2025: Graphic Memoir Year in Review
Interviews, Discoveries, and Reflections From My Graphic Memoir Journey
What a year it’s been. Nearly 100 articles written, a new Substack launched, and conversations with comics creators from every corner of the globe—UK, Canada, the US, Germany, Sweden, Serbia, France, Belgium, Singapore, Brazil, and more.
The highlight of my year sits outside my blog. One of my favourite podcasts is The Virtual Memories Show, hosted by Gil Roth. Over the past decade, Gil has interviewed some of the greatest living comic creators in the English-speaking world, and he has been a genuine inspiration to me. Earlier this year, I created a tribute piece compiling 182 quotes from 67 of Gil’s past guests, a curated deep dive into the craft, philosophy, and evolution of comics. In November, when Gil was in London, we met in person, and within a minute of shaking hands, we were already recording, classic Gil. Appearing on the podcast myself (Episode 667), and talking through my own comics journey, felt surreal, especially knowing I was following in the footsteps of figures like Chris Ware, Daniel Clowes, Adrian Tomine, and Carol Tyler.
Remembering Rachel Cooke
The UK comics community suffered a profound loss with the death of Rachel Cooke in November at the age of 56. As the writer behind The Guardian’s “Graphic Novel of the Month,” she played a pivotal role in bringing comics and graphic novels into the mainstream not just in the UK, but internationally. I heard her chair a panel as recently as April. During the Q&A, I asked how she selected books for the column. She explained that she chose works she believed would resonate with The Guardian’s wider readership, rather than selecting titles solely for the inward-facing comics community. Her absence leaves a significant void in comics journalism.
Substack
Encouraged by Anna Olswanger, the New Jersey–based literary agent and author of A Visit to Moscow, I launched my Substack. It has quickly become a vital space for making new connections and sharing deeper explorations of the comics medium.
Comics Exhibitions
As in previous years, I’ve tried to attend as many exhibitions as possible and 2025 has been no different. Highlights include:
New York: Peter Kuper’s Insectopolis at the Society of Illustrators and the New Yorker’s 100th Anniversary “Commentary on the Commute” Exhibition at Grand Central.
Los Angeles: Jack Kirby: Heroes and Humanity at the Skirball Cultural Center, a powerful survey of Kirby’s imaginative legacy.
Basel: My third visit to the Cartoonmuseum for Alison Bechdel: The Essential, a career-spanning retrospective from Dykes to Watch Out For to Fun Home.
Wiesbaden, Germany: I Will Not Be Silent! at the Kunsthalle, featuring WWII-themed work by Nora Krug, Hannah Brinkmann, Tobi Dahmen, and Birgit Weyhe.
Paris: Emil Ferris’s extraordinary original pages from the forthcoming sequel to My Favorite Thing Is Monsters at Galerie Martel.
London: Stories of Migration at SOAS Gallery, where I met curator Dr. Ben Dix and discussed Vanni, his graphic novel about the Sri Lankan Civil War. Alex exhibition at the Chris Beetles Gallery, celebrating the long-running satirical strip.
London Events
I attended several high-profile launches and briefly met industry giants:
Alison Bechdel — Delivered a solo lecture at Foyles Bookshop in London, including readings from Fun Home and her new book Spent.
Craig Thompson took part in an in-conversation event with Paul Gravett at the Century Club, discussing his body of work, including his latest masterpiece, Ginseng Roots.
Joe Sacco was interviewed by Times correspondent Anthony Lloyd at the Frontline Club about his career and his new book Once Upon a Riot, which explores India.
Reinhard Kleist —There was an event at the Century Club in May to celebrate Kleist’s new book, Low: David Bowie’s Berlin Years (with thanks to Tennessee Le Du for her reporting on the event).
Hayley Gullen — launched her debut graphic memoir, This Might Surprise You: A Breast Cancer Story, at London’s Barts Pathology Museum. The book combines honesty, humour, and creativity to explore her cancer journey, the patient experience, and the power of comics to convey complex emotions, while reflecting on her relationship with the NHS and creating the resource she wished had existed when diagnosed.
