Late Again

There should be a new page of Fetch posted today, but alas I am still drawing it. Part of the problem I keep running into is that life matters keep interrupting (like my day job! if only they’d pay me to just draw cartoons all day), but the other part is that I am finding drawing to be a struggle these days. I don’t know why that is. I draw a face, don’t like it, redraw it, don’t like it, redraw it, don’t like it — then an hour later I have the face I want. That’s an example of how my process has been going lately. Everything is taking longer.

I wonder if maybe it’s just pandemic fatigue. I know I am not alone in feeling worn out and stressed out by the deadly and destructive wave of disease that has overwhelmed every society on the planet. In my own country mismanagement and institutional failures, plus an ideological addiction to the interests of the wealthy, we have lost nearly 600,000 people in a year, while another 32 million have been infected by the disease — both conservative estimates, because so many cases were not recognized in time, so many people died or survived the disease without receiving care. I am vaccinated now, but I do not feel confident “returning to normal.” We have not reached herd immunity levels that would protect the vulnerable and minimize the spread of covid variants; and we still have too many people either refusing the vaccine or refusing to wear masks and keep social distance. The CDC just released guidelines that seem to think such people don’t exist, that human behavior will suddenly improve despite more than a year of contrary evidence.

Argh. All of this is stressful and distracting. Anyhoo, I hope to get this week’s page up by Sunday. Keep safe!