Preparing to Bite

Roberts follows up The Joy of Quitting with more deadpan glimpses into her daily life that reveal much by saying little. Much of this volume was drawn during the Covid-19 lockdowns and their immediate aftermath, and Roberts captures the alternately claustrophobic and cozy vibes of the period succinctly. “It’s been really weird getting used to seeing my co-workers without masks,” she reflects. “Mouths and noses are a lot less attractive than eyes.” Her fine-lined black-and-white sketches capture moments ranging from the weighty (dealing with her multiple sclerosis, Roberts monitors her health and reflects on the “black holes in her brain”) to the aggressively mundane (“Can I take a picture?” she asks her kid on their first trip to Sam’s Club. “This is a special moment in your childhood”). Moments of domestic comedy include Keiler’s rejoinder, “Is anyone downstairs cooking?” to her child’s inquiry about the whereabouts of dinner, or her husband’s gentle ribbing about the many times she’s vowed to quit drawing. Despite the difficulties sustaining her creative practice, she finds meaning in art: “The bad part of making comics again,” she says, “is that I feel worse on days when I’m too sick to do it.” Fans of Roberts’s dry humor and relentless honesty will be grateful that she finds it hard to quit. (May)