By Zack Quaintance — I got a pitch to review In, a new graphic novel by New Yorker cartoonist Will McPhail. As sometimes is the case with new graphic novel releases, the book had missed my radar. It happens; finding a centralized resource to track which graphic novels are being published when is a whole job unto itself. I hadn’t heard of McPhail, though I had certainly seen his work, and when I looked into it, I found that I had frequently enjoyed his cartoons.

Upon reading In — McPhail’s first graphic novel — I found that I enjoyed the book quite a bit, too, and in ways I didn’t expect. The book feels semi-autobiographical. The lead character looks like McPhail, although the name is altered, and his job is the same as McPhail’s — he makes cartoons for a fictionalized magazine. And there is one specific element of the book — one of the strongest elements of the book, at that — that does feel like a serialized version of the work McPhail does for The New Yorker (this is a hilarious and relatable recurring joke, wherein the lead character wanders from trendy coffee shop to trendy coffee shop, as if they are both beacons of originality as well as entirely stereotypical outposts within the urban spaces creative folks occupy).

That type of acerbic and clever cartooning is perhaps what I would expect throughout a graphic novel from someone who makes cartoons for The New Yorker, but this book’s interests and tone ultimately run quite a bit deeper. At some point as the book proceeds, In becomes something much more; it becomes a story of isolation and loneliness and connection for our modern age. It becomes poignant and heartrending, to the point you’ll likely find yourself tearing up as it comes to its conclusion. I know that I did.

In is a story of a cartoonist who works alone all day and badly wants for connection with the people around him. It doesn’t seek to place any blame for this condition, not like similar works in the early ‘00s that frequently depicted loneliness as an unwanted condition of modern society. Instead, with In McPhail and his semi-fictionalized avatar on the page take full responsibility for the loneliness, for the inability to connect, and it feels refreshing.

Past that, there is another poignant twist that takes place in the third act of this book that I won’t spoil. I will, however, note that there are interesting questions raised around love and loss, around being there for those around us, and for opening one’s self up to the people who do come around, who do care, regardless of the inalterable tragedies of life. Ultimately, In proves to be a must-read graphic novel for this odd year of 2021 as we emerge from our pandemic isolations. It’s a book told often in facial expressions and quiet interactions, and it’s very welcome, indeed.

GRAPHIC NOVEL REVIEW: In by Will McPhail

In
Writer/Artist: Will McPhail
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Nick, a young illustrator, can’t shake the feeling that there is some hidden realm of human interaction beyond his reach. He haunts lookalike fussy, silly, coffee shops, listens to old Joni Mitchell albums too loudly, and stares at his navel in the hope that he will find it in there. But it isn’t until he learns to speak from the heart that he begins to find authentic human connections and is let in—to the worlds of the people he meets. Nick’s journey occurs alongside the beginnings of a relationship with Wren, a wry, spirited oncologist at a nearby hospital, whose work and life becomes painfully tangled with Nick’s.
Illustrated in both color and black-and-white in McPhail’s instantly recognizable style, In elevates the graphic novel genre; it captures his trademark humor and compassion with a semi-autobiographical tale that is equal parts hilarious and heart-wrenching—uncannily appropriate for our isolated times.
Buy It Here: In - A Graphic Novel by Will McPhail

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Zack Quaintance is a tech reporter by day and freelance writer by night/weekend. He Tweets compulsively about storytelling and comics as Comics Bookcase.