Now that fall is here to stay, I'm switching the focus from comics to read in the park to comics to read in the dark. Whether you're tucked into a cozy corner at your favourite bar, or tucked under the covers with a flashlight, follow the series for all the best comics to accompany you through the fall and winter.

This long-weekend edition is a round-up of comics to read during a turkey-dinner hangover or a family-dinner hangover. Connecting with family can be a joy or a downer and can give us cause to reflect on both our past and our future. 

In One! Hundred! Demons!, Lynda Barry (who, btw, just won a MacArthur Genius Grant) revisits old, lingering memories as a means of exorcising old demons. Barry brings her signature poignancy and humor to this collection of short stories.

The newest addition to Keiler Roberts's annual diary comics, Rat Time focuses a keen eye and sharp wit on the rats bought for the author's daughter that function as much as a distraction from her own recent MS diagnosis as an addition to the family. The joy, wisdom, and wicked dark humour are, as always, found in the smallest of moments.

Travis Dandro's graphic memoir doesn't shy away from the complexity of growing up with distant parents caught in a cycle of poverty and addiction. There's joy to be found, particularly in a young boy's love affair with cartooning, but the pain and trauma of an unpredictable childhood are never far away. 

Activism, chosen family, uncertainty, and conception swirl together in Eleanor Davis's tour de force, a near-future fable in which the characters stay beautifully sympathetic even when in conflict with one another. The question of whether to bring children into a dangerous world is always at the forefront, raising the stakes for explorations of hope, struggle, and government surveillance. 

Bloom and Gloopy, two unlikely friends flung together in Molly Mendoza's trippy post-apocalyptic world, are running to, and away from, home. Only together can they navigate the dangers of this new reality, and get back to their own respective worlds to face their fears. 

Nora Krug's exploration of her German family's involvement in WWII uncovers a troubling history that spans decades and continents, blending illustration and historical artifact to create the portrait of an artist reckoning with the complexities of home, family, and legacy.