Was That Normal? by Alex Potts

Philip is about forty. He has one of those jobs you can do from anywhere, on a laptop, so he does it from his apartment, alone. He lives in a British city, probably mid-sized - not very specific, not very special. His apartment is garden-level, which means he looks out his window, while typing on that laptop, below the street. He doesn't have any long-term friends, or any connections with colleagues that we see - the closest person in his life is his landlady/roommate, an older woman who intermittently tries to engage Philip and be friendly with him.

Philip isn't all that good at being engaged and friendly. He's wrapped up too much in his own head, the kind of person who obsessively thinks about what's he's doing, what he should be doing, and if there's anything that he wants to be doing. (There usually isn't..) He goes out to the pub now and then, because he thinks he should or because he thinks he'll have a good time this time, but he inevitably ends up drinking too much to be social and pays for it later.

Was That Normal? is a graphic novel, by British creator Alex Potts. It covers a few months in Philip's life - how he starts from that point of being stuck, how he's searching for connection, what happens to him, and where he ends up. There are no major epiphanies, no huge revelations, no amazing transformations - like all of us, Philip is deeply embedded in his own life, and all changes will be gradual and incremental.

But he does want more, want something different. He does try, in his fumbling, uneasy way, to open up to experience, to look for things that would make his life brighter. He gets dragged out to a concert, and is struck by the singer, Gina. He sees her around town, and strikes up a friendship.

He obviously wants more, but things are messy - Gina has a volatile not-quite-ex and doesn't seem terribly interested in anything more serious than friendship with Alex. But she is friendly, and it looks like it's been a long time since Philip had a friend.

He's uncomfortable with a lot of the day-to-day of life, the kind of person who over-thinks everything and then has trouble just doing even the little bits of social interaction that more thoughtless people never waste a moment on. That might not change - or not entirely. He's going to stay Philip. But he might be able to be a Philip a little more comfortable in his own skin, a Philip who tries more things, a Philip who spends more time with people and gets better at it. I do say "might" - Potts, again, is not going for epiphanies or transformations here; this is a realistic, grounded story about a real person in a real world, and nothing is guaranteed. 

Potts draws Was That Normal? with a slightly rumpled, indy-esque line - immediate and grounded, with his people not quite as pretty as a reader might expect. His panel borders are hand-drawn, just a bit uneven. The colors feel just a tone or two off from purely realistic - slightly more of a picture than the thing itself, usually in earthy tones, with lots of yellows/tans, browns and dull reds for backgrounds.

Was That Normal? could be a little hard to take, particularly for readers with a lot of Philip in their own makeup - but it's well-observed and thoughtfully true, and does provide some hope for this Philip...and, by extension, for all of the rest of us.