COVID-19 sucks for a lot of reasons. It’s hard to sit idly with the knowledge that people everywhere on Earth are suffering, and, of course, the promise of an economic depression is stressful regardless of how one’s own household is managing. However, isolation has its perks when you are a self-employed artist. Because I’m not distracted by social engagements, I now have the opportunity to work on creative projects that I previously hadn’t taken the time to develop.

My childhood dream was to be a cartoonist, but as I grew up, my passion for writing overtook my younger plans. Art school also had a way of sucking the fun clean out of being a visual artist, so when I went on to university, I chose to pursue an English literature education, rather than continuing in fine arts.

I think, over time, I just stopped considering that I could be a professional cartoonist–that is, until I went from being home, oh, let’s say 80% of the time to being home 99% percent of the time. There’s only so much avoiding work a person can do before it gets tiresome and quite frankly kind of icky to wallow in unproductiveness, and when you’re in full creative control of your work, variety can keep the machine well-oiled.

So, all that to say, I’m making gag cartoons now, but I can’t show them to you yet. To take this new branch of my career seriously, I can’t post cartoons on my blog, or they won’t be considered by the publications to which I hope to eventually sell them.

I suppose this blog entry is a bit anticlimactic, then. Here’s a picture of me enjoying my backyard, as consolation.