Charming and really quite intriging memory of childhood. The fluid, inky artwork puts me in mind of EH Shephard or Chris Riddell, despite not looking anything like them. It's the movement, I think. Superficially the story is slight, recollections of childhood incidents, merging and blurring into a single journey on an almost neverending day. This comic is saved from fluffydom though, as it starts and ends on a deeper note that gives the whole thing more heft.

In his endnotes Oli Smith almost blows it, making explicit in words things only hinted at or implied in the comic itself -
It all really happened ... Though not on the same day. On his website, he mentions the trip's destination, which isn't given in the story. This is a common problem actually. I love to know about the whats and whys that give rise to comics and stories, but it's difficult to write that stuff without undermining the story itself. We should all aspire to Eddie Campbell's revealingly concise introduction to After the snooter - In this book, I drop the pretence of being Alec MacGarry. Fortunately, Oli doesn't touch on the bigger, adult, question that frames his story and shrouds it in retrospective melancholy.

Hazy Thursday is £2.50 including postage, available from Oli Smith.