WATCH OUT!!!
I don't know how you folks were reacting to it, but back in early March of 2020 I was very much not taking Covid seriously. I remember distinctly that the gravity of what was happening began to creep in on the night of Friday the 13th while I was on the train heading home after dinner with a friend. Even then it seemed like we'd only have to stay home for a few weeks. Maaaybe a couple of months, at worst.
Having never dealt with anything like this pandemic in my life I thought it might be therapeutic to dedicate an art book to some exaggerated scenarios inspired by the fears that I'd been trying to dismiss. I had this cheap little grid notebook that I got at Staples (almost free because the corner of the cover had been torn off) which was perfect for the project. (The idea of using Copics on this flimsy, cheap paper somehow felt appropriate, and the final product has this incredible look and feel as a result of the combination.) I began referring to the series of drawings as WATCH OUT!!! and wanted to draw enough of them to justify a small run of zines upon completion. But after the first six, which were drawn in March, I only did two in April and one in June.
Even though I don't really consider the series completed June's feels like the last one because by that point the world was very different. The demonstrations sparked by George Floyd's murder were still happening and the reality of everything had long since taken me out of the head space necessary to work on a humorous, exaggerated satire of a pandemic. Too many of my fears had come to fruition and I didn’t know what to expect next.
Now, ten months from the day things began to get real, I still don't feel like I can continue Watch Out. I did, however, want to display them all together somewhere along with some context. Maybe I'll revisit and finish the series off with a completely different perspective some day, but for now, here are the nine drawings that exist.
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My friend and I did dinner on March 13th cuz the Tall Juan concert we would have gone to got canceled.
