Valentine’s Day falls on Wednesday this year, which, of course is also new comic book day. So I figure, what better time to discuss something I suspect all comic fans think about from time to time: how do I get the person I love to also love my hobby?

I know I think about this. In fact, last year I bought my wife a trade in hopes she’d start to read comics. And guess what? I had some success! I went with the first trade of Snotgirl, which I’ve described as Clueless for the Instagram generation with a sinister twist.

Now, my wife is a reporter at one of the three biggest newspapers in the United States, and she spends quite a bit of time contemplating personal branding, audience trust of media personalities, and just generally how one presents themselves online. She’s also quite stylish and moderately obsessed with Instagram fashion models who wear her type of clothes.

I suspected she’d appreciate Bryan Lee O’Malley’s scripts and thematic interest, and she did! What surprised me, though, was she also absolutely LOVED Leslie Hung’s art. Now, I’m a fan myself, but it never occurred to me someone who’d never read an entire comic book would be drawn more to art than to text.

While my wife didn’t run down to our local shop and start her own pull list (she’s content trade-waiting for Snotgirl) she did gain a new appreciation for the medium and for my hobby, which, aside from her and my day job, takes up most of my time. Ultimately, this understanding brought us closer together, making us stronger as a couple. Aren’t comics wonderful?

I hope you find a book from my suggested list that will wow your loved one, too. Oh, and happy Valentine’s!

Comics to Buy Your Significant Other

This list is in alphabetical order, and, if you’ll notice, there’s no Batman, Superman, Spider-Man. In other words, it eschews the mainstays of comics. It’s not that I don’t love those characters (ahem, what’s the name of this site), or that I think it’s impossible to use stories like The Long Halloween or All-Star Superman or Ultimate Spider-Man to show the brilliance of comics. I just think they are a bit too highly stigmatized and obvious to be illustrative of the medium’s nuances. Simply put, if your significant other was going to get hooked based on one of these three, chances are it would have already happened, as they’ve likely known their core stories since they were a kid.

It should go without saying that I LOVE every book on this list, by the way.

Hawkeye by Matt Fraction & David Aja
This is a story about humanity more than anything else, about a guy who has a job and an apartment and plenty of flaws and bad habits, but still wants to do right anyway. Oh yeah, and he also happens to be an Avenger but in this story that’s secondary.
For: The significant other who loves PBR, black-rimmed glasses, and acting like comics aren’t hip enough for their time (this is all a nice way of saying buy this book if you’re dating a hipster).

Monstress by Marjorie Liu & Sana Takeda
I met Marjorie Liu at a comic book store in Austin soon after this book launched, and I remember her saying this series grew from a vision she had of a young woman that was absolutely furious. Monstress is a great choice because it starts with a first issue that’s among the best debuts in recent memory, and while yes, the fury that inspired it does cool down, Lie and Takeda replace it with some of the best world-building in any medium.
For: The significant other who likes Final Fantasy, anime, Kill Bill, Empire Strikes Back, revenge, or any story the puts strong female protagonists and antagonists alike front and center.

Saga by Brian K. Vaughan & Fiona Staples
This is my favorite comic book, to be blunt, and its title is as simple and effective as its plot. Two lovers from species that have been at war with each other for generations fall in love and have a child. This is the story of their family.
For: The significant other who loves both Shakespeare and Star Wars, or maybe even just Star Wars and Game of Thrones.

Sandman by Neil Gaiman & Various
Sandman is steeped in dark mythology that spans history and our modern day, ultimately creating an effect that delves deep into the human mind.
For: The significant other who majored in philosophy and also likes to meditate (or to expand their mind in less wholesome ways).

Sex Criminals by Matt Fraction & Chip Zdarsky
Awwwwwww, yeah.
For: Oh, don’t act like you don’t know what this one would be for, you dirty dog (this book is more about relationships than it is about a couple getting raunchy, although it is also about a couple getting raunchy).

Snotgirl by Bryan Lee O’Malley & Leslie Hung
Lottie Person is an Instagram model with a large fan following, secretly severe allergies, and a pension for putting too much stock in appearances as well as for brushing up against the macabre.
For: The significant other who loved Clueless, takes pictures until they get the perfect shot for the ‘Gram, and is content to re-watch Scott Pilgrim over and over and over again.

Transmetropolitan by Warren Ellis & Darick Robertson
Billed as a cyberpunk transhumanist comic book (uh yeah, okay, let’s just go ahead pretending that’s a perfectly normal way to bill something) Transmetropolitan has a central protagonist named Spider Jerusalem, who is a renegade gonzo journalist in the future, navigating a dystopian world suffering from corruption and U.S. presidents who abuse their powers.
For: The significant other who shudders when politics come up and is still hurt and reeling from the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Warning, this is risky title to start with due to its density, probably best left to fans of political dramas and deep sci-fi.

