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COVID-19 Comics

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Last updated 10/22/20

On March 11, 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared COVID-19 a pandemic. Even before then,  dozens of comics about COVID-19 began coming across our news and social media feeds.

Graphic Medicine website co-managers MK Czerwiec, RN and Alice Jaggers, MLS have curated many of them here. We include only comics with reliable information in the following categories:

Categories:
Educational
Ethics
Comics by Care Providers
Comics by Patients
Humorous/Coping
Historical/Pandemic-Related
Non-comic Resources

Editor’s note as of 09/20/20, the most recent comic in each category will be displayed first.

Please let us know if you come across comics that should be included here.

Educational

Spinoff cartoonist Toby Morris, with help from Dr Siouxsie Wiles, explores three important points about Covid-19.

Whit Taylor and Allison Shwed created this comic to debunk some Covid-19 myths. 

 

Ellen Forney created this tutorial on proper hand washing technique.

Malaka Gharib with NPR created this comic based on a radio story by Cory Turner. She intended for children to have access to facts about coronavirus. The original story includes the entire comic. Then she posted a follow up story, because libraries and schools have been translating and disseminating the comic. Malaka has also made the zine version available here to download for noncommercial use.

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UPDATE: Added to above series in August is  COVID-19 Etiquette: 6 Common Conundrums (And A Printable Pocket Guide)

Weiman Kow wanted to create comics to help explain how coronavirus works. She has created a website for her infocomics. She has updated her COVID comic to include the latest medical information. Here is an article from The Hindu about her work.

Weiman Kow How COVID 19 Spreads

 

Inspired by the UN’s GLOBAL CALL TO CREATIVES, Gen Z Group, a Singapore-based educational media company, decided to adapt the Handbook of COVID-19 Prevention and Treatment, jointly published by Jack Ma Foundation and The First Affiliated Hospital of Zhejiang University School of Medicine, into a five-episode graphic novel, titled “One World, One Fight.” See this Spotlight post for more.

An excellent gif to show why social distancing is important. Click the image for the gif.

click to activate GIF

Bioethicists Leah Eisenberg, Joan Henriksen, Felicia Cohn, Anita Tarzian, Theresa Drought, and Heather Fitzgerald worked with cartoonist Cathy Leamy to create this comic about triage of care during a pandemic.

Emergency medicine physician, cartoonist, and Medicina Gráfica organizer Monica Lalanda has been making comics and infographics with the most recent information available to keep health care providers and all following Coronavirus best practices. You can find all of them on her website here.

Juhan Sonan sends us a wonderful resource from goinvo for caring for someone with Covid-19 at home. It can be downloaded in PDF form in several languages here. 

This comic on the FiveThirtyEight website is “A Comic Strip Tour of the Wild World of Pandemic Modeling“.

Maddy Buck of LetsDrawLaw has created this explainer comic about the law around quarantine powers.

A September 14 comic “Waiting For Herd Immunity is Not the Answer” by Maki Naro and Matthew Francis.

Katy Doughty created this comic, “We Might Never Know the True Toll of COVID-19” for The Nib

The Emory University Global Health Institute invited writers and illustrators (or aspiring writers and illustrators!) to write and illustrate children’s eBooks aimed at providing age-appropriate information for children ages 6-9 on the COVID-19 pandemic. Here are the winners and honorable mentions.

This series of educational illustrations are drawn by Sonny Liew, in consultation with Associate Professor Hsu Li Yang, Programme Leader (Infectious Diseases) and supported by the Singapore Population Health Improvement Centre (SPHERiC). Click image for full comic.

Sesame Street using Elmo and his Mom in a comic to help parents talk to their children about COVID-19.

Image

Spanish nurse, illustrator, and Medicina Gráfica co-organizer Tolo Villalonga has created several educational posters in Spanish. Click the link below to see more on his Instagram.

and Medicina Gráfica has collected more from the Spanish-speaking world in this post.

UNICEF distributed this animation about how the coronavirus spreads


The Vietnamese health department posted this animated video.

One more animation – on how the Corona Virus works inside the body.

Ethics/ Social Justice

Medical anthropologist, writer, and artist Dana Walrath created these “Covid-19 Lessons” – more in this post.

The Nib has partnered with Reveal to create the series In/Vulnerable: Inequity in the Time of Pandemic. 

University of Chicago student Emily Zhao created this comic, “Covid-19 in Minority Communities” as a final project in the course “Death Panels: Exploring Dying and Death Through Comics” which was taught by Brian Callender & MK Czerwiec via Zoom during the lockdown, April – June.

Palliative care physician and cartoonist Nathan Gray created this comic to help guide advance care planning conversations in light of the pandemic.

