Comix Experience’s 50 Favorite Books, Ranked

Four years of the Graphic Novel of the Month Club, condensed into one list no algorithm could make

Comix Experience’s New Issues shelf

It can be downright intimidating when you walk into your friendly local comic book store for the first time. Each shelf is stuffed with books and finding a place to start, let alone which book to take home, can feel impossible.

Comix Experience to the rescue! San Francisco’s oldest comic book shop, a must-see for any artist traveling through the state, created the Graphic Novel Club to help pay their employees a living wage without raising prices in the store. For as little as $20, every member gets the best book of that month, voted on by Comix Experience’s founder Brian Hibbs and his talented staff of artists and comics fanatics, plus a one-of-a-kind signed bookplate and access to a member’s-only book club meeting with the artists themselves.

Each book is hand-picked by the crew at Comix Experience, producing a list no algorithm could ever come up with so you can read books you might never have known existed. Some are big hitters in the industry offering a chance to get up close and personal in a way they rarely have time for, while others might be too small, weird, or niche to break past the internet’s algorithmic gatekeepers and into your news feed.

After four years, the Club is still going strong, and in August they released their 50th book in a collection that shows everything the medium is capable of, with candid memoirs, gory horror, and thrilling superheroes served to a community of fans as diverse as the books themselves.

To commemorate the occasion, we’ve taken on the daunting task of ranking all Comix Experience’s releases, judging them against four criteria: their art, writing, innovation, and impact on us as readers. Each book represents the “Best of the Month,” so our #50 pick is almost certainly someone else’s favorite. That’s why this final list isn’t just an excellent list of books for comics veterans and newbies alike to discover, but also a celebration of Comix Experience and every artist who’s passed through it’s doors.