Toxic Summer

by Derek Charm

Overview

“Laugh-out-loud humor and wildly fun" —Booklist

"A good choice for teen readers looking for a fun, LGBTQIA+, high-octane romp." —School Library Journal

Perfect summer plans become a nightmare beach party in this slimy, spooky, madcap summer mystery from Eisner Award winner Derek Charm (Unbeatable Squirrel Girl, Jughead)!

Best friends Ben and Leo are ready to celebrate the summer after graduation by patrolling the beaches of idyllic seaside town Port Dorian as lifeguards—allowing them to also check out the hottest hunks and snag invites to the best parties, of course. But they arrive to find that a mysterious toxic spill has turned the water unswimmable and littered the shore with rotting fish carcasses. Their jobs become beach cleanup and the hunks are nowhere to be seen—like hermit crabs.

When they save a local historian with suspiciously glowing eyes from the water, and tentacled monsters begin snatching people in the night, Ben and Leo have to team up with the only other teens in town to uncover the cause of the spill, save their new friends and family, and try to get this sexy summer back on track before it’s too late.

Collecting Toxic Summer #1–3.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781637156445
Publisher:	Oni Press
Publication date:	04/22/2025
Pages:	120
Product dimensions:	6.60(w) x 10.10(h) x 0.40(d)
Age Range:	13 - 18 Years

About the Author

Derek Charm is an Eisner Award-winning comic artist, illustrator, and character designer for animation. He was the artist on several monthly comic runs, including Jughead and Jughead’s Time Police for Archie Comics, The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl for Marvel, and Star Wars Adventures for Lucasfilm/IDW. Outside of comics he has worked for Marc Jacobs, Pepsi, DreamWorks, and Warner Bros. Animation.

Editorial Reviews

Laugh-out-loud humor and wildly fun, lurid art will propel readers right through the narrative... Best suited for more mature readers, with all the vibes of a 1990s summer MTV show.

Booklist

"With bright neon colors throughout and plenty of crude humor, it’s the perfect mix of summer fun and queer boy friendship with no romantic entanglements between the two to complicate the book’s charm."

The Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books

"A good choice for teen readers looking for a fun, LGBTQIA+, high-octane romp."

School Library Journal

A 2026 TLA Maverick Graphic Novel Award Nominee

From the Publisher

"The true strength of Derek Charm’s Toxic Summer, beyond the silly hijinks, is the friendship of Leo and Ben... Charm should be commended for using his talents to show us good clean fun through an LGBTQIA+ lens.

Broken Frontier

2025-01-18
Two boys who are ready to dive into a summer of partying instead find themselves in over their heads, cleaning up a beach polluted by a mysterious toxic sludge.

Leo promises Ben a wild summer full of hunky “unsupervised perverted beach maniacs,” but when they arrive in Port Dorian, the beach is closed. Instead of lifeguarding and partying, they’re stuck cleaning up the rotting sea life littering the shore. One glimpse of a cute boy gives them hope that maybe the hotties are just “hiding away like hermit crabs.” If they can clean up the beach fast enough, maybe they can save their “sexy summer.” However, their summer soon turns from stinky to suspicious when they drag a man with glowing eyes out of the water. The danger escalates when tentacled creatures emerge from the waves and start possessing the locals. The illustrations’ dramatic color palette effectively conveys the atmosphere and foreshadows the shift in tone as the story veers into a supernatural mystery. The art is vivid, dynamic, and emotionally expressive, but the characters as written lack depth and development and are insufficiently differentiated, so the buildup of romantic potential loses wind. Apart from some background characters, most of the cast is depicted with pale or lightly tanned skin. Although the plot moves at a fast pace and has suspenseful appeal, overall the story is underwhelming.

A visually appealing but shallow romp. (character designs, cover gallery)(Graphic fantasy. 16-18)

Kirkus Reviews