The Guardian’s Best Graphic Novels of 2023 list features three D+Q titles!

Comics have always been interested in the strangeness that lurks beneath everyday life, and many of 2023’s best graphic novels dig into weird places. Why Don’t You Love Me? follows a couple struggling through parenthood and blagging their way in baffling jobs. British cartoonist Paul B Rainey builds his story from bleakly humorous page-long strips, while the larger question – how, exactly, did these absurdly underqualified people get to where they are? – slowly moves into focus, giving his inventive drama a real emotional weight.

There’s drama aplenty in Roaming by Jillian Tamaki and Mariko Tamaki, which follows three Canadian students on a trip to New York City. They encounter grumpy gallery workers and Times Square hustlers, scoff pizza, try on clothes and bicker. It’s a fizzing, brilliantly observed tale of the kind of youthful city break that might only last days but can echo for a lifetime.

Roaming is set in 2009, with social media not yet quite everywhere, but French manga fan Léa Murawiec’s The Great Beyond translated by Aleshia Jensen, tells of a near future where “presence” is essential for survival. Lack of social exposure leaves Manel close to death until she’s involved in a fracas that goes viral. This fun satire is distinguished by its wonderfully fluid artwork: a startling geometry of soaring tower blocks, teeming streets and outstretched limbs.