to vote for. This slate is historically strong, as strong a selection of graphic novels as I've ever seen in the Eisners in any category. Choosing is hard!

As a reminder, clicking on a title will take you to a publisher's page about that title. I've marked the book I think I'll end up voting for with a ♥​. But I do keep changing my mind! At the bottom, I've left a few final notes about the process. 

Trumpets of Death, by Simon Bournel-Bosson, translated from the French (Les trompettes de la mort, 2022) by Edward Gauvin (Graphic Universe/Lerner)

​Left with his grandparents in the countryside when his parents are in crisis, a young boy, Antoine, strives to avoid provoking his domineering grandfather, a skilled, obsessive, and dangerous hunter. One day, when “Grampy” and Antoine are in the woods foraging for mushrooms (black trumpets, or Craterellus cornucopioides), something inexplicable and magic-realist happens, shifting the tale into a new register: a surreal survival story and a meditation on wildness versus humanity. Bournel-Bosson’s style is compulsively detailed, his figures often grotesque, and the book is a suite of saturated colors, each new scene boasting its own palette. An enigmatic, unnerving parable.

​Angelica and the Bear Prince, by Trung Le Nguyen, color by Angela Phu, design by Bob Biachini (RH Graphic)

​Overachiever Angelica hides her griefs behind perpetual busyness, until one day she crashes. Then she starts chatting, via socials, with Peri the Bear, costumed mascot of a local theater troupe. His messages comfort her. As the troupe rehearses the fairy tale “East of the Sun and West of the Moon” (which stars a white bear), Angelica wonders, who is Peri underneath that suit? Will they click in person? Nguyen says he set out to create something “fun and frothy,” but this gorgeously cartooned romance, with its superbly written cast and multidimensional plot, wrong-footed me in the best way. Extraordinary.

​This Place Kills Me, by Mariko Tamaki and Nicole Goux, design by Andrea Miller (Abrams)

​This smart-as-hell mystery, set at a girls’ academy in the 1980s, follows Abby, an alienated misfit who reluctantly begins sleuthing after one of the school’s social butterflies winds up dead. What Abby learns unravels the school’s history and careful façade. Tamaki writes competitive young women brilliantly, with a simmering sense of classism, conformism, and the brittleness of friendship. Abby’s queerness, suspected and gossiped about by the other girls, adds a crucial layer; their skulking homophobia cuts like a knife. Goux’s expressive cartooning, done in a delicious pink-and-gray palette, is inventive, exacting, and elegant. This made my early Faves of 2025. 

​Clementine: Book Three, by Tillie Walden, grey tones by Cliff Rathburn (Skybound/Image Comics).

​The finale of Walden’s Walking Dead spinoff trilogy hits like a hammer. Somehow, its franchise origins only underscore its undiluted Walden-ness. Here, a walled-in town provides a would-be refuge from the zombie plague, a kind of utopian respite, but the vibe is anti-utopian and fierce, as rival leaders argue over what’s best. What is the price of security? What happens when you trade human vulnerability for militarized strength, openness for armored defense? Clementine, savaged by grief, wades into this trouble and begins to lose her moorings. Astringent and harrowing, then again touching, this humane thriller also made my Favorites list.

Everyone Sux but You, by K. Wroten, design by Steve Ponzo (Henry Holt Books)

​This queer romance set in the aughts depicts first love and codependency shadowed by long-suppressed grief. High-school seniors Carson and Ash are the kind of friends whose friendship seems impenetrable to everybody else. At first, I could not grasp their dialogue, but I could tell that Wroten did, and that the two fit together. Gradually, their connection turns to romance; I found myself charmed, but worried for them. The novel is structured as a mix CD of emo bands (each chapter a song) and rife with telling period details. I love the restless pages, kinetic cartooning, and teeming social background.

Hello Sunshine, by Keezy Young, design by Megan McLaughlin (Little, Brown Ink)

Alex has disappeared, a suspected runaway or victim. Three of his friends, plus his angry, guilt-haunted brother, team up to find him, and each new chapter takes a different perspective. This novel is very dense, partly due to a cramped format, partly because Young mixes literal supernatural horror with a searching depiction of schizoaffective bipolar disorder and the stigmatizing of mental illness. The cartooning is exquisite, the characterization sensitive, and the pages often stunning (the chapter that reveals Alex’s plight is a terrifying tour de force). Alas, it doesn’t quite work: the horror tropes are distracting, the rules baffling. Sigh.

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Final notes: There are seventeen books, all told, in the three young readers' categories. Over the past week and a half, I've read or reread them all. All but four I got from the Los Angeles Public Library, and believe me, that's a privilege I do not take for granted. To have access to one of the nation's largest municipal libraries, with more than seventy branches, plus a request system that can move books from any one branch to another in a matter of days, is a great gift. I've been able to do these Eisner roundups over the past three years because the Library keeps me supplied! Thank you, LAPL.

FWIW, Teens was the hardest category for me to choose a favorite in. Early Readers was a bit challenging too. Kids, for whatever reason, was easier. But all three categories include more than one book that I would be glad to see win. Teens has, I think, at least four nominees that merit Eisners.

Last year, when the dust cleared, I thought that about two-thirds of the nominees were books of historic heft: titles to be remembered over the long term. I pretty much think the same thing this year. Last year's slate included three or four of my favorite 20th-century graphic novels, and I can say the same this time. This is a great time for book-length comics, and for children's and YA comics.

If you haven't already, please, seek out all these comics and read them!

I think I'll go cast my ballot now (ironic, as I'm typing this on Election Night, June 2, though I cast my ballot for that​ some time ago!).