Art and Photography
Brooklyn in the Pandemic: Faded Photos
These are some things we remember about Brooklyn during the age of the pandemic, in photos.
We had to keep this far apart.
There was plenty of parking in Brooklyn, but no place to go.
The cherry blossoms still bloomed, in technicolor.
Featured Image: Congerdesign / Pixabay
Your Sunday Funnies (Pandemic Edition): More “Yellow Kid”
Richard F. Outcault‘s “The Yellow Kid,” from the 19th century, is truly a beautiful comic strip, and it was also the first comic strip, as we have noted before. Innovative, beautiful and even often funny. It also dealt with the threat of pandemics in New York city (in this case, yellow fever). Here is some more. Enjoy.
You may contribute to Comics Plus here.
Your Sunday Funnies: “The Yellow Kid,” pandemic comics from the 19th century
More pandemic comics:
While not everyone seems to agree, some commentators now argue that Richard F. Outcault’s “the Yellow Kid,” whose strip originated in the 19th century, was a symbol of the “Yellow Fever”, which would make this not only the first comic strip in the world, but also the first comic strip to deal with the effects of a pandemic.
Whether or not this is true, it was a beautifully drawn depiction of 19th century urban life, focusing on a poor, close-knit community, certainly dark and poignant at times, as this example shows.
We will publish one “Yellow Kid” comic a week, till we run out, or till the pandemic is over.
You may contribute to Comics Plus here.
Spring Blooms behind the Locked Gate: Photo of the Day
Today, Saturday, April 18, the Brooklyn Botanic Garden is in full bloom, behind the gate, tulips in their flower bed, in a tidy row, and the cherry blossoms looming overhead, oblivious of the death and destruction outside, on the city streets.
We cannot go in, but we can still peer through the bars, from the safety of our car, the windows tightly shut, our masks tightly tied.
Remember what it was like last year, the crowds, the Japanese performances, the food?
Someday, we hope, this will be over, and we can return. Until then, we hope the trees and flowers are enjoying the peace and quiet.
Your Daily Funnies: “Krazy Kat” from the Last Pandemic, in 1918
The last time there was a horrible, worldwide pandemic, there was also a World War going on. The Spanish Influenza lasted from January 1918 till December 1920, and the War to End All Wars (which was later renamed the First World War) lasted from 1914 to 1918.
While today every TV comedy show is talking about the coronavirus, what did we laugh at in the middle of the twin horrors of the ghastly worldwide trench-warfare/mustard-gas conflagration and the flu that killed millions?
Well, we laughed at anything but.
Everyone knows “Krazy Kat,” right? The comic strip about the cat in love with a violent, abusive mouse?
Here’s what Krazy Kat was all about on May 4, 1918, as the flu began to really sink in, and the War dragged on. It was a world apart.
Art of the Week: The Romance of Insect Life
From the improbably titled book, by Edmund Selous, The Romance of Insect Life, from 1905, an illustration by either Lancelot Speed & C. M. Park. “Interesting Descriptions of the Strange and Curious in the Insect World.”
We are showing it here, just because we like it.