Comics in and of the Moment. The COVID19 pandemic: a graphic narrative.

Abstract

ABSTRACT FOR GRAPHIC SUBMISSION TO:“COMICS IN AND OF THE MOMENT”. THE COMICS GRIDMónica LalandaBack in March 2020, when it became obvious that we were heading a big global disaster, I created a folder called Coronavirus Graphic Medicine. Since it was a unprecedented health care crisis, I expected a huge amount of art material related directly to the illness, the symptoms, the medical care, tests, treatments…I saw it as a great oportunity to confirm the use of such fabulous communication tool. Everytime I came accross a comic, infographic or cartoon in social media (mostly twitter and Instagram), I’d save it in my folder. I concentrated on work created in spanish but also foreign ones without any text.Within weeks, I was already surprised that the amount of graphic outpour was huge but there was little in terms of “proper” graphic medicine. As I continued to look into it in more detail, analysing all these amazing pieces, I could see that the illness itself was not the main character of the story, the protagonists of the covid-19 crisis were not the patients or the disease. It was clear that there was little contact with the patients, either locked in ther own rooms or in hospitals with no visitors. Covid-19 victims were surprisingly not the real issue. This in itself is very meaningful. .The illustrators also drew a lot about death but little about the dead ones, creamated without witnesses and buried almost in solitute . As the vignettes continued to enter my folder, I could see that somehow they were able to give an amazing narrative of the pandemia, there was hardly any graphic medicine but more of a story about a whole society going through a unique and damaging common experience. A kind of social graphic medicine of some sort. The suffering of a whole society rather than the illness of the individuals.They fitted into various themes that were obviouly catching the artists’ imagination. In my on-going analysis I ended up creating subfolders that allowed me to clasify and study them in a more logical way. These were the issues that gave way to more pieces:- Health care providers as heroes- Health care providers as victims of the system- Coping with the confinement.- The virus itself (anthopromorphism)- Death- “The curve”- Face masks- Timely themes (schools, Halloween, christmas…)- Information for people to avoid illness- vaccinesNow that things have settled, there is a new and different creation with a kind of retrospective eye. Yet again graphic medicine as such is missing. I’ve recently being invited to write the introduction of an anthology of comics about the pandemia where some of the best spanish comic creators have produced their own pieces about covid19. I notice a tendency to search for answers, to look into our society and our communities with some queries, to measure the effect of social inequalities or the importance of belonging, there is a concern about the psicological effect of those deaths that we were not allowed to mourn, the oportunity to value small things that we never noticed before. I almost sense a call to forget the ugly and to rebuild a new society upon the old ashes. It’s surprising the change in tone. Deep pesimism mixed with cheerful expectations.I’d like to create a comic reflecting on the analysis of all those hundreds of cartoons and comics that I’ve been looking at for over a year.My own work during the pandemia has been mostly graphic medicine as such and here is a link to some of it:https://monicalalanda.com/