What "indie comics" means in this guide
"Indie" here means creator-owned work published outside the two largest superhero publishers, most often through Image Comics, Dark Horse, Boom! Studios, or self-publishing, rather than comics about independent film or music. It's a distinction worth making up front, since "indie" is also sometimes used loosely to describe small-press superhero comics.
Every title below is either complete or has enough published volumes to commit to without worrying about cancellation, and none require any outside superhero-universe continuity.
Space opera and fantasy epics
Saga by Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples (Image Comics) is likely the most commercially and critically successful creator-owned comic of the last fifteen years, blending space opera, fantasy, and family drama across an ongoing series.
Monstress by Marjorie Liu and Sana Takahashi (Image Comics) combines dense fantasy world-building with a story centered on trauma and survival, drawn in an intricate art nouveau-influenced style.
Descender by Jeff Lemire and Dustin Nguyen (Image Comics) is a completed science fiction series about a robot boy in a universe that has turned against artificial intelligence, and works well as a shorter, fully finished commitment.
Horror and thriller
The Walking Dead by Robert Kirkman, Tony Moore, and Charlie Adlard (Image Comics) is a completed black-and-white zombie-apocalypse series that ran for over 190 issues and became one of the most adapted comics of its era.
Something is Killing the Children by James Tynion IV and Werther Dell'Edera (Boom! Studios) is an ongoing horror series about a secretive monster-hunter and the children only she can protect, frequently recommended to readers who want modern horror comics with strong visual atmosphere.
Locke & Key by Joe Hill and Gabriel Rodriguez (IDW) is a completed horror series about a family of magical keys and the house that holds them, often cited as one of the best-constructed horror comics of the 2010s.
Slice-of-life and literary indie comics
Bone by Jeff Smith began as a self-published black-and-white series before being collected into a single complete volume, and remains one of the most recommended all-ages indie comics for readers of any age.
Nimona by Noelle Stevenson started as a webcomic before being collected by HarperCollins, and works as a single complete, self-contained graphic novel.
Blankets by Craig Thompson is an autobiographical graphic novel about adolescence, faith, and first love, frequently cited as one of the most significant indie graphic memoirs published in English.
Why creator-owned comics read differently from superhero universe books
Because a creator-owned comic has one core creative team steering it from beginning to end (rather than rotating writers and artists across decades of shared-universe continuity), the tone, pacing, and art style tend to stay far more consistent from the first volume to the last.
This also means creator-owned series generally have a planned or at least intended endpoint, even if it takes years to reach - The Walking Dead and Descender both concluded as their creators intended, rather than being open-ended indefinitely the way a flagship superhero title typically is.
For readers who've been frustrated by jumping into an ongoing superhero series only to find continuity references to comics from years earlier, creator-owned indie comics are generally a lower-friction way to follow a story from its actual beginning.
How to pick where to start
If you want an ongoing series to grow with: Saga or Monstress, both starting from Volume 1.
If you want a complete, finished series: Descender, The Walking Dead, or Locke & Key.
If you want a single standalone book: Bone, Nimona, or Blankets.
All of these are available as collected trade paperbacks, and several have omnibus or deluxe editions for readers who prefer fewer, larger volumes; current formats and pricing are shown directly on the Amazon listing.
Supporting creators directly
Because creator-owned comics generally give the writer and artist a larger share of ownership and royalties than work-for-hire superhero comics, buying these titles new (rather than secondhand) more directly supports the people who made them.
Many indie creators also sell directly through their own storefronts, publisher-run online shops, or at comic conventions, sometimes with exclusive covers, sketches, or signed editions not available through general retail.
If a series is still ongoing, buying new volumes as they're released (rather than waiting for a secondhand copy) is one of the more direct ways readers influence whether a creator-owned series gets to continue.
How indie comics differ from small-press superhero comics
It's worth distinguishing creator-owned indie comics (original worlds, no shared superhero universe) from small-press superhero comics, which use the same genre conventions as Marvel or DC but are published by smaller companies - both are sometimes casually labeled "indie," but they read very differently.
The titles in this guide were chosen specifically because they build original settings and mythologies from scratch, which is generally the more common association with the term "indie comics" among readers browsing outside the two largest superhero publishers.
If you specifically want small-press superhero stories rather than original-world indie comics, that's a different (and equally valid) starting point, but it's outside the scope of this particular guide.
Following creators across publishers
Because creator-owned work isn't tied to a single publisher's shared universe, the same writer or artist often moves between Image, Dark Horse, Boom! Studios, and self-publishing across their career - Jeff Lemire, for example, has published creator-owned work through several different imprints.
This means the most reliable way to find more comics you'll like after finishing one of the titles above is often to search by creator name rather than by publisher, since a single publisher's catalog spans many different tones and genres.
Comic convention panels, creator newsletters, and publisher solicitation announcements (previews of upcoming releases, typically posted a few months ahead of publication) are common ways longtime indie readers keep track of new work from creators they already follow.
Building an indie comics reading habit
Because indie comics don't share a universe, there's no pressure to "catch up" the way there might be with a decades-old superhero franchise - each series in this guide can be picked up entirely on its own schedule.
A reasonable approach for a new indie reader is to commit to one ongoing series (Saga or Monstress) and one completed series (Descender or Locke & Key) at the same time, so you always have both a long-term read in progress and a shorter one you can finish without an open-ended wait.
Comic shop subscription services (sometimes called a "pull list") let you reserve upcoming issues or volumes of an ongoing indie series automatically, which is a common way regular readers avoid missing new releases from smaller publishers that may not get as much retail shelf space as major superhero titles.
Frequently asked questions
Do indie comics require reading anything else first?
No. Unlike superhero universe comics, creator-owned indie titles are self-contained by design and don't assume familiarity with any other publisher's continuity.
Are indie comics harder to find than Marvel or DC titles?
Most of the titles in this guide are widely stocked in collected trade paperback form at comic shops, bookstores, and libraries, since they've been in print for years.