What would be the metaphor image of the days of quarantine? The blue bike, also confined to the patio? The queue with a safe distance in front of the bakery? The plants on the balcony? The Spanish cartoonists count the days of seclusion in cartoons, comics, comic strips or sketches that are posted on their social networks.

The Alarm Days begin . And Víctor Coyote numbers them in a sequential series, with a cinematic point. "It's like a traveling ", compares the cartoonist and musician, who in a world without COVID-19 should be singing, presenting his latest album Las comarcales, classic rock and Latin rhythms. But every day he draws scenes from the new daily life: the strangeness of an apocalyptic world, throwing out the garbage, the rider who crosses the city to deliver some nuggets , the king's speech, the pirate-masks ... «Some have a more different tone humorous, others are more serious or ask questions. They help us draw conclusions, sometimes hard on ourselves, "explains Coyote from his home in Madrid. The aesthetics of his comic in construction, in yellow and red, with a dense plot, "has a sulfur point, a bit of a nightmare, but it refers to classic comics and also exudes a certain beauty," he points out. And it adapts to the square format of Instagram, almost like the vignettes of Franco-Belgian albums.

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Meanwhile, in the bunker ... Four somewhat disturbed girls (what if a choni, what if a bullshit of religions ...) survive a nuclear holocaust ?, a zombie invasion ?, a deadly virus? Not yet known. Its authors are still defining what will happen in this dystopian, fanzinera and hooligan story. They are Topo Women : illustrators Ana Oncina, Bea Tormo, Genie Espinosa and Clara Sorian o. "Although teleworking felt like I was going to go crazy, so I proposed to the girls through our WhatsApp group to do a story together," says Soriano. I already had experience: with Bea Tormo they drew a webcomic, Caniculadas, for four summers. And now they are immersed in this "homemade apocalypse".

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"We count the world drawing by drawing." It is point 10 of the Urban Sketchers manifesto , the movement of cartoonists (anyone with a pencil) who capture cities in travel notebooks. One of the members of the Barcelona collective, the illustrator and professor Juan Linares , tells his house drawing by drawing. "Instead of going on a trip, you start to see your house in a different way, to look at details," he says. Inner Notebook is his almost metaphorical chronicle of confinement: the siesta chair, the kitchen (a general plan and a detail of the pans), the hallway shelf, the white orchid ... All with an almost architectonic look. " Any everyday object now takes on greater meaning, " says Linares, who challenges his followers from YouTube and Instagram. The last: draw the window frame and, inside, a desired landscape. "I had a dream of a manufacturer of doors and windows that gave you the view of any part of the world, the one you chose," he recalls.

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The balcony is already the classic of the visual chronicles. Even Javier Mariscal is making colorful digital drawings from his terrace, where he greets the neighbors and the birds. Lapin, the renowned French illustrator based in Barcelona, ​​also goes out on the balcony but in a different way: drawing in miscroscopic detail some of his 150 floors. Beautiful botanical illustrations of 50 by 40 centimeters. "There has been an avalanche of house drawings and I wanted to do something different ... The vegetal line and the botanical elements were already in my themes, but not in such a profound way," says Lapin , who has published dozens of travel notebooks. , both in Spain and France. «When I make a drawing in a notebook, it usually takes about two hours. But with plants I spend up to six hours. It is almost a form of meditation, "admits Capitaine Lapin, an honorary title that the French army has awarded him for being part of his staff of official painters in the Air and Space specialty, an unusual figure (at least in Spain) who has existed since the 19th century and that allows artists to visit military bases and participate in expeditions to document them.

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Across the pond, Chris Ware posted a meaningful New Yorker vignette about himself, happily, on his drawing board: “This is magnificent! Finally, my lifestyle is being vindicated! ». A satirical synthesis of the office of draftsman. «We cartoonists spend many hours locked up at home. This situation is quite similar to our normality ... », acknowledges Paco Roca from his confinement and habitual workplace, his home in Valencia. Roca has rescued his Memoirs of a Man in Pajamas (Astiberri) and a page hangs every day. «It is almost an anthropological study of myself. At that time I spent the day in my pajamas ... And now that we are all locked up, we can take the opportunity to try to understand ourselves a little more ». Advice from a cartoonist.

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