Here's how effective Skidmarks is at evoking a British feel: It made me go out and get some semblance of fish and chips for lunch the day after I read it. As a comics reader with fairly broad tastes, I've been exposed to plenty of stories by British writers and/or set in England, and I've found that too often, the British-ness of it can be a bit off-putting, leaving me feeling like I'm reading a story written in a foreign language rather than a variation of English. Ilya's story has the atmosphere and verisimilitude needed to bring across the sense of place, but without the often commensurate disorientation, and so I found myself quite easy to relate to a world that I have very little in common with, the story of a teenaged English boy with a love for booze, clubbing, and bikes who is tempted by a robbery into abandoning his own moral code and spends most of the issue trying to set things right.
Skidmarks reads very differently from most comics I've read, and compares in structure most easily to the work of another Englishman, Paul Grist. Though Skidmarks tells one complete story overall, it is structured as a series of short stories, each which has its own beginning and ending. Reading it as a graphic novel is a little disconcerting at times, because it feels like there should be a week between the installments to help build tension, but the advantage of reading it all at once is that it's harder to lose track of the characters. Which is good, because although Ilya's cast isn't overly large, many of them have a similar punk attitude that could make them blend together if you weren't paying close enough attention. As it was, I sometimes got a little confused about Rachel and Janet, both of whom seemed about as welcome as a roach in one's food, but for different reasons.
At the center of Skidmarks' cast, though, is Bic, the young boy whom the stories all revolve around. Ilya's story is very grounded, with a little bit of outrageous characters and coincidence but a general reality about it that keeps the reader entranced. Bic is a very real character, someone who seems a generally nice guy but who can be derailed by his own worst impulses of selfishness and greed, and yet someone who comes around when given a little time to think about it. Much like a lot of us are, I imagine, when tempted by the chance to do wrong and not get caught. What's nice is that while the story really does center around Bic having stolen and trying to make up for it, Ilya doesn't really oversell it, and instead it's a constant undercurrent to why Bic does what he does.
There's also a welcoming feeling to the world that Bic and his friends represent. It's so different from my own experiences at that age, being about organizing parties and going out clubbing, but Ilya makes Bic and his friends so likable and recognizable that one feels like part of their crowd of friends as they read the book. It's comparable to the sort of thing that Chynna Clugston-Major does so well in Blue Monday, although Ilya substitutes authentic English culture for the more outrageous fantasy elements. Not that Skidmarks doesn't have its share of quirky and weird, from the goofy behavior of Bic and Alex that feels like every pair of best friends I've known to the group of bikers that show up for the party.
Ilya mentions in the interview at the close of the book that his artwork was changing throughout, and it's definitely noticeable. Mind you, even the art at the beginning is pretty solid, but by the end it's all the more impressive. Again, the most obvious comparison is to Paul Grist, with his stylized look, but there's also a lot of fine detail that reminds me of indy artists like Jessica Abel and Jaime Hernandez, plus some amazing ink and shadow work and manga style storytelling with speed lines and multiple tiny panels.
