Sorry for the slow newsletter schedule lately. Last week I was laid out all week with the nasty cold that’s been going around, and it’s thrown me wayyy off course.

If you’re at San Diego Comic Con this weekend, I’ll be on a panel this Sunday at 1:30 in Room 6A, talking about Star Trek: Zero Point, the comic I’m co-writing. And if you visit the IDW booth (#2729) you can get a free sampler with the first eight pages of Zero Point. Be the FIRST to check out what I’m cooking up!

The paperback of Lessons in Magic and Disaster comes out in a few weeks! You can pre-order a signed/personalized copy from Green Apple Books!

Okay so here goes…

Inside One of Marvel Comics’ Best Graphic Novels of 2026!

I utterly adored House of Harkness when it was being serialized on the Marvel Unlimited app. A young adult reimagining of Wanda Maximoff, the comic sees Wanda going to a magical school alongside teen versions of Agatha Harkness, Steven Strange, Loki, Nico Minoru and other magical Marvel characters. House of Harkness has heart and lovely character development alongside a ton of humor and fun. Along with some of the other offbeat offerings on Marvel Unlimited, it felt like a breath of fresh air.

Now Marvel and Scholastic have released House of Harkness as a standalone graphic novel, which means you can read the whole thing in one sitting. Someone did an amazing job of converting a comic that was created for a vertical scroll on your phone into something with panels on the page — there were only a few instances where the layouts felt a bit cramped, or something that had “popped” on my phone felt like it had less impact in the midst of other panels.

Overall, House of Harkness is a lovely, quick read in graphic-novel format, and I highly, massively recommend picking it up. Your kids will love it, but so will you.

In House of Harkness, Wanda Maximoff is a teen witch who goes to an exclusive boarding school run by the Harkness family. She quickly sparks up a rivalry with the spoiled Agatha Harkness, but the two of them soon find themselves facing a bigger threat to the school.

Because I adore this graphic novel so much, I decided to talk to writer Preeti Chhibber and artist Jodi Nishijima about how it came to be. Our Q&A is below.

Some of my favorite comics of the past decade are YA-themed versions of superheroes, like Girl Taking Over: a Lois Lane Story by Sarah Kuhn and Arielle Jovellanos. Where do you think this trend comes from? Why are these reimaginings popular?

Preeti Chhibber: I think there’s joy in a coming-of-age story, and when you pair that with superheroes, you’ve got something golden. When we meet Peter or the X-Men at their inception, they were teenagers. They were dealing with the anxiety of that age in addition to all the superhero stuff… so really, we’re just going back to our roots! Jokes, kind of, but genuinely there is a deep connection between growing up and growing into your superpowers.

Jodi Nishijima: I think it's kind of a perfect storm of older fans finding a soft reset to their favorite titles refreshing, [and] meanwhile younger/newer fans might find these reimaginings as great access points to the characters and titles they've heard a lot about. In general, though, I just think the internet has made access to reimaginings of your favorite characters more widespread/accessible than ever and these kinds of stories just take what fans (especially young adult ones) are already doing on their own and give them an awesome, official comic version of that!

I love the art style in this comic, and it goes so well with the humor and feels in the writing. (My only complaint about the graphic novel reprint is that I wish "TEAM CHAOS" had gotten a whole page to itself. It's such a beautiful moment.) What are the influences stylistically in this comic, and how did y'all go about bringing in the influence of non-superhero comics?

Preeti: I’ll let Jodi tackle the bulk of this one, but even from the initial conversations we knew we wanted this to be influenced by manga. I was thinking of Ouran High School Host Club or… honestly, Haikyu! From Ouran, the wacky storytelling that then feeds into something really heartfelt. And then, with Haikyu, there’s a great lesson in how to balance multiple characters and their hopes and dreams (even when they feel oppositional).

Jodi: When Preeti and Alanna (our awesome beautiful editor) first pitched this story to me they did so in the context of it being both a vertical format comic with shoujo manga influences. As someone who grew up reading and emulating that kind of media it was as simple as returning to my origins and inspirations as an artist. In particular I think what we think of as 'young-adult comics' are basically what is seen as shounen and shoujo manga/manhwa elsewhere. So the template of young girl saving/protecting her friends and maybe falling in love along the way is something easily translated no matter the artistic genre!

Wanda and Agatha are kind of tricky characters most of the time. Wanda is so often defined in terms of her magical children, and Agatha is now inseparable from Kathryn Hahn's wonderfully obnoxious version. What made you want to find new layers to these characters and portray them in such a different way?