Bioethicist Craig Klugman creates comics to illustrate his blog posts. His most recent comics are organized here and have addressed the ethical issues arising from Covid-19.

Rachael L House

NPR Correspondent Sarah Mirk created a comic about grocery workers and how they have been treated during the COVID-19 crisis.

Comic journalist Sarah Mirk checked in with grocery workers from across the country to hear more about their experiences during the pandemic and what they want to change.

Laura Gao created the comic, “The Wuhan I Know” to combat the fear and misinformation about her hometown. The post includes an interview with the artist about her project.

#IAmNotAVirus was created by French Asians to bear witness to Coronavirus-fueled racism. PBS Story here.

By Lisa Wool-Rim Sjöblom

In this comic by Eric Kostiuk Williams, the ghost of Susan Sontag comes back to remind us about metaphors and disease…

Comics by/about Care Providers

Serdar Çeliktaş is a general practitioner in Antalya, Turkey who has been making comics about the COVID pandemic and posting them on his Instagram account.

“Old Person Whisperer” (aka 2013 and 2019 Graphic Medicine conferences co-organizer Muna Al-Jawad) shared her comic “Claptrap” with our site.


Ryan Kellman and Kristen Radtke created this comic based on physician Daniel Colón Hidalgo, On Dying Alone: ‘Behind Every COVID-19 Case, There Is A Story‘

Nathan Gray created this Op-Ed comic for the Los Angeles Times about the impact of isolation on hospitalized patients.

Graphic Medicine site founder and co-manager Ian Williams created this comic about one of his clinic visits.

He also created this comic about life as a parent during Coronavirus. More comics by Ian Williams about life during Coronavirus can be found on his Instagram.

Physician/cartoonist Grace Ferris has been posting coping comics. See her Instagram feed for more.

View this post on Instagram

Some options

A post shared by Grace Farris, MD (@coupdegracefarris) on

Shirlene Obuobi is an internal medicine resident in Chicago.

View this post on Instagram

Weirdly was really motivated to get a comic out today. Won’t go deep into this, but honestly? Covid is starting to really worry me. The worst of the pandemic has yet to hit, and we are already out of ppe. The patients we’re seeing get sick aren’t necessarily old with a laundry list of comorbidities. We’re losing a lot of healthcare personnel to quarantine after exposure vs COVID rule out while waiting for testing in coworkers who are ill (which is showing me, if anything, how often residents just tough it out and come to work sick.) I’m technically seventh in line for jeopardy, but I was pulled out of clinic to cover the MICU for a couple of days. And there’s a sense of foreboding in the air that I, personally, can’t seem to shake. .⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ I’m going to attempt to catch a few zzzs. #comic #webcomic #coronavirus #resident #intern #inpatient #doctor #relatable #womeninmedicine #blackdoctors #graphicmedicine #premed #premedmotivation #residency #internalmedicine #medschool #medicine #medicalschool #medlife #md #medstudent #nurse #physician

A post shared by Shirlene Obuobi, M.D. (@shirlywhirlmd) on

Mike Natter is a physician-cartoonist on the front lines of this crisis in New York.

View this post on Instagram

COVID-19 🦠 We gotta talk about it. *We still are learning and Info subject to change as we get more data* (data per CDC) The symptoms include: fever (>100.4F), cough, and if advanced can cause shortness of breath and even pneumonia. 🦠 How does one GET the virus? It is thought to be spread by respiratory DROPLETS, (or so we think as of yet), so unlike measles, its spread by coming into contact with a droplet that contains the virus- someone with the virus coughed, sneezed, spit or snotted and you were either within range (<6 ft) of this or they touched a surface which you then touched. We still do not know how long the virus lasts for on surfaces. 🦠 How Infectious is it really? For every 1 pt infected, they will likely go on to infect 2 others. That is bad. It appears asymptomatic carriers can still shed the virus. 🦠 How deadly is it? The "death rate” is reported ~ 3.5%, when compared to the less than 1% death rate from the flu, that is CRAZY high. However, lets take a breath. We have yet to test most of the COVID cases in the US, so once we confirm more cases (which we will), the death rate will drop since ~80% of those infected typically recover. Those 20% who do worse *appear* to be the elderly and those w chronic med conditions / immunocomromised. The virus stirs up a cytokine storm usually leading to ARDS /resp failure. 🦠 Is there a vaccine? We hope to expect a vaccine in the next 12-18mo 🦠 What can we do? – Do not panic but rather exercise rational concern. Currently, the CDC recommends that if you DO NOT have symptoms or confirmed COVID19 or are a healthcare worker, you DO NOT need a mask. There is a SHORTAGE of masks (specifically N95's which are what health care workers NEED to protect ourselves). PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE STOP STEALING MASKS FROM HOSPITALS AND BULK BUYING N95s. These folks are creating a shortage for those who ACTUALLY need them. -WASH YOUR HANDS. A LOT. Soap and water is best and for at least 60s. An alcohol based hand sanitizer works well too. -Stop touching your face. -SOCIALLY ISOLATE. Chill with the hugs and kisses and handshakes if possible. -If you are feeling unwell, STAY HOME and CALL your doc. 🦠

A post shared by Mike Natter, MD (@mike.natter) on

And Alex Thomas of Booster Shot Media  is a physician-cartoonist in the Chicagoland area. His Instagram feed has more installments of “True Tales from the Outbreak”

Another nurse/cartoonist from Spain, Marina Peix, has also been creating comics about her clinical work.