Interviews
This year, I interviewed over 40 creators, including established comic artists, debut authors, illustrators, and even some academics. More than half of these conversations focused on WWII-related stories. I visited Poland for the first time, exploring Warsaw, Kraków, and Auschwitz-Birkenau. In preparation, I read four graphic novels that profoundly deepened my understanding of history, survival, and resistance: Rutu Modan’s The Property, Joe Kubert’s Yossel: April 19, 1943, JD Morvan and Mater’s Adieu Birkenau, and Pascal Croci’s Auschwitz.
Graphic Memoirs: Understanding Personal History
In the following conversations, I spoke with creators about graphic memoirs that draw on either their own personal history or the experiences of parents, grandparents, or wider family.
Rick Parker (Maine) — Drafted: his memoir detailing his service in the US Army during the 1960s. (Rick kindly sent me some original artwork afterward, which I will treasure!)
Carl Sciacchitano (New York) — The Heart That Fed: exploring the long shadow of his father’s service in Vietnam and the complexities of the veteran experience.
Martin Lemelman (Pennsylvania) — Mendel’s Daughter: Lemelman shared how he interviewed his mother about her harrowing survival in Nazi-occupied Poland and transformed her story into this acclaimed graphic memoir, named one of the “10 Greatest Graphic Novels of All Time” by Entertainment Weekly and translated into multiple languages.
Solomon J Brager (New York) - spoke about Heavyweight, their powerful graphic memoir that weaves Jewish identity, archival discoveries, and their family’s unexpected boxing history into a reflection on inherited trauma and Holocaust memory.
Michael Cherkas (Toronto) — Red Harvest: The Terror Famine in Soviet Ukraine: a haunting account of the Holodomor and the man-made famine of the 1930s.
Cary Fagan (Toronto) — We discussed Maurice and His Dictionary, his retelling of his father’s WWII escape from Belgium to Jamaica. He collaborated with illustrator Enzo Lord Mariano to bring this family story to light.
Carol Isaacs (London) — The Wolf of Baghdad: recounting her family’s memories of their lost Iraqi homeland and the vanished Jewish community of Baghdad.
Lena Wolf (London) — We discussed May The Universe Be Your Home!, her graphic memoir about the erased history of ethnic Germans deported under Stalin. Wolf spoke about reclaiming her family’s story and how collaborating with illustrator Christoph Heuer helped bring its emotional and historical depths to life.
Crispin Green (London) — I spoke with Crispin Green about Meeting Trouble Half Way, his graphic novel inspired by his grandparents’ experiences in the Spanish Civil War. He shared how uncovering a forgotten family story led him to paint the book by hand and use fiction to explore memory and loss.
Miriam Gold (London) — Elena: A Hand-Made Life: a vibrant tribute to her grandmother, a Holocaust survivor who became a pioneering GP in the North of England.
Hannah Brinkmann (Hamburg) — Following my visit to the I Will Not Be Silent! exhibition in Wiesbaden, where I discovered Hannah Brinkmann’s work, I had the opportunity to interview her about her graphic novels. We discussed her powerful WWII-themed books, Gegen mein Gewissen and Zeit heilt keine Wunden, which explore family tragedy, judicial injustice, and Germany’s postwar history with meticulous research.
Stefanie Fischer & Kim Wünschmann (Berlin/Hamburg) — Oberbrechen: A German Village Confronts Its Nazi Past investigates how ordinary citizens interacted with the Nazi regime. Fischer, who encountered graphic histories during a fellowship at Oxford University, contributed her scholarly expertise, while Kim Wünschmann, who has a family connection to Oberbrechen, grew up in the village and confronted her own family’s role during the Nazi era, which informed her perspective in co-authoring the book.
Joanna Rubin Dranger (Sweden) — Remember Us to Life: uncovering her family’s “hidden” history and the fate of relatives during the Holocaust.
Olga Lavrentieva (Saint Petersburg. Russia) — Survilo: a tragic account of her grandmother’s life during the Siege of Leningrad.
