Dark Horse Penguin Picks: November 2025

Above-the-Board Recommendation:

The Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service Omnibus vol. 6

This gets the top spot again because it’s been re-solicited for January 2026.  It’ll keep getting the top spot until it’s finally released because I want to make people aware of when it’s coming out so that they’ll buy it when it finally does and maybe we won’t have to worry about when the next volume/omnibus of the series will be out.  That being said, if this hadn’t been re-solicited here, the top spot would’ve certainly gone to…

I Am Their Silence:  This comes to us from Jordi Lefebre, who previously gave us the charming told-in-reverse romance “Always Never.”  His latest graphic novel sounds about as far from that as you can get as it’s subtitled “Barcelona Murder Mystery” and involves Eva, a psychiatrist, who’s invited by one of her patients to the reading of her grandmother’s living will.  This is complicated when the patient’s grandfather is found dead and Eva is fingered as a suspect.  Now she has to prove her innocence by turning amateur sleuth and solving the crime herself, which is easier said than done while she’s in the throes of a bipolar episode and finds herself haunted by the ghosts of her dead family members.  This could wind up being too much, or charming in a much more dramatic way that shows Lefebre to be a talent to keep an eye on, regardless of what genre he’s working in.

Miss Truesdale and the Rise of Man #1 (of 4):  Follow-up to “Miss Truesdale and the Rise of Hyperborea”  where a secretary in Victorian London found herself transported back in time to become a legendary gladiator.  Now she’s looking to learn more about her history – all of it, past present, and future – as she’s stalked by something that wants to end it all for good.  This comes to us from writer Mike Mignola and artist Jesse Lonergan, and I skipped the previous miniseries because I’ve become a lot more selective about what Mignolaverse titles I read after they started putting everything in $25 hardcovers regardless of their length.  I can’t see a good reason to make an exception for this, unless I can find the previous miniseries at a much more reasonable price.

Oldboy Deluxe Edition Book One:  He was kidnapped off the street and put into a cell for ten years.  Then he was released without any explanation.  Now he has to figure out who did this to him and more importantly, why.  This was the basis for Park Chan-Wook’s film of the same name, an intense, grueling tale of revenge famed for its ten-minute uncut hallway fight scene.  Yet it’s the film’s climax where the hero loses, and loses BADLY, that’s been seared into my mind.  You’ll find neither of those parts in the manga as it’s more of a slow-burn mystery as the hero struggles in his efforts to unravel what was done to him.  I remember thinking it was alright, but I appear to be in the minority here, as evidenced by Dark Horse reissuing the first half of this series in a deluxe format, and its Eisner Win for Best U.S. Edition of Foreign Material – Asia during its original run.

Los Monstruos:  The series that should’ve been called “Perry Cutter, Werewolf P.I.” gets a collected edition.  While I think my title tells you a lot about it, there’s still more to say:  Los Monstruos is a city on the West Coast of America populated by the kind of monsters you’d find in old horror movies, all of them living regular lives and working regular jobs.  That includes Perry, whose latest job finds him trying to get an old man’s lover back from the vampire community.  This manages to not only attract the attention of bloodsucking gangsters, but the  mummified mafia as well.  James Robinson writes and Jesus Merino illustrates and while the writer has been hit-or-miss over the past several years, this sounds like it could be good fun.

Adabana vol. 2:  The manga about a gruesome double murder and the circumstances surrounding it reaches its second volume.  Vol. 1 was recently released before I wrote this and it’s on my shopping list at the moment.  I haven’t ordered it yet because the Crunchyroll Store (formerly The Right Stuf) requires a minimum order of $75 to qualify for free shipping.  So maybe by next week, we’ll see.