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Illustration: Alysia Abbott
Illustration: Alysia Abbott

How drawing comics is helping me mentally survive lockdown

This article is more than 3 years old

In quarantine, I’ve faced down loneliness and fear with paper and ink

I’m sitting at a cafe table in Paris, wearing impractically high-heeled boots, sipping espresso and blowing cigarette smoke into the air. Here I am swimming in the deep ocean, making friends with an octopus.

One week after our state declared official lockdown, I found a way to travel safely, without mask or temperature checks, to explore other worlds and discover a sense of possibility that I acutely miss.

I first suggested the comics class to four friends who share my love of the cartoonist Lynda Barry. We didn’t know how long the lockdown would last, and doing exercises from Barry’s book, Making Comics, seemed like a fun way to pass time now that we were homebound. Armed with three-by-five index cards, blank paper and black Flair pens, we’ve diligently followed Barry’s class syllabus, starting each session by drawing a three-minute “attendance card”, from a list of ideas. Draw yourself as a vegetable. Draw yourself as a bearded lady. Draw yourself digging your way to freedom. Draw yourself as a French person.

I’ve discovered it feels good to be someone else, even for an hour, each week.

Photograph: Alysia Abbott

During the pandemic, many activities I love (eating out, visiting friends) are forbidden. I’m often too anxious to read for any length of time, and writing’s a challenge. With the country alternately on fire or on the verge of civil war, topics that seemed pressing in early 2020 now seem trite. Social media offer distraction and solidarity but also keep me glued to the news cycle and remind me what I should be doing, like contacting voters in Georgia for the January runoffs.

Drawing is one of few remaining activities that actually calms me.

As a kid, I loved drawing more than anything. My dad was a single parent and poet. Whenever I accompanied him to readings, he set me up in a corner with paper and pencils. There, I created whole cities hidden in clouds, or at the bottom of the sea. Birds became passenger planes, fish swam alongside mermaids and their mer-families. In high school, I entered and placed in a few art contests. But when I left home for college, drawing moved from the center of my pages to the margins. It became something I let myself do when my mind was wandering but never permitted myself to devote real time to. I didn’t believe I was good enough. I thought I should focus on finding a job to support myself.

Photograph: Alysia Abbott

I stuffed my drawing self in the back of the closet like an outfit I used to love and couldn’t bear to give away. It’s meaningful, but does it still fit? If I put it on, will I look like myself, or like someone in costume, pretending?

But now, with desk-time in abundance, drawing has become my refuge. Unlike with my other work – writing, reporting, teaching – I never worry if I’m doing it right or wrong. My only audience is those four supportive friends on Zoom. We make our drawings, then share them, laughing at each other and at ourselves. After meeting for more than 32 weeks, we’ve exhausted Lynda Barry’s attendance cards. Now we’ve come up with our own prompts: Draw yourself moderating the debate. Draw yourself nursing old wounds. Draw yourself as Uncle Sam. It feels like creativity for creativity’s sake, and it’s surprisingly therapeutic.

Take an assignment called Monster Jam: Draw four sets of scribbles, then transform each into a different monster. The monsters become characters with dialogue, backstories, family portraits: a whole life. Drawing my monster on his deathbed helped me sit with the idea of so many now dying of Covid-19, surrounded by hospital staff instead of family.

Cartooning has taught me how to live with the unknown. Some exercises require that you draw with your eyes closed, or with your non-dominant hand. With so much that’s unpredictable – will Massachusetts get its infection numbers down, how long will my daughter be learning remotely, will Donald Trump ever concede this election? – it feels good to let go of the “perfect drawing” and instead be delighted by whatever shows up.

When I was little, my dad used to make drawings in an effort to conquer my fear of monsters. He drew me beating up and throwing out the window a monster who’d burst into my bedroom. He thought if he drew me acting fearless, I’d no longer be a scaredy cat. That didn’t quite work out. This anxious child has grown into an anxious adult, made more anxious by these unusual times.

But I can turn to drawing as an act of becoming. I’m a tightrope walker balancing over a shark-infested sea. I’m floating in outer space, miles above Earth’s problems. I can fight my monsters by drawing my monsters. With paper and ink, I can imagine all of us out of this chaotic world.

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