There is a veritable flood of new comics every week: new issues, variant covers, new #1s, and fresh-faced miniseries. Fewer – but still bountiful – are the dozens of bookshelf editions landing in your local comic shops (and attainable by your local indie bookshops, as well!). From fresh original graphic novels, long-awaited archive editions, and collections of recent comics for all you trade-waiters, there are plenty of trade paperbacks and hardcovers to fill your shelves.
After reviewing hundreds of these sorts of books for AIPT over the years, I’ve come to appreciate what makes a collection truly special. Here at Tradewatch, I pick five books releasing in the coming week that seem the most exciting to me. Here are my picks for the week of May 13th, 2026.
The Beast Vol. 1
Magnetic Press, HC – $24.99 (Buy Now)
Viz
Captured in the heart of Palombia by Chahuta Indians and sold to exotic animal traffickers, a marsupilami lands in the port of Antwerp in the 1950s. Managing to escape, he arrives in the suburbs of Brussels and is taken in by François, a young boy who is a fan of animals and whose daily life is far from easy. François is picked on by the local kids, particularly because his father had been a German soldier, an unforgivable crime in those postwar years; a fact he and his mother cannot escape. Both are ostracized for their connection to past events.
Marsupilami is a concept I know best from the 1993 animated series, which was based off of a Franco-Belgian comic strip by André Franquin. Despite appearing in Spirou, a magazine the Smurfs once called home, the Marsupilami strip didn’t exactly make it stateside for kids of the 1980s and ’90s to obsess over. The Beast is a much less comic strippy sort of book: drawn with a feral realness, the book pays homage to the original while also dealing with real-world concerns of animal trafficking. That sounds both brutal and rad as hell.
The Complete Hate Vol. 3
Fantagraphics, TPB – $29.99 (Buy Now)
Peter Bagge is not only one of the primary architects of the alternative comics scene that exploded in the 1980s and 1990s (alongside peers including Gilbert Hernandez, Jaime Hernandez, and Daniel Clowes), but also someone who helped fashion the aesthetics and attitudes of an entire youth movement. His comic book series, Hate, chronicled the exploits of twentysomething Buddy Bradley and his gang of lovable losers through the rise and fall of the grunge era (and eventually beyond). Bagge’s style became a part of the Gen X zeitgeist and Hate became the best-selling alternative comic of its era, with Bagge’s illustrations gracing countless album and magazine covers as well.
Hate is one of those books that I wished I was cool enough to read at the time — despite having been very young when it first appeared on the stands in 1990. Part of the indie boom that defined what cool was for an entire generation of alternative comics readers and social outcasts. Though the series was initially about 20-something insecurity, this volume focuses on its protagonist’s 30s; even cool kids get older.
DC Finest: Wonder Woman – Dawn Before Darkness
DC Comics, TPB – $39.99 (Buy Now)
Award-winning writer Gail Simone’s critically lauded run on Wonder Woman concludes in this volume leading up to the series’ monumental 600th issue. Following the events of “Rise of the Olympian”, Diana must fight for her life and her birthright after she is ousted from the Amazons by Achilles in “Warkiller”. In “A Murder of Crows”, five mysterious kids with supernatural abilities seem intent on planting seeds of mistrust against Wonder Woman. And in “Wrath of the Silver Serpent”, Diana must defend Earth from an alien invasion led by someone with close family ties.
Closing out Gail Simone’s run on the book, this Finest collection signifies the end of a period of taking stock and revitalizing a character that sometimes gets the short end of the resource stick. Simone’s take on the character saw her vital and strong, much more aligned with the Wonder Woman of the current day than the 1990s. Great art, great action, and (I assume) some strong follow-through.
The EC Archives: The Complete Extra
Dark Horse Comics, TPB – $19.99 (Buy Now)
Daring stories of cub reporters and grizzled newshounds, across the country and around the world! Collecting the complete run of Extra in a new affordable paperback edition, featuring — in fully remastered digital color — the work of comic book greats Johnny Craig, John Severin, Reed Crandall, and Marie Severin!
We stan all the old EC books here at Tradewatch, even those that we’ve never really experienced. Extra! only ran five issues back in 1955, but those issues got the same attention by comics greats as any of EC’s other books — hell, we get some work by Marie Severin in here! A book about investigative journalists doing good work and getting into trouble might be a great reminder that that storied profession was once a highly respected and necessary one.
New Avengers Modern Era Epic Collection: Secret Invasion
Marvel Comics, TPB – $54.99 (Buy Now)
The Avengers are trapped in the Savage Land, battling friend and foe, and Spider-Man heads to the one person in the entire place he knows he can trust: Ka-Zar! But is it really him? Nothing is certain, now that the Skrulls’ Secret Invasion has been exposed! There’s turmoil for Jessica Jones and Luke Cage, a major development in the life of Echo and seismic revelations on how the Skrull Empire was able to infiltrate Earth! But in the aftermath, with the alien invaders defeated, an unlikely savior takes control — and the New Avengers must deal with the consequences. Once, they were Earth’s Mightiest Heroes. Now they live in the shadows, wanted and hunted by the law — a law whose name is… Norman Osborn! Plus: In the face of Doctor Strange’s failure, the search for the Sorcerer Supreme begins!
New Avengers was required reading back in the early 2000s, if only because it lead the way from one event to the next; it was an era defined by events. These Secret Invasion and Dark Reign tie-in issues straddle the line of being too involved with events and being just barely touched by the larger Marvel melodrama. Regardless, the Bendis run on the Avengers books remains a touchstone era for the franchise.
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