Watchmen by Alan Moore & Dave Gibbons
A superhero deconstruction that doubles as a cautionary tale about mutually assured destruction, common threats, and the Cold War. It’s a great fit for the more literary set, requiring only a cursory knowledge of superheros to be appreciated.
For: The significant other who reads The New Yorker and is always bugging you to read their short stories.

X-Men: God Loves, Man Kills by Chris Claremont & Brent Anderson
This original graphic novel does the difficult work of encapsulating the X-Men with minimal need to know the characters’ long and convoluted back stories. The X-Men have one of the best central metaphors of any ongoing property in fiction, and this story makes it accessible.
For: The ‘90s kid who loved the animated series, or for anyone concerned with the equality inherent to the characters’ central metaphor.

The Ultimates by Mark Millar & Bryan Hitch
I recently re-read The Ultimates for years and was struck by how blatantly this story was a blueprint for the Marvel Cinematic Universe as we know it. This didn’t come as a surprise, as so many folks in media love to point this out, but it was still fascinating to go back and read it now that we’re a bajillion movies in.
For: The significant other who loves Marvel movies but has always seen the comic books as too geeky or ridiculous to bother to read.

Zack Quaintance is a career journalist who also writes fiction and makes comics. Find him on Twitter at @zackquaintance. He lives in Sacramento, California.

September was a great month for long-running series reminding us what made them so compelling in the first place, specifically Saga #47 and The Wicked + Divine #31 (Southern Bastards #18 was also close). This is comforting. There’s been much quality churn in the big two of late (blame superhero box office success and resulting corporate interest) and I wonder where comics would be without these steady books from the vanguard of Image Comics’ recent renaissance. There's always imaginative and strong work to be found in true indies — ahem Vault Comics, ahem Lion Forge — and while I suppose the mainstream might consider Image indie, it hardly seems like it, as the company's books are in most shops.

Marvel and DC, though, are basically like struggling sports teams in die-hard cities: no matter how much they suck, hope springs eternal because we grew up rooting for them and, hey, how cool would it be if they defied all odds and got better? Keeping with sports analogies, DC Rebirth is a resurgent team having a surprising big year … in that this is nice and all but fans are still waiting for them to fall apart because we've been burned in the past. Two things I’m doing, though: 1. Knocking off sports analogies (‘bout time, right?), and 2. Enjoying DC Rebirth while it's strong. This month is a good time to savor DC, to be sure, with the publisher delivering a foundation for a character-defining maxi series in Tom King’s Miracle Man #2 and a rare well-done modern mega event in Scott Snyder’s Dark Knights Metal #2.

Also, my top five for September includes Snotgirl. So, without further adieu...

5. Snotgirl #7

Snotgirl’s Lottie Person is the anti-hero antidote (antilote?...antilottie?...oh jesus, I'll stop) for the hyper-masculine angsty middle-age men that swept prestige TV a few years ago, your Don Drapers and Heisenbergs and whatnot. Where those guys methed it up or leveraged power and looks to abuse women, Lottie is just selfish and vapid and consumed with appearances. She also has severe allergies and green hair. Like Don Draper and Walter White, though, one can make a case that she’s a product of environment.

I’ve been all in on Snotgirl from issue #1, enthralled with the promise of monthly work from Scott Pilgrim’s Bryan Lee O’Malley, and, sure, after returning from hiatus this summer, Snotgirl is now every other month, but one of the reasons I gave this book a top five slot is that the added time really shows. This seventh issue is a significant improvement over the end of the last arc. The script is just as clever, but the book has regained a sense of purpose and pacing that had gotten a bit jumbled, evidenced here by intriguing B and C plots — her foe waking up and the detectives, respectively — that seem to be building.

Basically, this book is funny, hip, and could be a timely satire of Internet/Instagram looks versus truth culture, something (correct me if I’m wrong) no medium has quite nailed.

4. Dark Knights Metal #2

Much has been written about Metal, and even more has been said during awkward exchanges at registers in comic shops (one side always seems to enjoy those more than the other, btw), but I still want to note that Metal, the biggest event so far in the Rebirth era, is a perfect blend of what the publisher got right in the New 52 and the back-to-basics simplicity of Rebirth.

The Snyder-Capullo Batman run was New 52's best sustained work, possibly one of the best runs ever done in-continuity for the character, or any other big two character really (I may compile a list of my all-time favorite in-continuity runs soon). It obsessed over the idea that Batman’s insistence on fighting crime was at its core a young man escaping the trappings of adulthood, not getting married, having kids, settling down, etc. This was great (and also a theme in all of Snyder’s short stories from his excellent collection, Voodoo Heart) but what gave it lasting emotional heft was often funneling it through Alfred’s perspective, the ersatz father who wanted his adopted boy to just be a happy man, pitting Alfred's desire against Bruce's powerful trauma and Gotham City's need for safety. Anyway, my point is it was serious and well done.

