Small Press Expo has announced that over 200 books and comics will debut at SPX 2026. The festival takes place on Saturday and Sunday, September 12-13, at the Bethesda North Marriott Hotel & Conference Center with over 500 creators, 280 exhibitor tables, over 50 publishers, 22 programming panels and 18 hands-on workshops to introduce attendees to the amazing world of independent and small press comics.
A complete list of of the over 200 books debuting at the show, including cover images and publishing information, can be found on the SPX web site.
SPX 2026 has released a list of a highlighted selection of books debuting this year. We’ll have our “picks of the show” closer to the convention.
The Dissidents: Autocrats! Vigilantes! Communists! And Cartoonists
Abrams Books
From the award-winning author of My Friend Dahmer and Kent State, comes a timely graphic novel about racism, violence, and political turmoil in the early 20th century. A handful of cartoonists and journalists pushed back against a corrupt administration to defend the rights of free speech
Award-winning author Derf Backderf raises the bar for visual storytelling in this gripping, layered, and perceptive original graphic novel, told through the lens of the political cartoonists whose work shaped our history and also held a mirror to it.
Find The Dissidents and Derf at table W86!
I Can’t Stop Thinking About Horses and Sex
Drawn & Quarterly
From the creative mind behind Bojack Horseman and Tuca & Bertie comes a fragmented memoir — poignant, punchy, and sometimes just plain gross!
A deliciously candid and juicy exploration of platonic and romantic fixations, heartbreak, and the allure of horses.
I Can’t Stop Thinking About Horses and Sex marks the long-awaited return of Tuca & Bertie creator and BoJack Horseman producer/production designer Lisa Hanawalt to comics.
Find Lisa at table W1-5.
Brownfield Action Family #1
Revival House Press
Johnny Mansfield is struggling. No work, no motivation and within arm’s reach of rock bottom. But when he inherits his family’s abandoned martial arts studio, his problems may be solved. The only catch is, it’s in a mysterious and decaying neighborhood known as the Brownfield. And his dysfunctional family is the last thing he wants to deal with. But then, can you ever really escape your family?
Brownfield Action Family is a brand new 8-issue indie comics series written and drawn by Eisner-nominated author Ted May (Injury Comics, Men’s Feelings) and published by Revival House Press.
Find Ted May at table C6B!
With My Life
Self-published
With My Life is an intimate collection of diary comics about falling in love. Sometimes funny, sometimes painful, and always sweet, Natalie Norris captures the small moments – illustrating that the healing power of love is found in the everyday ways two people care for one another.
Find Natalie at table G6B!
Valley Valley
Frog Farm
Valley Dale and Idella Anselm are cartoonist cousins who reside in the Southern coastal town of Star Valley. Resentment contends with guilt as the two navigate stilted social interactions, zine fairs, relationship woes, and comics awards shows in this special double digest.
Double Digest! Two full comics in one big book!
Find Valley Valley from Audra Stang at table table L7!
Planet of 1000 Moons
Automation Press
Planet Of 1000 Moons follows Athena, a spacefaring, food trucking, cyborg chef, as she travels throughout the 864 moons of the dead planet Biosse, looking for exotic creatures, evading the Biosse GovCorp authorities, and traveling from moon to moon, sharing their food with hungry customers throughout the orbit.
Get Planet of 1000 Moons from Michael S. Bracco at table J9!
Who Killed Nessie?
Avery Hill Publishing
It’s Lyndsay Grockle’s first day as the manager of the Lakeview Hotel. Her boss has handed her the keys and departed for vacation. And then the convention attendees start showing up, each more peculiar than the last.
Lyndsay’s a confirmed skeptic―so she’s surprised to be woken up in the middle of the night by her convention attendees, telling her that there’s been a murder . . . of the Loch Ness Monster. The guests at the hotel are all cryptids from around the world, and now one of them is dead. Which means that one of them must be the murderer.
And it’s up to Lyndsay to solve the case!
Get Who Killed Nessie from table J1!
