Comfortless

These linked vignettes by Vila (Milky Way) capture in astringent detail the backbiting and resentments triggered by the Covid pandemic. Across a dozen stories set in the Italian suburb of Padua, the cartoonist follows a loose network of 20-somethings—roommates and neighbors, frenemies and exes—who navigate interpersonal turbulence in the pressure cooker environment. In one entry, husky Fabio’s stealth purchase of a bag of Twinkies becomes a cruel running joke on a camping trip with his girlfriend’s friends. In another, Irene unleashes her lockdown rage on a jogger flouting quarantine restrictions outside her window. While climate anxiety and the war in Ukraine rumble in the background, Vila zeroes in on micro-indignities and transgressions: forgotten masks, faked negative Covid tests, cranky pod-politics. Characters slide into one another’s stories, if only in passing conversation, as Vila maps a tangled social web. Later episodes tilt toward the speculative, imagining a fresh crisis on the heels of lockdown. A versatile stylist, Vila pivots from impersonal, tightly gridded sequences to harshly lit close-ups that revel in the pores, stubble, and ruddy complexions of his characters’ all-too-human features. The result is a claustrophobic tableau of petty grievances and global catastrophe that’s unsparing, sardonic, and painfully recognizable. (Nov.)