As the Covid-19 pandemic spread across the world, many in the United States self-quarantined, and thousands of people died, one section of the daily newspaper seemed wholly untouched by the cataclysmic events: The comics pages. Characters carried on much as they ever did — car-pooling, going to school, wandering into neighbors’ houses. Each comic strip felt like a time capsule from the impossibly faraway era of 2019.

One reason for that cultural disconnection was the lead time in comics syndication: Unlike internet cartoonists, who can respond immediately to current events, creators of daily newspaper strips work about two weeks in advance, sometimes longer. And there can be many motivations for artists to exercise caution, from not knowing how to adjust a lighthearted formula to not wanting to trivialize a widespread tragedy. But in recent weeks, when a handful of daily newspaper cartoonists began running strips inspired by the coronavirus, it felt unusually vibrant and immediate; we spoke with six of them.

These are edited excerpts from the conversations.

Lio

April 1