Published by 404 Graphic in January 2024, Inside continues to be, several months after its publication in France, a critical and public success. The work, written and drawn by Will McPhail, is a sensitive and gentle journey in the life of a young illustrator, Nick, who tries to communicate differently with the people around him after years of superficial exchanges.
Dealing with both solitude and relationships with others, Inside reveals its entire point in its second part, when the twist narrative falls. Winner of the Fnac France Inter 2025 BD Prize, the work is a reference to comics Lucas Wars (Time).
Behind Inside is Will McPhail, author and illustrator of the prestigious magazine The New Yorker. Here he signs his first comic strip, which mixes autobiography and fiction, following the daily life of an artist, alone, between work, fleeting relationships and wanderings in local cafes. By adopting a graphic style close to minimalist illustration, Inside is both a touching introspective tale and a demonstration of sequential art.
Like the rest of society, Nick fails to open up to others and seems destined to continue the superficial exchanges dictated by the norm and by the views of others. Also seeking his place as a young adult in the world of work – and feeling guilty about doing a “passion job” – he meets Wren, a young doctor with a strong temperament. Upon contact with him, he will decide to break his hellish routine: from now on, Nick will seek to really interact with others and no longer waste time.
The vibrant reflection of an authentic everyday life
Throughout his narrative construction and the development of his characters, Will McPhail manages to address several themes and create an authentic and lively work. Inside uses several tones to be by turns sensitive, funny, revolting, touching, heartbreaking or absurd, without ever straying from its particularly subtle relationship with humans, which instantly provides a feeling of truth. Inside indeed talks about human beings and relationships, and Will McPhail manages to find the right tone in the expression of his characters and in his rhythm, to give an almost documentary air to his comic strip.
Positioning himself as a witness to society, observer and protagonist, Will McPhail opens up intimately. The reader will inevitably find an echo there as the authenticity shines through.Inside. The awkwardness of a banal conversation – transcribed into French thanks to a particularly remarkable translation by Basile Bégurie –, the inability to communicate at the right time, the difficulty in finding the right words… Inside is above all a work about relationships.
When Nick finally manages to create a bridge with the person in front of him – during a particularly tasty scene of comedy – a new inner world opens up to him, filled with color and grandeur, giving him the feeling of finally existing. Inside then becomes a visual symphony suitable for interpretation, the symbolic and the metaphorical.
Deep, but without ever giving the reader the answers, Will McPhail’s work has a hypnotic aspect, thanks to the character’s inner journey – which contrasts, graphically, with the rest of the album. But if Nick manages to communicate better with strangers or simple acquaintances, the exercise proves more difficult when it comes to his own family.
From caustic to dramatic
The second part ofInside leaves aside the humorous aspect to plunge into a heartbreaking drama with an obvious purpose, which reinforces the point developed in the first pages on the importance of communication and the construction of the individual. Because if, for Nick (and for everyone), the people around him are often defined by a single part of their identity (the plumber, the neighbor, the girlfriend, the mother, etc.), each individual has within him this great “infinite” and these different facets which form the self. Philosophical, but always affordable, Inside obsesses long after reading it.
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With his experience as an illustrator at New YorkerWill McPhail is particularly adept at telling stories within history. The album is full of details – while remaining very minimalist – and the pages can sometimes be seen as little stories in their own right, which bring the characters or places to life differently, with their share of running gagsmore or less funny situations and misunderstandings.
In addition to his talent for condensing stories, the author also handles the contained humor that emerges from a situation or a paradox. Inside is very often funny, especially in its first part.
When Will McPhail gets to the heart of the matter, family relationships – with a heartbreaking narrative twist – he becomes overwhelming and continues to demonstrate his ability to capture the truth in human beings and to describe situations as they are experienced by thousands of people: authentic, truthful, concrete.
Combining both his experience as an illustrator of The New Yorker and his personal sensitivity as an author with things to tell, Will McPhail hits a big blow with his first comic strip. Despite a (false) simplicity in the layout and style, Inside is a profound, meticulous work, which captures the human being in its infinity of variations and in its relationship to others.
Touching in its absolutism, the album reveals itself gradually, until an ending as abrupt as it is coherent, which reminds us to what extent life – with its countless anecdotal and routine episodes – and those who compose it are fragile and ephemeral.
