COMICS TO THE RESCUE

A BOOKSHOP IN NEW YORK CITY ASKED PEOPLE TO IMAGINE A UTOPIAN WORLD AFTER COVID-19. HUNDREDS OF COMIC ARTISTS ACROSS THE WORLD GOT BACK, FORMING THE INSTAGRAM ART PROJECT, ‘RESCUE PARTY’

- Kareena Gianani

Hong Kong-based cartoonist Kaitlin Chan’s (@chen_jiaxian) future—more specifically her post-pandemic utopia—is peppered with these images: a vow to not judge PDA-ing couples on the metro, to make time to ogle hot waiters who smoke outside, and a world where her fellow Hongkongers can go back to having their enemies cursed (in a traditional local ritual). Once again.

On the other side of the world, Peruvian illustrator Jolos Carsé (@jolos—) draws a future full of huggers, where we hug so frequently and fiercely that it’d be common for our arms to be afflicted with a condition called ‘hugsored.’ “People will start hugging with any limb they can grab,” he wishes, “until everyone becomes a twirly mass—of care and affection.”

Chan and Carsé are among 300-plus artists from over 30 countries who answered an open call for short comics about an imagined utopic future after COVID-19. Their panels are part of a whimsical, wonderful Instagram art project, Rescue Party (@rescueparty2020), curated by a Brooklyn-based comics bookstore, Desert Island.

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