6 Mystery and Thriller Comics Worth Your Time

Benji Nate's Hell Phone uses a horror-meets-investigation premise. A possessed flip phone won't leave two friends alone and delivers calls that point to a decades-old murder. As the calls keep coming, the friends are pulled deeper into a chain of revealed horrors and into an investigation that turns their ordinary lives upside down.

Edited by Kel MacDonald and published by Iron Circus, this anthology gathers 25 short comics focused on crime. The stories vary in tone and style, spanning lighthearted heists to noir thrillers with dark motives and bodies. Contributors include Ryan Estrada, Tango, and Amy Chase. The cover art is by Jeff Smith. The anthology is useful if you want many short, different takes on crime fiction in comics form.

Sweeney Boo's book is a witchy YA mystery set at a magical school. When Abby's friend Noreen goes missing, school administrators dismiss Abby's concerns because of festival preparations and direct orders to stop investigating. Abby gathers friends and discovers Noreen isn't the first missing witch at the institute, turning the disappearance into a continuing mystery across at least one sequel (Speak of the Devil is noted as a follow-up).

Written by Matt Kindt with art by Margie Kraft Kindt, Gilt Frame follows Sam and his wealthy Aunt Merry, antique collectors who travel and find themselves suspected in a Paris murder. Their trip to appraise items turns into theft, discovery of a crime scene, and a scramble to clear their names while confronting jewel thieves, art forgers, and an unhelpful French detective. The book blends antiques-centered adventure with a murder-international-settings mystery.

Pick the anthology if you want short, varied crime stories. Choose the dark academia or the Istanbul-set graphic novel for character-driven mysteries with social or political stakes. If you prefer genre mixes — witches or haunted phones — the YA witch mystery and Hell Phone are direct fits. Gilt Frame suits readers who like globe-trotting mysteries with art-world or antiques angles.

Each entry emphasizes investigation driven by characters who are not professional detectives, which keeps the mysteries grounded in personal stakes and social dynamics.