Halloween may only come once a year, but perfect Halloween comics are published year-round. Spooky premises, ghoulish creatures, frights, scares, and maybe even some glimpses into the depths of your own deepest fears—these are what make for a great Halloween season read. The comics and graphic novels on this list are some of the best to fit the season’s feeling published throughout 2021 for young adults and middle-grade readers. Some of the Halloween comics star ghosts, others feature witches, but they all feel perfectly at home in Spookytime.
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Forever Home
Publisher: BOOM! Studios imprint KaBOOM!
Creative Team: Jenna Ayoub
In Forever Home, Willow has had to move every two years her whole short life. Her parents are in the military, and unlike other kids, she has never felt like she was from anywhere or had a real home. But her parents promise this move is the last and that the Hadleigh House will be their forever home. However, the house’s resident ghosts would like to see things go differently.
Lumberjanes Volume 18
Publisher: BOOM! Studios imprint BOOM! Box
Creative Team: Shannon Watters, Kat Leyh, Kanesha C. Bryant, Julia Madrigal, Maarta Laiho, and Aubrey Aiese
Lumberjanes Volume 18 collects issues 69-72 of the Eisner Award-winning series about the campers of Miss Quinzella Thiskwin Penniquiqul Thistle Crumpet’s Camp for Hardcore Lady Types. The summer is starting to come to an end. But first, Mal, Ripley, Molly, April, and Jo must serve a punishment for carving their names into a tree. Camp director Rosie takes the girls out into the woods to do some forest maintenance and clear some dead trees. But instead, they find an invasive species menacing the forest. Fortunately, Abbigail is there to help when the going gets tough. Meanwhile, Molly is in possession of an old Lumberjane’s journal, through which a secondary story is told.
Mamo
Publisher: BOOM! Studios imprint BOOM! Box
Creative Team: Sas Milledge
Mamo is your new obsession. The gorgeous comic follows Jo as she searches for the Witch of Haresden to help cure her mother of a curse and release the whole town. Reluctantly, the Witch agrees only to encounter some personal troubles of her own.
ParaNorthern: And the Chaos Bunny A-hop-calypse
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Creative Team: Stephanie Cooke and Mari Costa
ParaNorthern: And the Chaos Bunny A-ho-aclypse is a wonderful story about a group of loving and supportive friends in a Halloweentown-esque world populated by all stripes of witches, wolf people, ghosts, and pumpkin-heads. As our main character, a young witch named Abby, finds herself out of touch with her magic and accidentally unleashing a portal into her world, she relies on the support of her friends and family to make things right again.
Secrets of Camp Whatever
Publisher: Oni Press
Creative Team: Chris Grine
Secrets of Camp Whatever is an original graphic novel by Chris Grine published by Oni Press. This nearly 300-page graphic novel tells the story of Willow, whose family just moved to a strange new town. Wil is going to spend the summer at the same strange camp on a fog-shrowded island that her dad went to as a kid, Camp… Whatever.
Specter Inspectors
Publisher: BOOM! Studios imprint BOOM! Box
Creative Team: Bowen McCurdy, Kaitlyn Musto, and Jim Campbell
Perhaps my favorite series on this list, Specter Inspectors follows four friends as their attempt to produce a ghost-hunting webshow turns into demonic possession and a quest to uncover the secrets of the most haunted town. Come for the story, stay for the wonderful queer and familial relationships.
Sprite and the Gardener
Publisher: Oni Press
Creative Team: Rii Abrego, Joe Whitt, and Crank!
Sprite and the Gardener is a beautiful children’s graphic novel, the story of Wisteria, a new sprite in the neighborhood, as she learns the magic of teamwork and change.
Whistle: A New Gotham City Hero
Publisher: DC Comics
Creative Team: E. Lockhart, Manuel Preitano, Gabby Metzler, and ALW’s Troy Peteri
Whistle: A New Gotham City Hero is a graphic novel from DC Comics written by E. Lockhart, illustrated by Manuel Preitano, colored by Gabby Metzler, and lettered by ALW’s Troy Peteri. Willow is a passionate teenager who loves her city, Gotham, and particularly its historically Jewish neighborhood. She also loves her mother, who has been going through tough cancer treatments keeping her out of work and forcing Willow to take more and more shifts at the local dog shelter to make ends meet. Everything changes for Willow, though, when she reconnects with her mom’s old friend, E. Nigma.
There is no shortage of great Halloween comics for readers of young adult and middle-grade age this year. Be sure to check them all out and more via our affiliate link at ComiXology.com
