The infective nurture of pandemic comics

I co-authored a letter published in The Lancet responding to a wonderful paper by Brian Callender and colleagues which explored how comics have contributed to the visual culture of contagion through the COVID-19 pandemic. Our letter expands on this to explore ‘informed empathy’, ie sharing information in a way that emotionally resonates, through visual storytelling.

#25 Unsung Heroes. From The COVID-19 Chronicles by the National University of Singapore Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine. The series was initiated by Professor Yap Seng Chong, designed in collaboration with Professor Dale Fisher and artist Andrew Tan…

#25 Unsung Heroes. From The COVID-19 Chronicles by the National University of Singapore Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine. The series was initiated by Professor Yap Seng Chong, designed in collaboration with Professor Dale Fisher and artist Andrew Tan (Drewscape).

We present one of my favourite examples from this year with “The COVID-19 Chronicles”, a 100-comic series from the National University of Singapore which shared expert advice about the evolving pandemic situation using slice-of-life comedy.

You can read the published letter in The Lancet here: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)32550-2/fulltext