Flore Balthazar (Brussels, Belgium) — The Wolves of La Louvière, set in Nazi-occupied Belgium, explores themes of collaboration and resistance, drawing on her family’s own experiences.
WWII Stories testimony
The following conversations focus primarily on WWII, capturing the stories of individuals beyond the creators’ own families.
Miriam Libicki (Vancouver) — But I Live: Three Stories of Child Survivors of the Holocaust, created in collaboration with David Schaffer, and her forthcoming memoir Two Roses, with Rose Lipszyc, recounts survival by passing as a Polish Catholic alongside her aunt, also named Rose.
Kathryn Shoemaker (Vancouver) — Collaborated with the late Holocaust survivor Irene N. Watts on the WWII/Kindertransport trilogy, including Seeking Refuge.
Dilleen Marsh (Salt Lake City, Utah) — Hidden: A True Story of the Holocaust, illustrating Kati Preston’s experience as a “hidden child” in Hungary.
Terry Eisele (Columbus, Ohio) — Eisele told me that he had the rare privilege of hearing Czech Holocaust survivor Anna Nesporová’s story directly from her. He turned the story into a Graphic Memoir With Only Five Plums a testament not just to Anna’s survival, but to the power of listening.
Victoria Stebleva (Serbia) — Stebleva told me about illustrating Peter Lantos’s The Boy Who Didn’t Want to Die, presenting Bergen-Belsen from a child’s perspective.
Boris Golzio (Lyon, France) — Resisted, Arrested, Deported recounts Francine R.’s journey as a French resistance fighter through the camps. What began as a simple recording of her testimony gradually evolved into a full graphic novel.
Adaptations / Localized WWII Stories
The following conversations are with creators who took primarily WWII-related themes and transformed them into fictional adaptations, often rooted in their own localities.
Loïc Dauvillier (France) — Hidden: A Child’s Story of the Holocaust, a tender account of a grandmother sharing her survival story.
Anna Olswanger (New Jersey) - discussed the creation of A Visit to Moscow, inspired by Rabbi Rafael Grossman’s 1965 trip to the Soviet Union. She collaborated closely with illustrator Yevgenia Nayberg to convey memory, silence, and historical tension. The resulting work, resonating with both younger and adult readers, earned critical acclaim and an Eisner Award nomination for Best Adaptation. While not a WWII story, it explores the legacy of post-war Russia and how Jews had to conceal their identity.
Maria van Lieshout (San Francisco, California) — Song of a Blackbird, inspired by the Nazi occupation of Amsterdam and the underground resistance.
Matt Faulkner (Michigan) — Gaijin and My Nest of Silence, exploring the injustice of Japanese American internment during WWII.
Renato Dalmaso (São Paulo, Brazil) — Elsio, the story of Brazilian Expeditionary Force (FEB) soldiers in the Italian campaign.
Danny Jalil (Singapore) — Lieutenant Adnan and the Last Regiment, detailing the heroic defence of Singapore.
Cheah Sinann (Singapore) — After my wife met Sinann in Singapore, I revisited his graphic novel The Bicycle—a moving, elegantly drawn story about the Japanese occupation and the buried memories it stirs.
WWII Stories — Graphic History
Most of the interviews focused on personal stories, though two works explored broader, well-known historical events.
John Hendrix (St. Louis, Missouri) — The Faithful Spy: Dietrich Bonhoeffer and the Plot to Kill Hitler, a visual biography of the pastor who resisted the Nazis.
Jonathan Fetter-Vorm (Montana) — Trinity: A Graphic History of the First Atomic Bomb. Fetter-Vorm’s fascination with atomic history began with childhood stories from his grandfather, who worked as a welder at the Hanford site, one of the secret facilities tied to the Manhattan Project.
Comics Biographies
I interacted with the following creators who produced biographies of notable figures:
Eric Orner (New York) — I met Orner in a London café to discuss Smahtguy: The Life and Times of Barney Frank, a vibrant biography of the trailblazing congressman.
Jon Macy (New York) — A comics biography of modernist writer Djuna Barnes, author of Nightwood.