Nathan Gray is a palliative care physician and cartoonist in North Carolina. Click the link below for one, and another for The Los Angeles Times opinion section on life at the hospital v. life at home as a palliative care doctor in this moment is here.


Nathan also created this comic about speaking with patients and families.

Rebecca Osborn is a second-year internal medicine resident at Yale. She submitted this comic directly to us.

@Incendavery is a personal care attendant who expresses anxiety over needing documentation to explain leaving their home.

View this post on Instagram

pandemic comics

A post shared by incendavery (@incendavery) on

This comic, “Covid Chronicles: A Nurse’s Anguish in the ICU”, was created for NBC Opinion. It was written by Ethan Sacks, drawn by Dalibor Talajić, with lettering and production by Bosung Kim.

“I Was Going to Save Everybody Else in This World” was drawn by Thi Bui, based on an interview by Elizabeth Shogren. Script written by Sarah Mirk and Amanda Pike. This comic is part of the In/Vulnerable series mentioned above.

Comics by Patients

New Yorker cartoonist Jason Chatfield’s Covid-19 diary

Erum Gour created “When COVID-19 Stole My Sense of Smell & Taste” for the Fit section of the India-based website, The Quint.

Being a patient impacted by COVID-19 is not limited to those who have symptoms. Cities, states and nations have postponed nonessential surgeries and medical procedures. Myrtle.infertile has been posting comics about her IVF experiences on Instagram. Her latest post is about the impact of COVID.

Medical illustrator and educator MERLIN has been posting drawings to Instagram about her experiences with Covid-19.

Sarah Milk interviewed Malcolm Gregory for this comic on parallels between the AIDS crisis and Covid-19.

Coping

“Rescue Party” is a collection of comics solicited by Gabe Fowler of Desert Island Books. Hillary Chute wrote an article discussing Rescue Party project, and how it reveals the power of comics during crisis.

art by Kaitlin Chan

“How to Stick Together During a Pandemic” by Victoria Marcelino

Here is another comic by Malaka Gharib. This one hits on coping with hopelessness you can feel about COVID-19.

dedar 1

B. Erin Cole, Little Brain Comics, has provided us with certificates of achievement for coping with everything. Full post includes a link to download full-size versions!

The legendary Roz Chast. Check her Instagram account for more.

The Nib features four cartoonists responding to the Pandemic’s impact on their lives. 

Chris Ware has also created two New Yorker covers about the pandemic. Click the image for the story behind the cover.

Chris Ware also created this comic on self-isolation for The New Yorker. 

Lian Chang created this comic, “Sense Memory” 

Lunar Baboon cartoonist Christopher Grady posted this coping comic on March 29.

Adam Bessie and Marc Parenteau created this comic about sewing face masks for The Believer.  

Montana cartoonist Vrah sent us a link to her great work.

“Keeping America fed: six workers on life in the thick of the coronavirus crisis” from The Guardian

Julia Wald has been documenting the Covid-19 crisis in Seattle. An article on her work can be found here. 

Bill Doan has created this piece for Annals Graphic Medicine.

Another by Rachel House

“Creativity in Captivity” by Gemma Correll (click image for full comic on The Nib)

Joanna Conings, an international student from Belgium studying at Creighton University. She writes of this comic, “Last semester, I had a class named ‘The Rhetoric of Medicine’ led by Dr. Joshua Prenosil. We were required to create comics sharing our experience of the healthcare system. I wrote one pertaining to international students’ situation in the US during the COVID 19 pandemic. Many of us are stuck in this country without any help.”

Maria Photonakis is posting an ongoing series of comics called “Extraordinary Times: A Covid-19 Social Distancing Visual Journal”

Katie Wheeler created “My parents and I both live in coronavirus epicenters — but we’re separated by thousands of miles” on The Lily. Click image for full comic. 

Robyn Jordan is posting a series of comics for Mutha Magazine, “Home Not Sick”

Beth Barnett makes comics about heroes, health, and history. She creates the daily diary comic Social Distancing – Life in the COVID-19 Pandemic.