Preeti: One reason I love writing Marvel for kids is that I want there to be easy entry points for young readers to get into comics. Wanda and Agatha both have so much story in the comics, it can be difficult to navigate when you’re at that younger age. So, this was an opportunity to make them easy to understand and approach, and also (I hope), gives a fun sideways story for older readers who already love and know the characters. With Wanda and Agatha specifically, I thought about the throughline of mentorship that existed in the comics and how to bring that power dynamic into a world where they’re both the same age.

One thing I love about House of Harkness is that it feels like such a great reinvention of the "magical school" trope, and there are so many amazing visual details here. I love the way magic is depicted, and the portals taking us to different realms. What did the two of you draw on when imagining a magical school, Marvel style?

Preeti: I’ve always been a sucker for boarding school stories — I grew up on Enid Blyton and stories from my mom’s own experience at boarding school in India. And then just bringing the Marvel fantasy into it – Marvel’s magic is already so well documented and explored, it wasn’t hard to think about how a teen Wanda would exist inside of a magical boarding school structure.

Jodi: School (boarding or otherwise) is such a common setting in anime and manga so it was easy to draw from my influences in those regards! In particular I tried to blend the idea of a magic school with that of a particularly exclusive preparatory school. A pauper going to a rich kid school... Except with the added layer of magic. It seemed perfect given that every Marvel character has a crazy legacy to live up to both in character and in our real-world perception!

Re-reading House of Harkness really drove home for me that the magical side of the Marvel Universe is a whole rich fantasy world all on its own. You can tell so many stories about just these characters. How much fun was it to draw on characters like Brother Voodoo, Dr. Strange, Malekith and Nico Minoru?

Jodi: So so so fun!! As a fan of Nico and Dr. Strange it was a treat to get to draw them with their highschooler twist! In particular it was awesome seeing how Preeti chose who to cluster together between cliques and who broke from those cliches and how. The lower stakes here mean that it's not as simple as 'good guys' vs 'bad guys' so characters were more free to play and be played with beyond those confines. Anyway... Let's have another shout out to Team Chaos...

Preeti: The most fun!! The only note I got going into this was “any magic user in the Marvel Comics universe is fair game.” Some people were there from the beginning – Loki, Nightmare, Nico, Brother Voodoo – others came along later or changed from initial inception. Dr. Strange was initially going to be one of the professors, but then we thought about how much fun we’d have with a pompous teen version, ha!

Did you have ideas for where their story could go after this? If this graphic novel sells a million copies — which it TOTALLY DESERVES TO — would you write another volume?

Preeti: YES! I have ideas and I want to write more! I know there was a strong fanbase for the series when it was originally living over on Marvel Unlimited as an Infinity comic, so I hope they come to the table for the print edition because I would love to do more set in this universe.

Jodi: I know this question is more for Preeti but if they would have me I would adore drawing more for this series!! It was an absolutely awesome experience and one I would definitely redo. Preeti is a talent and working with her was smooth as butter. Not to mention Alanna, Kiichi, and Ian who were just the absolute best to work with as well. It was a great team and I think it showed in the outcome. Put me back in coach — I can draw them MUCH better now!!

And finally, YA comics are among the bright spots in an otherwise challenged comics field. Why are YA comics so popular and exciting? And what can we do to get DC and Marvel to invest more resources into them?

Preeti: I think part of it is what I said above – people love a coming-of-age story, but the specificity of the graphic novel… there’s been a shift in schools and libraries of understanding the importance of visual storytelling, people don’t necessarily see them as candy any more. They’re recognized as art forms and teaching tools in their own right. And I think there’s a joy from kids in experiencing text + art. In terms of what DC and Marvel can do… understanding that kids comics are not separate things that people are doing over there, but rather these should be considered steppingstones to getting young readers into local comic book shops. Advertise them in the floppies so parents know about these books they could be reading with their kids. Connect the dots between legacy runs and the kid’s books featuring those same characters.

Jodi: I think [YA graphic novels] are a bright spot in particular because they offer a return to something approachable when compared to floppies or vertical scrolls. I think the latter two have their associated niches —demographics and bars for entry. It can be intimidating walking into a comic shop, there are age-gates and paywalls to online sites, both can be overwhelming in terms of both choices and commitment. A graphic novel/comic offers something widely available, sometimes even freely available, that anyone and everyone can look at the cover of and then decide to enjoy. As for getting companies to invest more in them... Well I may be a little biased and say let's start by getting House of Harkness to ONE MILLION COPIES SOLD!!!