Created and compiled during the first wave of the pandemic and released just as the second wave was getting started, this issue can make for some grim reading at times, but it is also by turns moving, insightful, revealing, and even, yes, humorous. The covers and section-heading illustrations by Eleanor Davis are startlingly on target and make for a small masterpiece of illustration in and of themselves.  

 

The Features for this issue are:

Comfort Food by Victoria Ying on finding comfort in your culture when you're under threat.

The Emergency We’ve Accepted by Amber Cortes and Carl Nelson on homelessness during the crisis.

In/Vulnerable by Thi Bui and the reporting team at Reveal on inequity in the pandemic.

An Unstoppable Force by Yazan al-Saadi and Omar Khouri on the pandemic exploding into Lebanon.

Love In the Time of Corona by Max Loh, an essential worker who found himself in a long distance relationship when the Singapore-Malaysian border shutdown with no end in sight.

With Dispatches, Strips, and other contributions from:

For The Response on major life events during the pandemic: Meghan Turbitt, Ryan Alexander-Tanner, Whit Taylor, and Elizabeth Haidle.

Pandemic stats by Andy Warner, Archive editorial cartoons of pandemics past, and The Nib interview with Black Trans Lives march organizer Fran Tirado by Tuck Woodstock and illustrated by Ethan X. Parker.

Dispatches from Laura Athayde, Molly Brooks, Niccolo Pizarro, Steve Teare, Arigon Starr with Kalle Benallie, Lisa Rosalie Eisenberg, Meg O’Shea, and Colleen AF Venable with Ellen T. Crenshaw.

Strips by Gemma Correll, Joey Alison Sayers, Pia Guerra, Charis JB, Matt Bors, Eleri Harris, Matt Lubchansky, Ben Passmore, Mike Dawson, Emily Flake, Kendra Wells, and Jorge Gonzalez.

With illustrations by Noah Van Sciver, Shan Horan, Xulin Wang, and Mark Kaufman.

This actually is a true(ly) Power(ful) issue!  At center stage are excellent, thought-provoking feature stories: on the implications of DNA testing to uncover hidden racial histories along with their implicit power and value structures by Mariah-Rose Marie; On the history of unions and their relation to class-consciousness by Sophie Yanow; on the inherent reveals that go along with cosplay and their unforseen predictive power by Nate Powell.  Then there are an especially strong batch of strips by Michael DeForge, Ben Passmore, Joey Alison Sayers and Eric Haven – among others.  And MUCH more – including an interview (in comics strip form) with Ta-Nehisi Coates.  Also worth noting: This time around the masthead and contributor profiles are a double-page spread by Tom Scioli!