August Lipp is a cartoonist with a singular worldview that’s equal parts charming and disturbing, and he’s unafraid to blend the two in unique ways that leave you feeling decidedly amused, decidedly uneasy, and, frequently, wonderfully perplexed. When he firmly stakes out a distinct point of view and tone he’s capable of “hitting it out of the park” like nobody’s business — Roopert stands as one of the finest comics of the past decade — but hey, every artist has a process they need to work through before arriving at wherever it is they’re going, and that’s what his recently self-published New Leash On Life is all about.

The funny thing, though, is that for what’s billed as a collection of notebook drawings spanning the 2019-2020 period, these are, by and large, remarkably finished works — Lipp puts more “sweat equity” into many ostensibly “throwaway” illustrations than some cartoonists do…