Webcomic Weekly: Ilya’s ‘Romo The WolfBoy’

Welcome once more to Webcomic Weekly, so named because Webcomic whenever I get the chance to do it just doesn’t work so well. Today, the great Ilya gives us a look at his new graphic novel, Romo The WolfBoy...

If you didn’t know, Ilya/Ed Hillyer is a rather damn great comics maker whose comic work has appeared in Crisis, Manga Mania, Deadline, DC Vertigo, and many more. Back in the day, he worked with Eddie Campbell on Deadface/Bacchus and created the brilliant Biccycle, Skidmarks and The End of the Century Club. In recent years, he’s had his graphic novel Room For Love published by SelfMadeHero in 2013 and is currently ‘Cartoon Historian’ in The New Internationalist magazine.

Now though, he’s signed up to Substack and is putting out – for free – installments of both his new prose novel, The Circle Squared, and new graphic novel, Romo the WolfBoy – All you’ve got to do is go to edilya.substack.com and hit subscribe.

You’ll also get behind-the-scenes production and process work, such as the fact that there’s a little bit of homaging and influence coming out here… not the least in the full title for Romo – Romo the WolfBoy in Strange Case of Cackle & Hide that is very much in keeping with the original and full title for Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde. And then there’s this…

So, as far as Romo, it looks absolutely great. Ilya’s linework is, as always, spectacular, with a looseness that makes it just lovely to see. And in the pages seen so far, he’s really using the page so well, most of them with just a couple of panels, all the better to let the thing breathe.

Romo starts with the WolfBoy napping and then we’re into a dream sequence, where Ilya really does stretch out and show us just how good he is…

That looseness I was talking about is there in spades, don’t you think? And it continues so well, panel after panel and page after page of great looking work, all building up our first impressions of the boy of the title.

But although the dream begins with freedom, things go darker from there, as we learn that all may not be as simple as just a story of a jungle child…

Of course, eventually he wakes, and then things really start to get moving…

Now, the first seven pages of Romo the WolfBoy for your enjoyment. You will want more – and all you need to do to get more is go to edilya.substack.com and hit subscribe to get something in your inbox every week.