I had to have some kind of happy ending to this overall grim series of pandemic comics. Jessica has been my anchor during this pandemic. She’s helped me retain a grip on reality during my most uncertain moments. More than that, really. These comics wouldn’t exist without her. Her constant support & belief in what I do has inspired me to challenge myself consistently to get better at making comics. At least that’s what I’m going for. I feel like I’m making progress, but who knows? All I can do is keep going.
This series of pandemic comics is now available as a zine/digital zine download! I intended to make this zine prior to running these comics in Human Stuff #2 (Cuts of Me), but never got it together til now. You can pick one up at the recently redesigned Grackle Studio shop.
Remember, Patreon backers have a coupon code for 25% off everything!
Good news: the hospital bill that got sent to collection has dropped off my credit report! Bad news is I’m running up against my credit limit, but that’s another credit issue folks.
I’ve watched cooking shows since I was a kid & helped my grandma prepare things in her kitchen, so it’s always been a casual interest of mine. When I started living on my own I had to learn to cook some things, but never got too far out of my wheelhouse. This post-injury period really helped me develop a different relationship & familiarity with cooking. Maybe I have more patience for it now, too. It’s therapeutic in some ways, the rituals & rhythms. Pretty fun stuff!
I’m sure I’ve mentioned Chico’s Tacos in some blog somewhere, but it’s an El Paso staple I grew up with that I beg everyone to try. Its beef flautas in a red chile sauce topped with cheese & green chile. To be able to make this on my own for Jessica & I hundreds of miles away from home is a good feeling.
Yes, this happened. It was tuna cat food, which is why I thought it would be fine to eat. I wouldn’t call my childhood traditional in many ways. But I’m sure there are a lot of older siblings who had to do a little bit of the parenting while the parent(s) were otherwise indisposed. I’m only 11 months older than my brother, so I was definitely no source of information on anything. Maybe Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
I don’t think my dad saw this comic before he died last year, but if he did & had any memory or ability to acknowledge the truth of what I’m depicting, he would say this is the kind of stuff that builds character.
By this point in this pandemic series of comics, you may be thinking to yourself, “Damn! These are some serious comics.” This is what 2020 did to me! It made me evaluate my life. So these comics are about some things that impacted how I handled the pandemic. I took some hits; who has gotten this far into covid unmarred by some turmoil? Okay, rich people have had it pretty good.
We all lean on our crutches too heavily sometimes. But falling into the same booze cycle as my mom & being unable to control it is a big fear of mine ever since she died. I’m hyper aware of how much I drink. By the way, don’t I sound like a pretty fun person to hang out with?!
The pandemic has spread us all thin in many ways, but mental health has been impacted hard. It’s an under acknowledged component of enduring this marathon of crises. In some ways I feel like I’m regaining a sense of normalcy after three years, but in some ways I’m still maladjusted as hell! Bipolar is a lot to manage.
I tell everyone who I speak about with mental health in real life, but cognitive behavioral therapy helped me gain more awareness of my thoughts & their impact. I have more of an ability to manage symptoms of mania & depression as they crash into my skull.
But this is a comic about coping, more than anything. These are some ways I deal. Things get a little imbalanced from time to time, for sure. I’m trying to maintain some awareness of it. Making comics helps, too!
I’m still so bent out of shape about this I don’t even want to write about it. I worked for the grocery delivery app company Instacart from 2018-2020, including when the pandemic hit. The majority of their workforce are contract workers, which is what I was when I started working as an in store shopper. I preferred to just do the shopping rather than driving around Austin too. Eventually I accepted an offer for shift lead, which meant signing paperwork to become a real employee with rights & health insurance.
During the pandemic, Instacart consistently failed to adequately provide employees with masks, hand sanitizer, guidance, hazard pay, etc. They made the choice to cut pay for employees and contractors at that time. I was pissed. Nothing happened to my pay, but the cut impacted a lot of people I worked with. I tried to unionize after I heard about Instacart’s first union being established in late 2019 in some store up north. Instacart did everything they could to shut down unionization efforts, including firing all their Austin area employees.
What a shitty move! So please join me in protesting Instacart. They’re a terrible, amoral company. I remember asking in a Zoom meeting why managers who didn’t even set foot in the actual grocery stores were getting hazard pay but actual employees weren’t. The regional director manager guy got all pissed & said people like me had a bad attitude. No shit dude, if I got way more money for doing way less I’d probably be all content & pissy if someone called me on it. This whole situation bummed me out, I liked what I did.
If I can provide one piece of commentary that isn’t me griping about my old job, it’s remember drawing this page & finally getting frustrated about how small I draw these comics. When I started doing these comics, I chose to draw them small (they’re reproduced for print basically at 1:1). It was to allow myself to make quick & dirty comics & not think too much or spend too much time on it. Clearly I’ve reverted back to my old ways & done the complete opposite. This format isn’t the best for the wide shots with a lot of detail. After Human Stuff #3 is complete, I’m excited to change up how I draw these autobiographical comics.
I’ve been meaning to post these comics for a long time. It was something I stopped prioritizing because I wanted to release this comic series out as a zine first. Now that I’m doing the zine, I can share this series of pandemic comics. These also appeared in Human Stuff 2: Cuts of Me.
These comics are about how I was processing the pandemic at the time I drew them, from late 2020 through early 2021. It was a lot that was happening at once, felt like the world was experiencing a major event. It caused me to take stock of my life in a way that I’m sure a lot of people did.
This comic is sort of the overture to the next six pages. I remember how the signs the pandemic was happening arrived before the pandemic actually got to the Austin community. People were freaked out. In my head it seemed like a repeat of the bird flu & swine flu outbreaks from the mid/late aughts. At that time I worked in a pharmacy in San Francisco & was used to people wearing masks during times like these. Maybe it was this false sense of security that led to me getting coronavirus in February 2020 before thinking to take any precaution.
Wild how the pandemic is still happening, right? It’s just sort of a way of life now, people pretend like it’s over. Anyhow, tune in next week to learn how the pandemic ended my job.
Another thrilling Hourly Comic Day! I’m a big furniture assembly head. Just try keeping furniture unassembled around me. I didn’t get too far with the name Generator, I have a memory of those things being more imaginative, or at least having better prompts.
Despite trying to stay busy, grief still has a pretty strong hold on me. Shock finally turned into sadness. The beginning of a process, I guess. The little routines help on days like this.
