Fun, poignant, slice-of-life British comics. I really enjoyed these. It gets a 5 for one moment of life-affirming joy in Driving Short Distances. ( )

A touching, painful, and beautiful exploration of the relationships we form and need. The moments that pass between characters are so human and so relatable that it's impossible not to like them, even though they make the same mistakes we all do.

While the art isn't necessarily my favorite, the characters are so true-to-life and sympathetic that the style they're drawn in becomes incidental.

Days of the Bagnold Summer is about a mother and her young son, heavily into the emo/goth/heavy metal scene, spending summer together. They fight, they get along, they spend quiet moment together, and they move a little closer towards understanding each day. This one alone is 5 stars. We were all teenagers once, even if we weren't exactly like Daniel, and can all understand the frustration and directionless anger and apathy that we suffered from. And Daniel's mother, while she has flashes of moments where she almost understand her son are heartbreaking. She's the best mother she can be, and that's pretty good. Understanding is not always necessary for love.

The short vignettes were, at first, a little disappointing - I wanted more of a straight forward narrative. But, as time went on, I appreciated how they mimicked the true passing of summer: long stretches of nothing eventful, with small impactful moments.

Driving Short Distances was not quite as good - Sam comes home from the hospital (after an implied suicide attempt), ready for something to finally go right. His mother meets an old acquaintance, Keith Nutt, who offers Sam some kind of job, where he mostly waits around in the car for Keith to come out of various buildings. There's some kind of mystery around his job, with various characters alluding to how Sam doesn't seem cut out for it, and some similar allusions around Keith's sexuality, which muddied the overall clarity of the story. Was it about Sam coming to terms with himself and healing? Or was it about a strange job he had with a strange man?

But, of course, both Sam and Keith need the interaction, and both come out slightly changed from it. Keith, a little more bowed and lonely than before, and Sam more at ease with himself and being alone. They ended up needing each other, just a little bit. ( )