Hair Shirt by Patrick McEown is a graphic novel that at first seems to be a lovely tale of two childhood friends coming together to form a budding romance and overcome their problems of the past. But even from the very begining there’s a strong current of darkness flowing through this book. Haunted by the bullying friend and the cruel older brother, John and Naomi have been affected by Chris’s death in ways they don’t even realise until it’s far too late for them. It’s a bit of a depressing read and pretty creepy at times, and I say worth reading! The artwork is great, managing to look loose and sketchy but well designed at the same time.

A friend read this book before me, someone who doesn’t really read graphic novels. He commented that it was very difficult to distinguish between dreams, the present and flashbacks, but I had no such problem. Someone at the Plan B book group the other day was talking about how comics are like a different language that for newcomers can be difficult to understand (e.g. wavier panel outlines might imply a dream sequence), and I think this is true.