Noble warriors? Just rulers? Good triumphing over evil? Hah! Whether I’m cracking open a graphic novel or pondering eldritch truth held within my wizarding orb, my rule is the same: I’ll believe it when I see it. In a dark fantasy, there are no heroes. When it comes to the adventuring game, people are only in it for one thing: themselves. It’s a dragon eat dragon world out there, one where the rules are decided by whoever is holding the sword. If your idea of a good time is a graphic novel that feels more “Red Wedding” than “Bilbo’s 111th Birthday,” boy do I have a list for you. Here are the 10 best dark fantasy graphic novels around.
Monstress
Monstress by Marjorie Liu will have you Mon-stressed out. Inspired by East Asia’s bloody 20th century, this graphic novel is set in a grimdark world at war. This realm is being torn apart by a never-ending struggle for power between matriarchal sorcerers that rule the human world, and the eldritch Arcanics that can pass for people. Maika Halfwolf is an Arcanic – hunted for her magical abilities like the rest of her kind. Not content to serve as a magical battery for the ruling class, she strikes out alone on a quest to avenge her mother. Well, not entirely alone. She’s got a frenemy of sorts, a demon that lives in the stump where her left arm used to be. In order kill the monsters the did her family wrong, Maika will need to learn to embrace the beast within – before it can consume her from the inside. Don’t let the glittering art deco style fool you, this epic fantasy is as dark as they come.
Kill Six Billion Demons
Kill Six Billion Demons by Tom Parkinson Morgan is a martial arts manual, a spiritual treatise, and a sapphic romance all rolled into one. Before she was kidnapped by a runaway god, Allison Ruth was a barista whose biggest concern was loosing her virginity to her boyfriend. After being spirited away to a city at the center of the multiverse, she now has bigger fish to fry. Those fish are The Demiurges, seven tyrannical divinities that each rule 111,111 of the 777,777 universes that make up all of existence. With the help of an angelic martial arts teacher and a demonic sapphic lover, Allison will learn to embrace her budding divine power to and break the cosmic cycle of violence and suffering. If all goes well, she might even inherit the throne of God themself. Brutal, beautiful and gloriously queer, this dark fantasy is one of a kind.
Something Is Killing The Children
In case the title didn’t clue you in, James Tynion IV’s Something Is Killing The Children is set in a world where not even the most innocent of us are safe. Kids in Archer’s Peak fare about as well as children in a Stephen King novel – they tend to go missing and turn up dead. Frantic for answers, the townspeople lay the blame on a chainsaw wielding new arrival – a young woman who claims to be able to see monsters that they can’t. Erica Slaughter is an agent of the Order of Saint George, an ancient organization dedicated to eradicating monsters that are spawned from the darkest human fears. Sadly, they’re also dedicated to eradicating any humans that find out about their clandestine organization – a policy point that creates some tension between the merciful Erica and her ruthless handlers. Grim, gory, and grotesque, this novel is perfect for anyone who could stomach It.
Berserk
The poster child of dark fantasy, Kentaro Miura’s Berserk is one of the genre’s most seminal works – inspiring grimdark games like Dark Souls and Elden Ring. The story follows Guts, a linebacker sized mercenary with the sword the length of a four door sedan. Guts wanders a demon haunted world searching for a former comrade, the man who betrayed him and sacrificed his friends to demons. Armed with a dragon slayer of a blade and a repeating crossbow, Guts is 300lbs of pure, grass fed hate. He walks the dark path of vengeance, and he’ll pulverize any demon standing in the road. While the author tragically passed away before the story could be finished, his assistants have taken up the narrative torch and are seeing it through to the bitter end. Guts would be proud.
The Wicked and The Divine
The Wicked and The Divine by Kieron Gillen and Jamie McKelvie is Almost Famous mixed with ancient myth. Every ninety years, a pantheon of twelve gods is reincarnated into human form. Upon awakening, the young gods have two years to walk among mortals before dying and beginning the cycle again. Through supernatural powers, supernatural talent, and supernatural good looks, these divinities make very good use of their time. They become movers and shakers, pop stars, celebrities, idols, burning hot and bright before finally sputtering out. Like any self-respecting divine pantheon, this gaggle of gods comes with some serious family drama. When multiple lifetimes of emotional baggage combine with the pressures of fame, the results are messy, violent, and explosive.
The Last God
At the beginning of The Last God, by Phillip Kennedy Johnson, the big bad has already been defeated – the heroes won. Thirty years ago, a group of warriors claimed to have felled The God of the Void and his undead army after journeying to an alternate dimension. Problem solved! Except for the fact that the undying legions have reappeared to renew their assault on the world of Cain Anuun – sounds like we haven’t heard the last of The Last God after all. Now a new group of heroes must traverse dimensions in order to slay the dark divinity once and for all – a perfectly sensible plan. What doesn’t make sense is why the old group of heroes claimed to have killed The God of the Void when they very obviously didn’t. Somebody is playing a trick, and The Last God is having the last laugh.
Redlands
Redlands by Jordie Bellaire takes place in the darkest of dark fantasy worlds: small town Florida. The town of Redlands is ruled by a matriarchal coven of witches, who have asserted their dominion through decades of demonic sacrifice. Serving as the local law enforcement, the terrible trio maintains an uneasy peace with the average citizens. When young woman start turning up dead, the peace dies with it. A serial killer is stalking the streets of Redlands, and the vengeful spirit of one of the murdered can’t rest until her killer is found. It’s a swampy, Southern Gothic detective story steeped in feminist revenge. Like a witch’s victim, you’ll be charmed.
Through The Woods
Through The Woods by Emily Carroll is a collection of dark fantasy fairy tales that would make the Brothers Grimm proud. Five separate stories are rendered in a muted color scheme of ghastly black, grim grey, and bloody crimson – including Carroll’s viral webcomic sensation His Face All Red. These bleak fables don’t end well, just ask the main character of the novel’s most famous story. Granted, he killed his own brother, so he kind of had it coming. What he probably didn’t expect was how it came, at the hands of the sibling he thought he murdered, returned from the dead. Unless it was some kind of magical doppelgänger? In this macabre world, it’s highly plausible.
Black Magick
Black Magick by Nicola Scott is a hard boiled dark fantasy noir. The plot revolves around Rowan Black, a loose cannon detective who doesn’t play by the rules, which in this case are the laws of physics. She’s a witch, and uses her magical abilities in order to help crack cases while working her police detective day job. While she’s managed to keep this secret under wraps, someone is now targeting her – threatening to expose a fact of her existence that would have gotten her burned at the stake a few hundred years before. This tense police procedural blends magic and mundane to create a tight drama drawn in shades of morally grey.
Pretty Deadly
Pretty Deadly is a hallucinatory murder ballad – something that late career Johnny Cash would sing about while tripping balls off of discount acid. It’s the story of Deathface Ginny, the gunslinging daughter of the grim reaper himself. She can be summoned via song, and her vengeful spirit will aid anyone who has been wronged by a man. At least, that’s what the legends say. Sissy isn’t sure, she’s been traveling across the wasteland with an old man named Fox for quite some time now; she and her guardian have been trading bits of Ginny lore back and forth, but the stories seem to conflict. Little does little Sissy know, her to the legendary gunslinger might go deeper than she ever imagined – perhaps they even share a common ancestor. Who’s to say death’s daughter is an only child?
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