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What's So Funny About COVID-19? How Some Comic Strip Artists Have Approached or Avoided a Sensitive Subject
COVID-19 and a World of Ad Hoc Geographies: Volume 1 ; 1:795-813, 2022.
Article in English | Scopus | ID: covidwho-2321943
ABSTRACT
Newspaper comic strip artists in the "funny pages” have approached the subject of the COVID-19 pandemic in a number of ways. There was a delayed reaction to the pandemic because of the significant lead times preceding when the strip appeared in the paper. Some artists chose never to address the pandemic;other strips are "classic” in that they had appeared previously before the pandemic (e.g., Classic Peanuts, For Better or Worse) or were firmly grounded in a different time period (e.g., Prince Valiant) and would not be expected to broach the subject. A variety of aspects of the pandemic were fodder for the strips and panels such as shortages and rationing, quarantine behavior, hand washing and mask wearing, escapism, family togetherness and its opposite, loneliness, social distancing, virtual meetings and telecommuting. Some of these subjects are exaggerated in an attempt to highlight their humorous, even ludicrous, aspects. Others are especially poignant and pay tribute to health care workers, delivery persons, grocery store employees, teachers, and other unsung heroes helping people get through the worst of the pandemic. Special attention is paid to the themes discussed in the following three comics Dr. Rex Morgan, MD, Frank and Ernest, and Pearls Before Swine. Thirty-seven comic strips and panels appearing in the daily and Sunday editions of two different Kentucky newspapers to which the author subscribes;they form the basis for the study. These nationally syndicated strips were analyzed from the time of the first stay at home order in mid-March 2020 until the end of February 2021. This examination is exploratory in nature. Trends in the number of cartoons addressing aspects of COVID-19 are analyzed, but more importantly an attempt is made to interpret the themes of the comic strips or panels. © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022.
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Full text: Available Collection: Databases of international organizations Database: Scopus Language: English Journal: COVID-19 and a World of Ad Hoc Geographies: Volume 1 Year: 2022 Document Type: Article

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Full text: Available Collection: Databases of international organizations Database: Scopus Language: English Journal: COVID-19 and a World of Ad Hoc Geographies: Volume 1 Year: 2022 Document Type: Article