It’s officially Summer Reading time at Eisenhower, the time of year when you can win prizes for reading. Sign up in Kids World or at the Answers Desk with any valid library card to get an awesome tote bag featuring Kevan Atteberry’s friendly, bunny-loving, bass-playing monster, Declan while supplies last.

The theme for this year’s program is “It’s Showtime at Your Library” so we’re recommending books about music and movies to help you get started earning prizes. Today we’re recommending comics and graphic novels. Look for more Summer Reading posts throughout the summer.

The Backstagers by James Tynion

James Tynion IV teams up with artist Rian Sygh for an incredibly earnest story that explores what it means to find a place to fit in when you’re kinda an outcast. When Jory transfers to an all-boys private high school, he’s taken in by the lowly stage crew known as the Backstagers. Hunter, Aziz, Sasha, and Beckett become his new best friends and introduce him to an entire magical world that lives beyond the curtain that the rest of the school doesn’t know about, filled with strange creatures, changing hallways, and a decades-old legend of a backstage crew that went missing and was never found.

Baby’s in Black: Astrid Kirchherr, Stuart Sutcliffe, and the Beatles by Arne Bellstorf

The “fifth Beatle,” Stuart Sutcliffe, falls in love with the beautiful Astrid Kirchherr when she recruits the Beatles for a sensational (and famous) photography session during their time in Hamburg. When the band returns to the UK, Sutcliffe quits, becomes engaged to Kirchherr, and stays in Hamburg. A year later, his meteoric career as a modern artist is cut short when he dies unexpectedly.

The book ends as it begins, with Astrid, alone and adrift; but with a note of hope: her life is incomparably richer and more directed thanks to her friendship with the Beatles and her love affair with Sutcliffe. This tender story is rendered in lush, romantic black-and-white artwork.

Heavy Vinyl by Carly Usdin and Nina Vakueva

Film and TV director Carly Usdin teams up with breakout artist Nina Vakueva for a new series that’s music to our ears! New Jersey, 1998. Chris has just started the teen dream job: working at Vinyl Mayhem, the local record store. She’s prepared to deal with anything-misogynistic metalheads, grunge wannabes, even a crush on her wicked cute co-worker, Maggie. But when the staff’s favorite singer mysteriously vanishes the night before her band’s show in town, Chris finds out her co-workers are doing more than just sorting vinyl… her local indie record store is also a front for a teen girl vigilante fight club! Collects the complete limited series.

The Fade Out by Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips

The Fade Out is an epic noir set in the world of noir itself, the backlots and bars of Hollywood at the end of its Golden Era. A movie stuck in endless reshoots, a writer damaged from the war and lost in the bottle, a dead movie star and the lookalike hired to replace her. Nothing is what it seems in the place where only lies are true.

Charlie Parish is caught between his own dying sense of morality and his best friend’s righteous sense of justice as he tracks the murder of an up-and-coming starlet from studio backlots to the gutters of downtown Los Angeles.

Scott Pilgrim’s Precious Little Life by Bryan Lee O’Malley

Scott Pilgrim’s life is totally sweet. He’s 23 years old, he’s in a rock band, he’s “between jobs,” and he’s dating a cute high school girl. Nothing could possibly go wrong, unless a seriously mind-blowing, dangerously fashionable, rollerblading delivery girl named Ramona Flowers starts cruising through his dreams and sailing by him at parties. Will Scott’s awesome life get turned upside-down? Will he have to face Ramona’s seven evil ex-boyfriends in battle? The short answer is yes.

Drama by Raina Telgemeier

Callie loves theater. And while she would totally try out for her middle school’s production of Moon Over Mississippi , she’s a terrible singer. Instead she’s the set designer for the stage crew, and this year she’s determined to create a set worthy of Broadway on a middle-school budget. But how can she, when she doesn’t know much about carpentry, ticket sales are down, and the crew members are having trouble working together? Not to mention the onstage AND offstage drama that comes once the actors are chosen, and when two cute brothers enter the picture, things get even crazier! Following the success of Smile , Raina Telgemeier brings us another graphic novel featuring a diverse set of characters that humorously explores friendship, crushes, and all-around drama!

Exit Stage Left: The Snagglepuss Chronicles by Mark Russell

A bold new take on the beloved cartoon comedian from the writer of The Flintstones! Drama! Comedy! Tragedy! For the renowned Southern playwright called Snagglepuss, these are the ingredients that have made him a star of the New York stage and the glittering world that surrounds it. But the year is 1953, and behind the bright lights, darkness is brewing. As Snagglepuss prepares for his next hit play, there’s already a target on his back. The Red Scare is in full effect, and the House Un-American Activities Committee is hunting down every last subversive in show business. So far, Snagglepuss has stayed out of their spotlight. But Snagglepuss is gay…and his enemies are out to destroy him for it. One by one, his best friends are being blackballed, from legends like Lillian Hellman and Dorothy Parker to his fellow Southern gentleman Huckleberry Hound.

Can Snagglepuss’ reputation survive the rampage of the right wing long enough for him to stage his next masterpiece? One thing’s for sure: the show must go on! Hot off his surprise-hit reimagining of The Flintstones, writer Mark Russell joins artist Mike Feehan to unleash the fire and fury of his sharp-witted political satire in Exit Stage Left: The Snagglepuss Chronicles-a powerful look at what it means to be an American, no matter who or what you are.

Phonogram by Kieron Gillen

Britannia is ten years dead. Phonomancer David Kohl hadn’t spared his old patron a thought for almost as long… at which point his mind starts to unravel. Can he discover what’s happened to the Mod-Goddess of Britpop while there’s still something of himself left? Dark modern-fantasy in a world where music is magic, where a song can save your life or end it.