Sunday

By Olivier Schrauwen. Published by Fantagraphics. 

Softcover, 474 pages, Colour, 2024. 

Internationally acclaimed graphic novelist Olivier Schrauwen returns with a masterfully funny — and profound — day in the life narrative.

Sunday follows, over the course of one day, the stream of consciousness of a fictionalized version of the author’s cousin, Thibault. On the day of his girlfriend’s return from an extended trip, Thibault wakes up, does nothing, gets James Brown stuck in his head, drinks and smokes, grows paranoid about his relationship, struggles to compose text messages, watches The DaVinci Code, all the while avoiding anyone and everyone, descending deeper into his own thoughts and fears. Meanwhile, a former crush and another cousin of Thibault’s plan a surprise birthday for him, sending the external and internal on a collision course.

Schrauwen’s brilliant comic timing and formal mastery transcends the quotidian nature of the plot. Through use of color and flashback and the dissonance between text and image and the ways in which Schrauwen layers a depiction of human consciousness as lines on paper — infused heavily with slapstick and white-knuckle tension —makes for an exhilarating read and breathtaking use of the comics medium.

"In [Schrauwen's] hands, comics — like great art or literature — give us a window into another person's mind, and even petty and tedious ruminations can appear magical and strangely beautiful." — The New Yorker

"A bored everyman does battle with the colossal enemy that is a dull Sunday in this epic mock-Proustian graphic novel from Belgian artist Schrauwen. ... [A] surprisingly touching and life-affirming portrait of indolence." — Publishers Weekly Starred Review

"Sunday not only takes a most convincing whack at the portrayal of nothing less than human consciousness in comics form, but it also weaves strand after strand of narrative and anecdote into a book that ends up encompassing the life of an entire city district and social circle over one unremarkable yet epic day — and winds up feeling a bit like a plainspoken, unostentatious comic book version of James Joyce's Ulysses by the end." — Matt Seneca - The Comics Journal

"Schrauwen's deepest work since Arsène Schrauwen. As sumptuous and meditative as its protagonist is self-absorbed and oblivious." — Helen Chazan

"A master cartoonist and humorist putting everyone else to shame." — Austin English