Metal isn’t that, not entirely. It posits a New 52-ish question — what if DC had a corresponding dark multiverse — while also delivering rocking set pieces (Justice League-themed Voltron, anyone?). Basically, Metal blends high-minded motifs from the Snyder-Capullo New 52 run with rocking superhero accessibility from Rebirth. It’s a great hybrid, even better because the Rebirth storyline (especially with Superman) is bending towards a reality that deliberately includes bits of both pre- and post-New 52 continuities as a plot device (the full extent of which is likely to be made clear in Rebirth mastermind Geoff John's forthcoming event/Watchmen sequel, Doomsday Clock).

3. Saga #47

The first act of Saga #47 is jarringly normal. A boy watches dysfunctional caretakers interact in what might be Earth, might even be suburbia. Jarring because this Saga arc started with an old west-themed issue on an alien abortion planet, something far nearer its cruising altitude than the suburbs. The second and third acts then contain plenty of the factors that have made Saga Image's most successful book since The Walking Dead: twists, earned obstacles, increased stakes heading for our protagonists, ongoing exploration of a central metaphor (star-crossed inter-species lovers from perpetually warring species), plus world-building, world-building, world-building. It's amazing that this deep in the run Saga's world is still being satisfyingly fleshed out.

Saga is my favorite ongoing series in comics, and this issue is a digression from its central plot, to be sure, but these sort of side trips are one of Saga’s strengths. Basically, issues like this are the reason why, upping the stakes significantly for the little family at the story's core, an impressive narrative feat that never feels like filler. Even one of the best writers in the industry (if not the best), Jeff Lemire, has struggled with this at times in his own excellent sci-fi opus Descender. But Brian K. Vaughn consistently nails it in Saga.

They say this is an unfilmable story (who’s they? I don’t know, the Internet? Someone says it), and that may very well be true. But Saga is tailor-made for serial monthly graphic storytelling, and an issue of this quality after 47 tries is even more remarkable because it’s exactly what we’ve come to expect.

2. Mister Miracle #2

Look everyone, it’s a month of proclaiming my favorite this and my favorite that! I’ll come right out and say it: Tom King is my favorite writer in comics. I’m a sucker for a backstory that involves struggle, and King’s creative journey is filled with it. He’s late to the comic creator game, having logged time in the CIA after 9/11 (no big deal), and he took a risk by quitting his full-time to stay home, watch his kids and write at night. He misfired on a novel (which I'd still like to read), before fighting into comics and rising to the top. Since then, he's been cranking out modern classic after modern classic (Omega Men > Vision > Sheriff of Babylon), and Mister Miracle is poised to be next in line.

King’s stuff on more well-known superheroes has been fine, better than fine, but he really shines when taking characters with inherent wackiness seriously and then going right for the heart strings. He certainly did that with Vision and within his Batman run with Kite Man (Kite Man!), and he’s doing that again here with Mister Miracle, aka Scott Free.

Issue one hinted that King would play with form, one of his strengths, while issue two reminds us who exactly Scott Free is (grew up child-swapped to the evilest being in the universe as part of a peace agreement, escaped horrendous conditions over and over again until it become second nature). Issue 2 isn’t as offbeat or perplexing as issue 1, but that’s fine. It does the unsung work of giving Scott Free meaningful relationships in his life. This story is going to land somewhere powerful, and it's on us to enjoy the journey as much as we can.

1. The Wicked + The Divine #31

Let's compare The Wicked + The Divine this month to Saga, both of which were reminders of how excellent and taken for granted these books can be. Yet, whereas Saga has long been a carefully-paced slow burn with occasional flare ups that tear you down and make you cry, Wic + Div has been crescendo after crescendo, putting readers in a small boat in a tumultuous sea of remixed religious dogma and obsessive music fandom.

This month’s wave was the biggest to crest since the demise of the series primary antagonist, Ananke. Kieron Gillen loves telling readers broad strokes of upcoming arcs in this book's backmatter, writing stuff like in three issues there’s a major surprise, in four issues we have a guest artist, etc, and I swear he’s said a few times that we'd be ramping to an end game soon. Now, however, I suspect Gillen is still having better ideas, still not ready to start winding this story down, and it's not hurting the book at all. He's got so many pieces in play that suddenly losing one in this issue was surprisingly tough to see, a reminder of the lush and mysterious journey we've been taking with all these people. That's good writing.

We’ve been given one certainty over and over from the start: Every ninety years, twelve gods incarnate as humans. They are loved. They are hated. In two years, they are dead. That's right, our sexy embodiments of modern music stardom are not long for this world, but how exactly they will destroy each other is the pressing question Gillen continues to ask on a scale as effective as it is grand.

Best Comics to Buy Your Significant Other