Sina Grace Gets GAME ON With a Middle-Grade Graphic Novel About Gaming, Culture and Finding Your Voice

WEPAAAA, Crusaders! Sina Grace is stepping into middle-grade comics with one of his most personal projects yet.

Game On, the first book in a new graphic novel series from Random House Graphic, arrives October 6, 2026 and follows Sasan, a middle schooler who thinks he has the whole fitting-in thing figured out. He has the friends, the grades, the weekend plans and just enough spending money to stay in the mix. Then the newest video game hits, everybody else has it, and suddenly keeping up gets expensive.

Sasan asks his mom for help, but she comes back with a deal: she will help him get the game if he finally commits to learning Farsi.

What starts as a simple bargain opens the door to something much bigger. As Sasan works through the language, family history and the parts of his Persian American identity he has spent years trying to keep at arm’s length, the story starts digging into the pressure kids feel to fit in while also figuring out where they come from.

Grace drew directly from his own childhood while developing the book, using old school assignments, sketchbooks and family keepsakes as inspiration. That personal connection gives Game On a foundation rooted in lived experience rather than treating culture as a lesson bolted onto a gaming story.

The book also marks Grace’s first middle-grade graphic novel after a career that has moved across some very different corners of comics. He is known for his work on Marvel’s Iceman, DC’s Superman: The Harvests of Youth, and for his earlier editorial work on The Walking Dead. Here, the scale gets smaller and more intimate, trading superheroes and big mythology for school hallways, family conversations, friendship pressure and the everyday drama of wanting what everybody else has.

Game On is aimed at readers ages 8 to 12 and clocks in at 208 pages. The premise may start with a video game, but the real hook is Sasan learning that fitting in and knowing who you are do not have to be opposing goals.

The early response has been strong, with Gene Luen Yang calling the book “delightful and heartfelt,” while Lucy Knisley praised its honesty around adolescence and identity.

For young readers juggling family expectations, culture, school, friendships and that constant pressure to keep up with everybody else, Game On looks ready to hit a very familiar nerve.

Game On by Sina Grace arrives from Random House Graphic on October 6, 2026.

The Crusade Never Ends!