People, Summer Ball is a multi-layered recounting of Oli's final days with school-chums, relayed by the experience of the departed. Theres a lot of grey wash brush strokes, more about those in a bit. Smith has very much immersed himself in this project, so that it serves a reconciling purpose, relating to lives once entwined which just drifted. As Oli paints the comic full of these represented ones dear to him, each obviously part of some greater narrative and with only little clues to tip the reader off. This is part of the books charm - little unattended subplots all the way through that the reader can only marvel at for their aesthetic value. The artist has announced plans for six prequels, but there seems to me there might be something that might detract from this ? Surely an expanded edition of this book might be wiser.
I'm not a big fan of Oli's scripting. Sorry mate i'd buy you a beer i love you very much even though you're a big fop but it just ain't reviewing the other way.
Oli does something with his narratives though. He is genuinely a man who tells some fairly decent stories through his brushes and deciding what order to place those details in, and how he brings together these elements and the why. These are all very interesting things. Damn his arrogance, but hes entitled to it ! A whole ephemera is brought to the page, graceful portrayals and shapings giving this the properties of something much longer lasting, like say the music of Miles Davis. Oh I dunno. Some Martha Reeves and the Vandellas or Redding and Gaye Motown soul collection. Theres two markers, Olis work is somewhere around there.
Rumours his next work is some form of political comic having recently been recruited for an anthology contribution, and hyped up after Robbins' "Closing Shots". So while Oli sets about putting a spanner in the works of his detractors, you could do a lot worse than to hang around the highly memorable 'Summer Ball' for a while.
US size, 28 pages, two pounds
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