Kay Sohini is posting comics about her experiences with Covid-19 in the US & India via her Twitter feed.

Ms Mardou makes comics about life, and most recently Family Systems Therapy. See her Instagram feed for the ongoing series.

Emily Steinberg created this comic, “Ring the Bells,” for Philadelphia’s Cleaver Magazine. Click image for full comic.

@Secondlina drew this comic about pets responding to their humans staying home

Embryo Stories with an inspiring comic of COVID-19 defeat

A politically oriented one by Jen Sorensen about reactions to social distancing. Jen has other COVID comics on her website

And here’s an XKCD from the perspective of a virus…

And one more virus-as-character by Hesam Noroozi, MD MPH. You can see more on Hessam’s Instagram feed.

The Washington DC Zinefest community collaborated on a Covid-19 Zine, as a way to motivate people to be creative during the pandemic. The zine is downloadable here.

Historical/Pandemic-related

The top 10 most deadly epidemics are included in this comic, Death By The Numbers, on The Nib. Click image for full comic.

The Seattle Public Health Department launched this comic on quarantine preparedness, No Ordinary Flu, drawn by David Lasky, in 2016. It is available for order or download in many languages. Click image for more information. Meredith Li-Vollmer wrote this reflection on revisiting this comic in the time of Covid-19.

 

Public health professional and cartoonist Whit Taylor created this prescient comic, America Isn’t Ready for a Pandemic, in 2018.

Once in a Century Pandemic by Joyce Rice, Eleri Harris, and Sarah Milk.

Robert Ullman made this comic, “Skating on Thin Ice” about the last time sporting championships were cancelled, 100 years ago, due to the 1918 flu pandemic.


Jared Gardner posted Spanish Flu comics on the website for the Drawing Blood exhibit that he curated for the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library and Museum.

“What Made The Black Death So Deadly & Who Were The Plague Doctors” – animated doc from The Infographics Show

Not a comic, but a fascinating visual of the history of pandemics.  Click for full post.

Resources of the non-comic variety

The World Health Organization (WHO) has a comprehensive website containing advice, facts, statistics, research, videos and more about the recent outbreak of COVID-19.

Image result for who images

Coronavirus at a glance from Johns Hopkins. Click for full infographic.

A go-to resource is https://coronavirus.gov, which leads to the CDC page with links to resources, articles, and news updates. The website is available in Spanish and Chinese.

3D Illustration of 2019-nCoV virus

Johns Hopkins Whiting School of Engineering’s Center for Systems Science and Engineering has a constantly updating Global Interactive Spread dashboard.

Covid-19 Projections by country from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation. See full Covid-19 data visualization resources on their site.

The US National Institute of Health (NIH) also has a site information and links to resources.

More resources: 

  • Short Run Seattle is collecting community-made comics here.
  • This guest post by Naomi Bishop shares Native American artists responding to Covid-19.
  • And this piece in the New York Times (April 27, 2020) looks at Covid-19 influencing mainstream comics.

To close this post, Alice Bellchambers, a junior doctor working in London, UK, says, “I was introduced to comics and Graphic Medicine by Muna Al-Jawad, while I was a medical student in Brighton. I have been drawing and reflecting more frequently during recent times, and have just drawn the attached COVID-19 related poster/comic.”

Comments

  6. Sarah Weaver says

    Thanks so much for including Adventures With Vrah! Graphic Medicine is an awesome community and I’m honored to be a part of it :). Stay healthy and safe, everyone!

    – Sarah (Vrah)

    Reply

  7. Juhan Sonin says

    We have a few open source graphic pieces on COVID-19:
    http://understandingcoronavirus.org/
    (launched the 1st week in Feb.2020)
    The booklet version is on GitHub:
    https://github.com/goinvo/COVID19/blob/master/understandingcoronavirus_booklet.pdf

    What do to for care at home, for you or a loved one:
    http://homecarebasics.org/
    (just launching, and will have Arabic + French by Monday 6.Apr).

    And a quick, 1-pager on washing your hands, also open source:
    https://github.com/goinvo/COVID19/blob/master/understandingcoronavirus_wash-hands-poster.jpg

    Reply

  8. Alicia says

    What a great resource! When I click on the first 2 categories, it takes me to that category of comics, but for the others, it does not.

    Reply

  9. Weiman Kow says

    Thank you for featuring my comic! I’ve just published an revised and extended version of the Coronavirus comic based on new advisories given by various national health organisations as well as WHO and CDC. The comic has been vetted by Dr. Pamela Lee Yew Fong.

    The revised comic can be found here: https://www.comicsforgood.com/weimankow/how-covid-19-spreads

    Can you help to update my section with a link to the updated version of the comic as well? You can also replace the old one with this one, since it is more medically accurate. Thanks!

    Reply

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