Nate’s irreverent Girl Juice (Drawn & Quarterly, May) follows four 20-something roommates with a dish rack full of sex toys.

Where do these characters come from?

I feel like they’re all versions of me at some point in my life. Also, I’ve never had female roommates and I’ve always wanted them, and I thought this was what it could be like.

Which one of the girls is you now?

I’m in my Bunny era right now. I’m really craving attention since the pandemic, so I’m out and about. Apparently, I can be very flirty by accident.

This was originally a webcomic, and the storytelling is very loose. What was the first scene you came up with?

I can’t just sit down and do a 200-page book because I’ll go crazy. I think the very first scene was one of the characters trying to draw something and looking up nude lady reference pictures. On that page, I was not Bunny; I was still very isolated. I started this during Covid, and looking at the pages, I see how lonely I was.

What was your favorite thing to draw?

There’s a running gag that kind of fell apart because I forgot about it, but for a while, any time Bunny is being expressive, her dog mirrors her expressions. I don’t think I put enough of that in the book. I always laughed whenever I was drawing one of those panels.

When Girl Juice originally ran online, what kind of reactions did it get?

I got a lot of strange reactions. Most women responded well to it, but it was the first time I got really hateful comments from men. Certain men on the internet, when they see women enjoying themselves their brain just breaks, and they’re like, this woman needs to find God.

What do you hope readers take away from this book?

I don’t think there are a lot of comics aimed at adult women where they’re just enjoying themselves. I want people to enjoy themselves.

Well, I found it very enjoyable. Roommate Nana’s scary clown boyfriend is my favorite joke.

I have very little in common with my sister, but we both contemplated going to clown college.

So the characters are all the aspects of your personality: attention-seeking, drawing comics, and dating a clown?

I would’ve loved to have dated a clown. I couldn’t pull a clown.