MANILA, PHILIPPINES — We’re a month into community quarantine now in the Philippines, and as Filipinos are starting to get used to the hustle of things at home. With the various work from home situations and the slackening grip we have on our old routines, there’s one main thing that’s just a little bit harder to swallow than the rest: the lack of physical interaction with our friends, families, and neighbors.
This social phenomenon is not just a peripheral consequence of the pandemic, it’s a vital activity that the whole world has been urged to follow. As social beings, however, it’s understandable that this situation can drive us a bit on edge — especially with everything happening around the world. So to soothe this social itch a bit, COVID Comics PH was created, established primarily to entertain and connect with Filipinos feeling trapped all over the country.
A creative passion project by Seven A.D’s Executive Creative Director Russell Molina and Creative Director Argem Vinuya, COVID Comics is an embodiment of “CREATIVITY + HUMANITY”. We were able to catch up with Russell Molina on the story behind this project, and its foreseeable future in light of the extension of Enhanced Community Quarantine in Luzon:
Can you share with us the story behind the comics “Social Distancing”? The first strip is about two people meeting during the time of COVID, why did you choose to tell this story in particular?
We chose SOCIAL DISTANCING as the first theme for this comic short series because we felt that this was the biggest change we’ve encountered — Having to distance ourselves from one another was quite challenging but it’s the most important thing we could do. We wanted to bring to the surface our struggle as “social” creatures surviving in this new reality. Of course, there’s a bit of a twist at the end that sort of pushes WHY we should practice distancing. But at the heart of every story, we want to feature strong Pinoy insights. OUR stories during this pandemic. Our kind of humor, our resilience our retrospection.
How did the quarantine affect the process of conceptualizing and executing the comics? Did you find it more troublesome to exchange ideas virtually, or more creatively freeing to work entirely from your homes?
At SEVEN A.D., we’ve been doing virtual days for quite some time now. So we sort of already have a system in place in terms of how to work virtually and how to manage our time more efficiently. COVID COMICS PH is of course a passion project so we also need to find time for it. It’s a project that forces us also to keep our ears to the ground so we can cull as many insights as possible and listen to so many stories that we can mirror for the series.
As the quarantine was extended until the end of April 2020, can we expect to see more of this story? Or maybe other COVID-19 stories in comic form?
Yes! We intend to do more webcomic shorts for COVID COMICS PH (Maybe 19 shorts?) and we hope to inspire others to also tell their own quarantine stories through their art, through their music, through their posts because all of these stories connect us. Even though we’re separated physically, stories bind us still.
At this time, we need to laugh more, feel more, empathize more, connect more. If our 5-pager stories can help make us more human at this time, then we’ve accomplished what we’ve set out to do.
