Roaming

Roaming is the triumphant reunion of cousins Mariko Tamaki and Jillian Tamaki — their first full collaboration since This One Summer — and it swept the 2024 Eisner Awards, winning Best Graphic Album and Best Writer. The story follows three college students over a single weekend in New York City: Zoe, a free-spirited artist studying in New York; Dani, her best friend from art school back in Toronto who’s visiting for the first time; and Fiona, the guarded new roommate Zoe brings along. Over five days of cheap pizza, smoky bars, the Statue of Liberty, and endless walking, the trio’s friendships bend and crack under the pressure of being young, being broke, and trying to figure out who they’re becoming.

It’s the Tamaki cousins at the absolute top of their game. Mariko’s script captures the electric, terrifying thrill of that age — the conversations that feel like they’ll decide your whole future, the alliances that shift in an afternoon — while Jillian’s art, rendered in a lush, saturated palette that makes Manhattan glow, turns the city itself into a character. The book’s genius is in its restraint: no villain, no big dramatic fight, just the quiet, agonizing ways people grow apart and the beauty in sharing a city block with someone before you do. Critics called it their most emotionally mature work yet, and the Eisner judges agreed.

Roaming is essential reading for anyone who’s ever been a twenty-something in a big city with no money and too many feelings — and it’s the perfect entry point to the Tamaki universe for new readers. Published by Drawn & Quarterly, it belongs on every shelf next to Skim and This One Summer.

Full of heart, humor, and heartbreaking honesty, grab your copy of Roaming today.