Welcome to The A.V. Club’s monthly comics preview, where we recommend new books to check out over the next few weeks. This month, we’ve got seven noteworthy picks, including the relaunch of Vertigo Comics, a semifictional graphic novel about book banning, and a crime noir comedy starring the Muppets.
New Vertigo Comics debuts by various (weekly)
Vertigo Comics was a groundbreaking imprint in American comics, bringing alternative voices to the mainstream via the reach and resources of DC Comics. With its mix of original concepts and mature reinterpretations of DC superheroes, Vertigo was a major force in the industry until the departure of founder Karen Berger in 2013, gradually losing steam over the years until it was discontinued in 2020. You can’t keep a good brand down, though, and Vertigo Comics is back from the dead under the leadership of executive editor Chris Conroy, who has helped DC undergo a creative renaissance in recent years as the editor of the publisher’s Black Label and Absolute lines.
All four of February’s Vertigo titles feature creative teams who have worked together in the past and have proven chemistry. The new Vertigo premieres with the return of James Tynion IV, Álvaro Martínez Bueno, and Jordie Bellaire’s The Nice House By The Sea (Vertigo Comics), kicking off the second half of the miniseries about two groups of human who survive the end of the world by becoming guinea pigs for an alien race. The next week, writer Deniz Camp and artist Stipan Morian of 20th Century Men team up with colorist Matt Hollingsworth to offer their take on the zombie narrative with Bleeding Hearts (Vertigo Comics), transporting readers to a world where the undead have developed their own society and culture. When one zombie’s heart begins to beat again, he gains empathy for his human prey and starts to view them as friends rather than food.
Writer Kyle Starks and artist Steve Pugh brought exhilarating action comedy to Peacemaker Tries Hard!, and they continue in that mode with End Of Life (Vertigo Comics), following an on-the-run assassin who goes into hiding in his hometown. With colors by Chris O’Halloran, the series forces the killer to confront his old relationships with friends, lovers, and his hard-ass father that is dying of cancer. Finally, That Texas Blood writer Chris Condon and artist Jacob Phillips merge crime noir with Indiana Jones-style archaeological adventure in The Peril Of The Brutal Dark: An Ezra Cain Mystery (Vertigo Comics). Detective Ezra Cain is on the hunt for a stolen ancient artifact in 1941 New York City, a case that puts him in the middle of a plot to overthrow the United States.
February is just the beginning for the new Vertigo, and there are six more debuts coming this year from established creative teams, including the return of 100 Bullets and a murder mystery from the Eisner Award-winning team behind Laura Dean Keeps Breaking Up With Me.
The Peril Of The Brutal Dark: An Ezra Cain Mystery; Bleeding Hearts; End Of Life (Images: Vertigo Comics)
Mama Came Callin’ by Ezra Claytan Daniels and Camilla Sucre (February 3)
After a big breakthrough with his 2010s graphic novels, Upgrade Soul and BTTM FDRS, writer Ezra Claytan Daniels jumped over to TV to work on shows like Prime Video’s White Sky, HBO Max’s Doom Patrol, and the much-anticipated third season of Apple TV’s Severance. Daniels returns to comics with Mama Came Callin’ (William Morrow Paperbacks), a horror story set in the Florida bayou with art by Camilla Sucre. Daniels and Sucre combine family drama with urban legend as they detail a biracial woman’s traumatic childhood experience with the “Gatorman,” a half-man, half-gator monster with a taste for Black children. Kirah’s father went to prison after she was seemingly attacked by the Gatorman at five years old, and 20 years later, her father is released with a warning that the supernatural predator is still out to get her. It’s a juicy conflict to explore with a lot of layers, tapping into racial dynamics to craft a psychological thriller that speaks to the historical oppression of Black Americans.
Mama Came Callin’ (William Morrow Paperbacks)
Wake Now In The Fire by Jarrett Dapier and AJ Dungo (February 3)
There’s a fascinating cyclical quality to Wake Now In The Fire (Ten Speed Graphic). It’s a graphic novel about the real-life banning of a graphic novel, Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis, in Chicago Public Schools in 2013, written by one of the librarians who exposed information about the banning, drawn in a style that evokes Satrapi’s work, and released at a time when book banning has reached new extremes in the U.S. Writer Jarrett Dapier uses real-life interviews with students and teachers to craft this semifictional story about a group of high schoolers who fight the censorship, organizing a school walk-out and library sit-in while broadcasting their message across traditional and social media. AJ Dungo’s artwork maintains the journalistic quality of the narrative with grounded visuals that do a great job capturing the youth of the characters. These are teens discovering the power they have to enact change when they work together, and this graphic novel helps young readers understand the ways that they can organize and mobilize to fight for a shared cause.
Wake Now In The Fire (Image: Ten Speed Graphic)
Muppets Noir #1 by Roger Langridge and Dearbhla Kelly (February 18)
2026 marks the 50th anniversary of the Muppets, and in February, they’re back on TV and back on the comics page. Muppets Noir #1 (Dynamic Comics) sees the license jump over to Dynamite after stints at Boom! and Marvel, but one thing has stayed consistent across all three publishers: cartoonist Roger Langridge, whose skills with joke writing, character acting, and comic timing make him a perfect match for the puppet property. This new series is a classic Muppets genre parody, hitting Kermit the Frog in the head with a brick backstage to send him into the noir-inspired Dreamland, where he is the hard-boiled detective Flip Minnow searching for wealthy heiress Meringue Crustworth. Colorist Dearbhla Kelly accentuates the noir atmosphere by presenting the environments in black and white while the Muppets remain in color. Now Dynamite just needs to get those old Langridge Muppets stories back in print, ideally in a digest format that will help them reach the audience of younger readers that has grown drastically since the comics were originally published.
Muppets Noir #1 (Image: Dynamic Comics)