Romo the WolfBoy

Reviews Tim Hayes | November 10, 2026 Back in 1990 Ed "ILYA" Hillyer's Slack strips in the U.K. magazine Deadline started off as quick-fire gags and slapstick about body odor and flatshare-cringe, ribaldry on a direct line from the U.K.'s alt-comedy boom of the previous half-decade. By the time Deadline expired five years later, the strip and the cartooning had evolved into The End of the Century Club, a sharp, loosely fantastical Los Bros-shaded dramedy following some of the same characters across Britain's post-Thatcher/still-Tory rubble. In that strip ILYA found a comfortable groove about outsiders and found family, a club culture with every reason to burrow underneath the straight world and loosen the screws. A strip about the question, relevant then and relevant now, of whether the culture war should be called off so that the class war can get going. The same feelings for social breakout and ad hoc alliances occupy ILYA's new graphic novel Romo the WolfBoy, feelings now taking YA form. Originally crowdfunded before coming to a wider market via SelfMadeHero, the book is labeled as the first in an intended series following its two quirky main characters during and after their ti...