The Opportunity by Will Volley Review

Colin is the top salesman at Python and finally, after years of hard work, he’s going to get what he always wanted: his own business and an office in London. All he’s got to do is put in one more week of sales to push out his rival and then he’ll be rich enough to get that Porsche Boxster. But he’ll need to motivate his team to meet the new target set by head office. It’s only one more week. And then, one fateful night in Hastings as the rain comes down, the realities of Colin’s life come crashing down with it…

I couldn’t be more impressed with Will Volley’s The Opportunity - it’s an incredible comic. I’d honestly put it up there with other great works on the same subject like Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman and David Mamet’s Glengarry Glen Ross.

Colin is such an intriguing character. He looks professional but there’s something off about his figure. There’s a cadaver look to it and his perma-grin looks increasingly desperate as the story continues. Volley’s realistic art style really helps in this aspect too. Colin parrots any number of motivational business slogans throughout and we slowly see his true character emerge over the course of the book - for all his chumminess, he’s deeply cynical and mercenary. And yet, as slimy as someone like this is, Volley is able to make Colin not entirely loathsome and even sympathetic to a point - it’s amazing writing.

On the surface, it doesn’t seem like the kind of story that’d be ripe for drama - a group of door-to-door salesman in one of (sadly) many multi-level marketing companies scattered around the UK like acne - but it’s genuinely enthralling to see beyond the vapid slogans and self-help rubbish Colin’s constantly spewing, hoping sheer magical thinking will somehow fix hopeless problems, into the realities of his sad life and the desperate things he ends up doing.

It’s a cliche but it is like watching a car crash in slow motion and I couldn’t put the book down until I finally saw how it all ended. Volley throws in one reveal after another like the master storyteller he clearly is, before taking the story to a surreal level and wringing the final horrors out of this nightmarish tale. Having the story continue into the rain and darkness was a great choice, heightening the drama to breaking point.

I really liked that we never find out exactly what Colin’s company does - it’s an insidious aspect of these companies, so it’s realistic to portray in this way, though it also plays into the unreality of Colin’s dreams and the kind of life these companies give their employees. Volley’s afterword is very enlightening on the subject of multi-level marketing companies and well worth reading - it not only informs the reader but shows you how well thought-out and executed the entire book was.

The artwork is flawless with so much being communicated by the characters’ expressions - Volley is such a gifted illustrator that he can convey both Colin’s mania and charm at the same time and you can understand the dynamics of a scene through the characters’ faces and body language easily.

The framing of some pages say so much despite the lack of any words on the page. Like the pullback of the view so you can see the dismal, run-down neighbourhood where most of the story takes place, showing you how bizarre the promises of riches are in contrast to where this money is being made. I loved how the end sequence was handled as well - there’s one page when Colin looks in a mirror that’s genuinely unnerving and so brilliantly takes you into his mind’s eye in that moment.

I liked how when Colin was in management-speak mode the panels turned into the kind you’d see in a bland PowerPoint presentation along the same lines, and that the art lines become looser, more sketchy, as he gets into his warped perception of the economy, showing how little he really understands. I could go on and on about the art but I’ll stop here and say that it’s as first-rate as the writing - I can’t believe this is the first time I’m hearing the name Will Volley and I read comics all the time. This guy should be a blimmin’ household name!

The dialogue is so convincing and on-point throughout - you fully understand the characters through their speech, and they seem like real people too. Perhaps the most remarkable thing the book does is show you the mindset of the kind of people who do this work. And still another strength of this comic is how Volley doesn’t condemn companies and salesmen like these but doesn’t need to be so explicit either - the simple portrayal of the reality does that for him, and he has the wherewithal to know this and take a step back from any corny moralising.

I feel like this is sort of what Seth was shooting for with Clyde Fans but Will Volley manages to do it far more successfully with this shorter and vastly more compelling book. So if you’re a fan of that kind of story, you’ll probably get a lot out of The Opportunity.

The comic was published in 2016 and it doesn’t appear to be in print anymore (I found this gem in the library) and there’s no digital edition. Still, if you have the opportunity to pick up this book, I highly recommend it and only hope that more people recognise it for the modern classic it is so that it’ll come back to print and find the audience it deserves. The Opportunity is comics at its finest.