Sunday

Sunday is a graphic novel by Olivier Schrauwen, a comics artist with an international reputation. It covers a single day in the stream of consciousness of Thibault, a fictionalized version of the author's cousin. The day is the one on which Thibault's girlfriend comes home from a long trip. He wakes up and does nothing, has James Brown stuck in his head, drinks and smokes, grows paranoid about their relationship, struggles to write text messages, and watches The Da Vinci Code, all while dodging everyone he knows and sinking further into his own thoughts and fears. Meanwhile, a former crush and another of Thibault's cousins are organizing a surprise birthday for him, which sets his inner world and the outside world on a collision course. Schrauwen's comic timing and command of form lift the story above its everyday plot. Through color, flashbacks, and a deliberate clash between text and image, he draws human consciousness as lines on paper, mixing slapstick with real tension in a book that makes inventive use of the comics medium.