20 PUBLISHERS WEEKLY FEBRUARY 20, 2026
Going Graphic THE ROMANCE GENRE CONTINUES TO REIGN SUPREME, WITH ONE PARTICULAR FORMAT GROWING IN POPULARITY: GRAPHIC NOVELS FOR TEENS
c HEMISTRY HAS ALWAYS been difficult to describe in words, and romance readers are increasingly turning to the graphic novel format, for its engaging blend of prose and illustrations. The massive popularity of series such as Alice Oseman’s Heartstopper and Rachel Smythe’s Lore Olympus are evidence that graphic novels are offering readers a refreshing way to dip into the genre. This spring, teens will see plenty of new romance graphic novels that span tropes and subgenres hitting shelves. We spoke with the creators of six forthcoming projects that display how the medium might just be the new literary fix for lovers of love. DREAM ON Two of the season’s romance graphic novels offer escapes into dream worlds. Sophia Glock’s Before We Wake (Little, Brown Ink, Feb.), tells the tale of teen Alicia, who accidentally uncovers the power (and conse- quences) of lucid dreaming when she begins falling for her best friend’s boyfriend via interconnected dreams. Glock, who considers herself “a big sucker for clichés,” was excited to lean into the challenge of crafting a story that combines the paranormal with romance. “It’s quite chal- lenging to write a good love story or a good ghost story when that’s your explicit goal,” she says. “You find out how complex these things that we reduce to mere genre actually are.” Glock lost her father in 2020 and became interested in dreams and their meanings. While working on the story, loss and love emerged as inseparable themes. “The love story is actually just a way for us to understand our main character, Alicia, as she figures out her place in the world,” she says. “It’s a way to talk about everything else this girl has experienced in loss.” The author say she’s eager to see a “shift back toward the fantasy of romance” in a culture that tends to trivialize love stories. “I think that young people need more road maps to how to fall in love.” Jennifer Lee also takes a dreamy approach to grappling with loss in her graphic novel As I Dream of You (First Second, May), illustrated by Caldecott Honor artist LeUyen Pham. Lee, best known as one of the directors and screenwriters of Frozen , is no stranger to the power of visual storytelling. As I Dream of You began as a screenplay before she
By IYANA JONES
Sophia Glock
Jennifer Lee
Miles Toriko Burks
pitched it as a book. The concept made its way to Mark Siegel at First Second, and after discussing how the idea could work in the graphic novel format, Lee pivoted once more. As I Dream of You centers around teens Franny and Sam, who start off as cynics due to their difficult home lives but find themselves falling for one another. When death comes calling, however, they discover a dreamscape that keeps them together. The star-crossed journey of Orpheus and Eurydice from Greek mythology was a major inspiration for Lee, and raised the question of whether love truly can conquer all. “I always found it to be a really powerful story,” Lee says. “It’s about the greatest power of love, and see- ing if it can survive, through the greatest separation, and how our own human strengths and failures get in the way of that.” The intimacy of dreams lends itself well to the romance genre, where vulnerability is key to the story line. In both stories, across reality and fantasy, what remains foundational is how the characters reach out to one another.
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