Ian Marsden (Montpellier, France) — Biography of composer Marvin Hamlisch. I also spoke with Marsden about the feedback Robert Crumb gave on the book, a remarkable story in its own right.
Elettra Stamboulis (Ravenna, Italy) — Zodiac, a graphic memoir of Chinese artist and human rights activist Ai Weiwei, exploring the challenge of translating a complex, defiant life into sequential art.
Steve Weiner (Massachusetts) — Steve kindly contributed a guest post on Art Spiegelman’s documentary Disaster is My Muse. I also reviewed Weiner’s extraordinary comics biography of Will Eisner, created with the excellent Dan Mazue—truly one of the books of the year!
Steffen Kverneland (Oslo, Norway): I visited the Munch Musum which gave me an opportunity to review Kverneland’s bold, experimental comics biography of Edvard Munch.
October 7th Stories
It has been two years since the tragic events of October 7, 2023. I interviewed three creators who shared graphic novels and memoirs reflecting on those events.
Danielle Peleg (Tel Aviv) — Contributed to the anthology The Day Everything Changed, capturing the Mathias family’s experience of the October 7th attack with empathy and emotional truth.
Omri Rose (Tel Aviv) — Co-creator of Echoes of October, a graphic novel following four perspectives—a Jewish Israeli, a Druze Israeli, a Gazan Palestinian, and a Canadian Christian volunteer—offering empathetic, multi-perspective stories of the events leading up to October 7, 2023.
Tom Levy (San Diego, California) — I met Tom at his La Jolla home to discuss in depth The Boomer Archaeologist, a graphic memoir weaving together personal identity, archaeology, and reflections on the Holy Land. He also shared his thoughts on the aftermath of October 7th.
Modern Stories
Graham Chaffee (Los Angeles) — to discuss Light It, Shoot It and his earlier To Have and To Hold, both noir-infused graphic novels capturing crime, grit, and the texture of 1960s–70s urban life.
ILYA (London) —the British comics creator behind Room for Love, discussed his latest book Romo the WolfBoy, reflecting on his eclectic career, artistic influences, and the evolving possibilities of the graphic novel. Romo the WolfBoy marks a bold, all-ages adventure that blends raw visual storytelling with mythic and experimental comics traditions.
Makee (New York) — Call Me Emma, a moving account of her teenage immigration from China to the US.
Alba Ceide (London) — Met Spanish artist Alba Ceide, who told me about her Overlap anthology and speculative graphic novel Salamanca Blues, exploring comics as both creative process and experimental storytelling.
Jonathan Baylis (New York) — I didn’t interview Baylis in person, but we corresponded about his anthology series So Buttons. I was also in touch with several creators I had featured previously on the blog, including Tony Wolf, Tim Ogline, Karl Krumpholz, and Rachelle Meyer, to discuss his approach to anthologies. This post became one of my most viewed of the year!
Graphic Medicine
Elly Teman (Tel Aviv) — Zoom conversation on A Tale of Two Surrogates, co-authored with Zsuzsa Berend and illustrated by Andrea Scebba. The book transforms decades of research on surrogacy into a compelling graphic ethnography, blending rigorous scholarship with immersive visual storytelling across Israel, the U.S., and beyond.
JT Yost (New York)— We met in NYC and he shared his 2017 anthology Bottoms Up! True Tales of Hitting Rock Bottom (Birdcage Bottom Books). He discussed editing and contributing to this deeply personal comics collection on addiction, featuring 44 North American indie artists.
Looking Ahead
Looking ahead to 2026, I hope to continue with more interviews as well as returning to creating some of my own comics.
Happy Holidays and here’s to an exciting 2026!
Article by Jonathan Sandler, Author of THE ENGLISH GI: WORLD WAR II GRAPHIC MEMOIR OF A YORKSHIRE SCHOOLBOY’S ADVENTURES IN THE UNITED STATES AND EUROPE published in April 2022.
Caught your interview with Gil Roth and was impressed . Although I subscribed to your blog I haven’t as yet dived in , however reading this end of year review I am again impressed and have promised myself to stop slacking and read these marvelous interviews your doing. Thanks and happy holidays to you.