'Written and drawn every day during the 2020 lockdown and shared online with #QuarantineComix, 2020 Comedy Women in Print-shortlisted Rachael Smith’s delightful comics helped people who were isolated all over the world to feel connected.
'At times laugh-out-loud funny, at others bitter-sweet, philosophical or downright silly, this collection of 200 drawings tells the story of one woman overcoming loneliness and self-doubt with exquisite, wry humour and raw honesty. During a time when many feel anxious and apart from loved ones, Quarantine Comix offers relief in shared experiences.'
The last year has been very long, and very hard, for a lot of people. I say a lot of people, I think everyone really. Living with the added danger of a virus that could kill, or leave you with lifelong disabilities and health conditions, in and out of nationwide lock-downs, and dealing with selfish people who feel their unwillingness to acknowledge the virus makes them safe has all led to what I think we could all class as a year of hell. Despite how bad things have been some people have turned the darkness of the last year into something beautiful, using it to create wonderful artwork.
One such person is Rachael Smith, who over the course of 2020 produced small comic strips and shared them with the world through social media. Now, they have been collected together and produced in a printed book for the first time, allowing a whole new audience to experience her life, her thoughts, and her joys during lock-down.
Creating art during a dark period, where it's easy to allow yourself to become overwhelmed by depression isn't easy; or at least it isn't easy to still produce something that can contain a lot of joy and happiness. It would be easy to create a series of comics that simply showed the bad moments of Rachael's experiences, where she focused on her isolation from her partner, where the dark thoughts that creep into her head are the ones that get shown.
Whilst these things do feature in this book they're by no means given centre stage, and Rachael gives a pretty balanced view of her experiences. Yes, there are comics where she pines to be with her boyfriend, or she becomes overwhelmed by the dark voices in her head, but there's also the comics where she gets excited to be in her garden, where she cracks jokes about toilet paper shortages to her housemate, and where she simply finds love and comfort in her cat.
Rachael doesn't sugar coat the harder moments, but she doesn't keep the good ones to herself either. She presents a pretty balanced view of what life is like living in lock-down, where you have to balance the dark with the light. She does with with a sense of humour and whimsy that feels very real, the kind of jokes you'd make having been stuck inside with the same people for weeks at a time, jokes that are pretty ridiculous, but you can't help but laugh because they're what's getting you through.
The corona virus pandemic isn't going to be a time that people look back on fondly, and I'm expecting that it will be featured in art very sparingly for a long while, until the pain of what we've all been through has lessened quite a bit, but this book manages to show that it wasn't all bad during this time. It shows readers that despite the looming darkness there are moments of joy and wonder that we should hold on to, that make every day worth living for. I think this is a lesson this book hows well, and one that will not only help people through this pandemic, but through their entire lives.
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