hugo award 2026 best graphic story
ranking these in reverse order. bottom three are pretty interchangeable here.
6. A Girl and Her Fed
This is not really the nominee's fault, but this being a year's worth of webcomic means its utterly incomprehensible. I'm not necessarily opposed to works that only make sense if you've read the rest being nominated, but I think it's fair to not require voters to backread. This has a large cast, is clearly delivering on several plot threads, and also seems to be a wacky highjinks kinda thing that grew a serious plot at a guess, which makes it tonally baffling absent context. Also not really in the mood for protagonist US president at the moment.
5. Space Cat
I am maybe being a bit unfair here, since I read this directly after reading (and disliking) the writer's Hugo-nominated novel. This was... fine? I suppose. Cat goes on adventures is a time-honored cute story hook. I have no strong feelings here.
4. The Invisible Parade
This is an illustrated children's book. What are we even doing here.
Ok, putting that aside, the art is gorgeous, the story is nice and well written, I would absolutely give this to a five year old. It's just I feel we could aim a little higher? This is ranked above the previous two because I have positive emotions about it.
3. Absolute Wonder Woman
Hell yeah! This was cool, a neat alternate take on Wonder Woman. This book pretty much covers her origins so I have less of a sense of the overall plot, and to be frank most of the main timeline of this is fairly generic edgy comic book to my eye (though featuring an excellent escalating series of monsters). What really shines is the (extensive) backstory provided for Diana, in this alternate world where the Amazons were wiped out long ago and she is instead raised by Circe. Some interesting angles on Greek mythology here.
These last two were a toss-up for me, and that was a surprise since I'd kinda assumed The Power Fantasy would win my rankings in a walk.
2. The Power Fantasy, Volume 1
What is there to say about The Power Fantasy? It's a favorite on tumblr (at least in my circles), something I read monthly, and the only recent american graphic novel I own. It's a glorious superhero deconstruction with a strong central metaphor that it uses to look at a half dozen different ways of interacting with the world. Other people can sell it better than I'm doing here.
For reference, Volume 1 collects issues 1-5, which cover Etienne and Valentina's conversation on ethics, Heavy and The Atomic Family, Valentina's backstory, Masumi's art show, and Jacky Magus' backstory.
1. A Wizard of Earthsea: The Graphic Novel
This book was an unexpected and stunning delight. I've read Earthsea before: in fact right before this I had listened to the audiobook version over some long drives with my partner. The graphic novel adaption preserves the greatness of the book: basically all text comes directly from the novel, with only slight changes to allow for format like switching some narration to dialogue. It also manages a shockingly thorough adaptation: the only significant shortenings I noticed were with Pechverry and with Osskil.
But the real strength of this book is the art, which is done in gorgeous watercolors. They handle well the characters and the moments which need to be striking, but the particular strength is the setting, from the mountains of Gont to the port of Roke, and first and foremost to the sea. They seem to have found an artist who has a genius for ocean watercolors, for the silhouette of a boat and the vast blanket of stars. I've read Earthsea many times: I felt it most here.
Read this graphic novel.
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