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 June 3rd, 2026.
Batman Vol. 1: Daylight
DC Comics, TPB – 19.99 (Buy Now)
A new day dawns in Gotham City as Eisner Award-winning writer Matt Fraction (Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen, Hawkeye) joins forces with superstar artist Jorge Jimenez (Justice League, Superman) for a timeless, superhero-forward take on the Caped Crusader loaded with a new costume, a new Batmobile, new gadgets, new allies, and brand-new threats.
A fresh reboot of the series, the new Batman has a shine to it. Jiminez’s art and the incredible colors of Tomeu Morey make the book pop in a, well, pop way. With a character so often sunk into shadows and dark palettes, it’s fun to see a bright, adventury sort of take on the character. A lot of classic villains, a lot of intrigue, and some real ‘fuck the police’ sort of energy.
Billy Bat, Vol. 1
Abrams Books, TPB – $13.99 (Buy Now)
It’s 1949 Los Angeles, and Kevin Yamagata, a Japanese American comic book author, is drawing his bestselling character, Billy Bat: a quick-witted detective who is, unsurprisingly, a cartoon bat. Everything is going well for Kevin until he discovers an unfortunate truth: He may have unintentionally plagiarized his beloved character from a drawing he once saw in Japan. Devastated by the news, Kevin returns to war-torn Japan to find the drawing’s original artist . . . but the character’s origins turn out to be far older and more perplexing than he had ever imagined.
matttttttt over on YouTube has a great video breaking down why the English translation and American publication of this book is so exciting, so I’ll direct you there rather than trying to shoehorn all the information here, but the short of it is this: Urasawa is a storied Manga creator with numerous classics already under his belt, and Billy Bat is a sort of cartoonist crime drama that blends genre fiction with the deep fascination of a master on his craft. Picture a Disney Vs Ub Iwerks situation, but it ends up bloody. That sounds truly great to me.
Saga Deluxe Edition Book Four
Image Comics, HC – $49.99 (Buy Now)
After the most shocking tragedy of her young life, Hazel and her star-crossed family embark on an emotional new adventure, one that takes them to a few unexpected corners of the universe. Collecting eighteen issues, including the storyline that won the title’s second Hugo Award, this deluxe edition features a striking, all-new original cover from Fiona Staples, as well as exclusive extras, including a gallery of never-before-seen Saga artwork from some of Fiona and Brian’s favorite creators.
The outright size of Saga might be a barrier to entry for some new readers; it’s a hefty endeavor, with seventy-two issues released over the last fourteen years. Despite being a very easy series to read — the book sweeps you up and carries you off — the gathering of such a book becomes a chore in itself. These massive hardcovers are an easy entry point to that chore. This fourth volume, which contains eighteen issues, takes us right up to that seventy-second issue. Four big ol’ hardcovers and you’re ready to read the whole adventure.
Superman: Red Son – DC Compact Comics Edition
DC Comics, TPB – $9.99 (Buy Now)
In this startling twist on a familiar tale, a certain Kryptonian rocket ship crash-lands on Earth, carrying an infant who will one day become the most powerful being on the planet. But his ship doesn’t land in America. He is not raised in Smallville, Kansas. Instead, he makes his new home in a collective in the Soviet Union!
This is a book whose simple premise seems hard-baked into the zeitgeist (despite only debuting 20 years ago): what if Superman, but somewhere else? Elseworlds stories are full of such simple questions; The Nail asks what would happen if the Kents got a flat tire and Superman went undiscovered. A change in discovery or location — a question of who, if anyone, raises the most powerful man on earth — would radically alter the course of the world. This story perfectly exemplifies that conceit.
The Visions: Marvel Premier Collection
Marvel Comics, TPB – $14.99 (Buy Now)
The android Avenger known as the Vision wants to be human — and what’s more human than family? So he heads back to the beginning — to the laboratory where Ultron created him as a weapon. The place where he first rebelled against his destiny and imagined that he could be more — that he could be a man. There, he builds them. A wife, Virginia. Teenage twins, Viv and Vin. They look like him. They have his powers. They share his grandest ambition (or obsession): the unrelenting need to be ordinary. Behold the Visions! Theirs is a story of togetherness and tragedy — one that will set the former Avenger on course for a devastating confrontation with Earth’s Mightiest Heroes.
The earliest of the “Tom King takes an underutilized character and deconstructs them” books, Vision is a masterclass in rediscovering a character. Vision never went away, but it could be argued that the character lost a lot of forward momentum after his heydey with Scarlet Witch in the 1980s; this book injects human soul and pathos into the character, introduces a family for him to care about, and wonderfully goes off the rails into dark, what-is-a-soul type of territory. It’s a masterpiece that deserves as many one-and-done collections as it can get.
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