Staff Picks: Teen Sports Comics

Sat, 09/28/2024 - 6:30pm by nicole

Kick off your comics reading list with these graphic novels about sports. These pages are packed with professional pillow fights, hockey checks, bare-knuckle boxers, and even sci-fi sports from outer space!

Pillow Talk by Stephanie Cooke| Request Now
When college freshman Grace Mendes reluctantly attends her first pillow fight match, she falls in love with the sport. Despite her usually shy nature, Grace decides to try out for the Pillow Fight Federation (PFF), a locally famous league of fighters with larger-than-life personas like Pain Eyre, Miss Fortune, and Kat Atonic. They may battle with pillows, but there is nothing soft about these fighters. In pillow fighting, everything goes! Grace has always struggled with body image issues, so she's shocked when she makes the league and is welcomed into the fold of confident fighters. But as her first official fight looms on the horizon, the real battle taking place is between Grace and her insecurities. What if people laugh or make fun of her? Why did she think she could pillow fight in the first place when she doesn't look like a "typical" athlete? When Grace, a.k.a Cinderhella, dominates her first match in the ring, no one is laughing. And as her alter-ego rises through the ranks of the PFF, gaining online fame (and online trolls), can Grace use the spotlight to become an icon not just for others, but most importantly, for herself?

Check, Please! Vol. 1, #Hockey! by Ngozi Ukazu| Request Now
Eric Bittle is a former Georgia junior figure skating champion, vlogger extraordinaire, and amateur pâtissier. But as accomplished as he is, nothing could prepare him for his freshman year of playing hockey at the prestigious Samwell University. It's nothing like figure skating, or his co-ed club hockey back in Georgia. First of all, there's checking (anything that hinders the player with possession of the puck, ranging from a stick check all the way to a physical sweep). And then there's the fact that he's desperately in love with Jack, the very attractive but moody captain of his hockey team. This graphic novel is based on the mega-popular webcomic series of the same name about hockey, new challenges, and trying to find yourself in college. Readers who enjoy the first book can find the second title in the series here.

Championess by Kelly Zekas | Request Now
Elizabeth Wilkinson's passion is bare-knuckle boxing. While working odd jobs to help her sister Tess pay off substantial debt, she earns extra coin fighting in back alleys and pubs. But when Tess's debts suddenly come due, Elizabeth bets everything on boxing to save Tess from debtors' prison. As she trains to become the best female fighter in London, she must face her family's painful past, confront the boxing rival from her childhood, and defy the discrimination she encounters as a half-Indian woman in a white, male-dominated prizefighting world. With the help of her trainer and fellow boxer, James Stokes, Elizabeth fights to free her sister and prove herself to be England's championess.

Bash! by Rudy Gobert| Request Now
Throughout the universe, there's one sport that everyone's a fan of: BASH! A brutal, high-octane version of basketball: its players are rockstars, legends, gods, and for young Rudy, a poor kid from Nevilia, his only dream is to be one of them. His talent might just make it happen, but can he make it while threats come from every corner of the galaxy? Rudy's got talent, but talent is nothing without practice and so he sets out to become the best BASH player in the galaxy, always training, always reaching for just one more dunk. And while Rudy is starting to get noticed by the teams and the talent scouts, other, more sinister forces have started to creep out from the shadows, jealous of this rising young star.