The result of a successful Kickstarter campaign, Romo the Wolfboy is the latest effort from Ed Hillyer, the comic artist, writer, and editor better known as ILYA. Having been published in Marvel, DC, Dark Horse, and Kodansha, as well as indies the world over, here ILYA takes the reins for a story of a travelling circus in the twilight days of the Victorian era.
Billed as being for all ages, Romo the Wolfboy focusses on the titular feral child, mute and mischievous, and a young stagehand called Francis X. The duo are the latest additions to the Blimey O’Riley’s Travelling Circus. Things take increasingly dark turns when acts of sabotage affect the circus crew, forcing Romo and Francis to set aside their rivalry to solve the case.
From its front cover and contents page to the introductions of each chapter, painstaking attention has gone into making the book appear like an artefact from the late 1800s. It’s also a graphic novel in the truest sense, with plenty of pages where text outnumbers artwork. But, often, it’s altogether too much text, intruding on the story with asides and exposition that distract from the visual sequential storytelling (though the insights into Romani language are welcome). Towards the end, there’s a terrific multi-page sequence without any text that conveys the breathless tension of Romo facing his fears and climbing up into the burning rafters of the big top.
Throughout, the coloured pencil and thick, deliberate lines bring to mind a library of classic illustrated children’s stories. It all provides the panels with a sense of texture and motion, a tactile reminder of the human hand in an age of AI. When Francis X tells a story, the art style shifts, becoming even more evocative of storybook illustrations. Throughout this whole sequence, the story is constantly being interrupted by its listeners, forcing it to morph and evolve. Here’s where the book’s at its strongest, playing with the idea of truth and the nature of narrative itself.
But, Romo the Wolfboy doesn’t evoke the whimsy and wonder of the circus or fully convey its Victorian setting. We see little new insight or observation added to carny culture — also, there’s a general lack of sensitivity to how they’re framed — or the circus itself that hasn’t already been articulated and expressed by Angela Carter, David Lynch, Josef von Sternberg, and Fellini. From the back matter where ILYA outlines his various references, Easter eggs, and inspirations, it’s clear the book is more a collage or mood board of what’s come before.
This retrograde approach can be seen most abundantly clear with the character of Francis X themself. They are, shocker, actually a girl. We’re never granted insight into their interior world; whether they identify in any way as trans, or if their character’s based on ignorance around the myriad reasons folks assigned female at birth have presented as men throughout history. It’s curious why this particular trope has been exhumed for a story published in 2026, and why a cis man chose to do it.
WRITER/ARTIST
ILYA
PUBLISHER
SelfMadeHero
RELEASE
18 February 2026
