In: The Graphic Novel

The finest graphic novel of the year was IN by Will McPhail, a clever and touching account of a young illustrator dealing with his mother’s illness and his own ennui. This beautifully composed debut mixes nuanced observation with hipster satire, and scalpel-sharp one-liners about the things that don’t matter with stumbling attempts to articulate the things that do. – James Smart,Guardian Best graphic novels of 2021There are few better cartoonists that the New Yorker’s Will McPhail, and we can now officially confirm there are few better graphic novelists…There are books which get called funny because they raise a few chuckles, and then there are books which have you wheezing with laughter and reading out multiple paragraphs to whichever long-suffering companion happens to be within hearing. In. is very much the latter kind of book, which makes its bracing dives into pathos and profundity all the more risky, and all the more stunningly rewarding. – Best Graphic Novels of 2021 * Irish Times *Beautiful, bittersweet portrait of modern life … his tragicomedy will also make the heart swell. * Guardian *Starts as a charming romantic comedy and turns into something tender and affecting about our need to connect. I loved this one. * David Nicholls *Brilliant. IN feels so real to me. * Candice Carty-Williams *

This is a miraculous book. Very funny, very sad and very beautiful - all at the same time, somehow.

Will McPhail has been contributing cartoons, sketchbooks, and humour pieces to the New Yorker since 2014. His work has also been published in Private Eye and the New Statesman. In 2013 he won the British Cartoonists’ Association’s Young Cartoonist of the Year and the NCS Reuben Award for Gag Cartoonist of the Year in 2016. He lives in Edinburgh, Scotland.