Leo Rising
Surely Books/Abrams
Lesbian influencer. Lifelong Alaskan. Part-time owl researcher. Leo Rising follows self-proclaimed “celesbian” Laura on a hilarious and heart-wrenching exploration of queer spaces, sexuality, and fame. After years of struggling for acceptance, Laura knows exactly who she is—or does she?
By day, Laura thrives as the Internet’s lesbian bestie, a role model for thousands of followers worldwide, while working part-time at the Alaska Bird Observatory. But when an old friend returns to town and introduces Laura to queer parties and sex apps she’s never experienced, she starts questioning her gender and sexuality simultaneously.
Seeking answers, Laura creates Leo, a secret trans identity. As Leo’s encounters become more and more steamy, Laura’s divergent identities collapse with real-world consequences.
Perfect for readers who loved the classic Dykes to Watch Out For, Genderqueer, and Bongiovanni’s debut graphic novel Mimosa, Leo Rising is a horny and hopelessly real comic about navigating queer space, both online and off, under the midnight sun.
Get Leo Rising from table J5B!
I Won’t Pretend These Missiles Are Stars
Street Noise
What does war feel like? Listen to real people on the ground in Iran. People’s lives are shattered.
An eye-opening anthology from a collective of fifteen different young writers and artists who were going about their daily lives in and around Tehran, while Israel and the United States carried out a bombing campaign to cripple the Iranian nuclear weapons capabilities.
We learn about the nightmare of trying to sleep while bombs are exploding all around you; about the struggle to rescue your beloved cat as you are evacuating your home; about the anxiety of not being able to communicate with your friends and loved ones and learn of their whereabouts; and we hear about the trauma of being forced to return to an abusive home in order to stay “safe.”
A searing and honest account of life in Tehran during the U.S. and Israeli attacks of 2025. This book was edited by two Iranian comics teachers, and we have kept all of the editors’, authors’, and artists’ identities anonymous for their safety.
Get I Won’t Pretend These Missiles Are Stars from table G1! Check out our review!
Forming
Fantagraphics Books
In Forming, Jesse Moynihan takes 50,000 years of socio-religious postulation and throws it in the blender to create one epic—and irreverent—battle royale between alien gods, Ancient Greek Titans, interplanetary assassin droids, and humanity itself. Originally begun in 2009 and garnering hundreds of thousands of followers online, Jesse Moynihan’s acclaimed Magnum Opus was never completed — until now!
Spanning Atlantis, 10,000 BC, across eons and galaxies, religions and myths, humanity emerges from the primordial soup, only to be exploited for its labor by an alien super-being, leading to wars and forces between the likes we could hardly comprehend if not given life before our very eyes via Moynihan’s breathtaking and hand-painted gouache, ink, and airbrushed pages. Forming heralds the birth of civilization and maps out the genesis of life, mass, time, and space, followed by the raging war that ensues in the universe’s years of adolescence and beyond, as the final fate of the universe unfolds.
Moynihan’s epic collision course of gods and mutants, philosophy and hilarity, mythology and psychedelia are an instant classic of cosmic comic book world building on par with Kirby and Moebius.
Get Forming from table W51-55!
Bury Me Already (It’s Nice Down Here)
Black Dog & Leventhal
In this follow-up to the acclaimed memoir Impossible People—a book about getting sober and becoming a professional artist in New York City—cartoonist Julia Wertz returns home to Northern California where she reunites with her family and rekindles a relationship with an ex-boyfriend.
After a surprise pregnancy and a marriage proposal, Julia settles (somewhat reluctantly) into a quiet life in a small town. But as 2020 approaches, her world, and the world at large, takes a sharp turn toward unexpected chaos. Through comic vignettes, essays, and diary doodles, Julia recounts the events of her pregnancy and its attendant body horror, a miscarriage, family trauma, marriage, a life-altering accident, and the joy and surprises of parenthood as it all unfolds against the backdrop of local wildfires and a global pandemic.
The result of this unconventional collection is a heart-wrenching and hilarious story of adversity, resilience, and, ultimately, love.
Get Bury Me Already from table W86-87!
