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Cartoons, Masks and a Canvas Print

Cartooning Corona

Whenever he’s frustrated or facing a difficult choice for which there is no clear answer, my buddy Jim has a saying.

“Heavy sigh, mixed emotion.”

Such is life under the umbrella of COVID-19.

Every cartoon I’ve done for quite some time has revolved around one topic, so I went back and counted them. I drew my first coronavirus cartoon on January 25th. Other topics on which I was doodling that week included the Australia fires, the weather, Ontario teachers’ strike, and the Conservative Party leadership race.

From then on, the frequency of cartoons on the virus has increased so that now, every other topic orbits around it. The only deviation in the past month has been the two cartoons I did on the Nova Scotia shooting, definitely not a welcome diversion.

How many cartoons have I drawn on this wonderful little virus that changed the world forever?

Seventy-One.

And counting.

At the best of times, I keep a running list of ideas for cartoons. When I come up with a Thanksgiving cartoon idea in May, I simply write it down for later. I’ve kept that list for many years on Dropbox, able to access it from all of my devices.

That Word file is currently nine pages long, with over two hundred ideas on it. About forty of them are for the coronavirus. Scanning the others, they now seem like they belong in a parallel world in which we no longer live.

Cartoons about summer vacations, Halloween, Christmas, politics, they don’t make sense anymore because when I wrote them down, there was no allowance for today’s Coronaclimate. Many of the ideas can be re-written to allow for the ever present shadow of the virus, but some about life as we used to know it will just be discarded.

They no longer apply.

About the masks

This mask situation has been incredibly frustrating.

First, thanks to so many of you who replied to last Saturday’s newsletter update about the delay. Your support and patience is appreciated. It seems I’m holding myself more responsible for this than most of you are.

They’re not shipping this week, but hoping for next week.  I could write another long post about why, but it’s simply different shades of the same problem. Shipping delays and the logistics of doing business in the time of COVID.

I have a customer in Illinois still waiting on coasters I shipped at the beginning of the month. Tracking shows they’re ‘in transit’, two weeks after the expected delivery date. Thankfully he’s willing to wait.

Uncertainty? Check!

Expediency? Not a chance.

I’m seeing plenty of online stores and retail outlets switching their focus to masks in the past week and it compounded my own frustration at not having my own yet, until I looked closer at those other offers. Almost all of the ones I saw were pre-orders or listed as back-ordered. Nobody else seems to have them ready to ship, either.

It seems like the only masks you’re guaranteed to get quickly right now are the ones you make yourself. From what I’ve read, even those ambitious creatives with sewing skills are overwhelmed by orders they can’t fill for their friends and neighbours.

Costco announced yesterday that everybody entering their stores must wear masks. Wal-Mart had already done that for many of their locations and it would appear that we’re going to be wearing these for a long time while we try to re-emerge into a reasonable facsimile of our former economy.

So all I can ask (again) is for your patience. As soon as I have them, I will let you know and I will get them in the mail or deliver them to you as quickly as I can.

A Very Big Print

I am still working on a new painting, hoping to have it completed this weekend. I’ll look forward to sharing it with you when it’s done. Hint, it’s a large African cat, one I haven’t painted before.

Speaking of big cats, a customer ordered a print from me last week, a 32”X32” canvas of my recent ‘Sire’ painting.

That big painting of a lion has become of one of my favorites, so I was pleased with the order. I came very close to grabbing one for myself at the same time, but with an uncertain financial future, I’m deferring my own purchase until later.

ABL Imaging in Calgary prints my canvas and thankfully they’re still open and working. Even though it wasn’t required, they did a quick turnaround of this piece. Usually, I’d drive into Calgary to get these orders and combine the trip with other errands, but it should be obvious why I didn’t. A courier delivered it yesterday and I was thrilled with how it turned out.

Sometime down the road, I will definitely be getting one of these for my office.

One of the most nerve-wracking parts of a new canvas is signing it. Paint pens are great most of the time, but early in my career, I ruined a couple of canvases when the paint either spurted from the pen or simply decided to stop, then start, then stop…mid-signature.

These days, I do a bunch of test signings, cross my fingers, hold my breath and sign as quickly as possible. A 32”X32” canvas, the largest I’ve ever printed, is expensive. Had I ruined it while signing it, I guess that would have been the one for my office.

The client will meet me on the highway near Cochrane in a couple of weeks, a clandestine exchange of art, which will look very much like a drug deal, I’m sure.

I’m hoping it’s not a windy day when I throw it at him from six feet away.

Fingers crossed that my next post will include a photo of a big pile of masks, telling you they’re on the way.

Thanks,
Patrick

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© Patrick LaMontagne
Follow me on Instagram @LaMontagneArt
Sign up for my newsletter which features blog posts, new paintings and editorial cartoons, follow this link to the sign up form.

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Face Mask Update

Last weekend, I launched a pre-order for face masks, available to my newsletter subscribers. The response was overwhelming and I spent long hours on multiple days processing the orders. This update was sent to my newsletter followers this morning.

Over the past month, things have changed to a degree we’d have thought ridiculous had somebody predicted it at the beginning of the year. People, businesses, and governments are all trying to adapt to information that changes every day.

There’s a video circulating right now with a woman standing in her kitchen in front of microphones talking about the inconsistent messages we’re getting. You may have already seen it because it has gone viral, but here’s the link if you haven’t. It’s funny ‘cause it’s true.

The list of things we’ve been taking for granted grows larger every day. Never thought I’d miss a teeth cleaning and haircut so much.

This week, the Calgary Stampede was cancelled along with every other summer gathering. I haven’t been to Stampede in years, not my thing. But Stampede is part of Calgary’s identity, and cancelling an event for the first time in 97 years speaks volumes.

If you’re playing the ‘every time somebody says unprecedented’ drinking game, take a shot.

It’s hard to follow what each Provincial Premier and State Governor is saying concerning starting up the economy again. While the messages are conflicting, it seems clear that large gatherings, sports events, festivals, and concerts won’t be possible this summer. That’s right, the whole summer.

That just sucks.

When we do go out, we’ll have to continue to keep a distance of 6ft/2m, in gatherings of less than fifteen? Or is it ten? Five?

I’ve been going to the grocery store on Fridays, just once a week. There were noticeably more people wearing face masks yesterday than last week. They were almost all homemade.Masks are going to be a part of our culture for the foreseeable future.

While it’s great that Pacific Music and Art jumped on this so fast, ahead of many others, my masks are the first order of a brand new product, and that means there have been issues requiring adjustments and tweaks.

Before I go further, yes, there is a delay on the masks, but I still expect (hope) I should get them later this week.

True, it’s only been five days since I submitted the order, and even that behemoth Amazon can’t meet their pre-COVID shipping guarantees right now, but I know you’re anxious to get these. I am, too.

Canada Post issued a statement this week that they’re experiencing Christmas level volume right now, but without the staff to handle it.  Postal workers can’t be within six feet of each other, and every transaction takes longer to deal with because of masks, handwashing, and the COVID shuffle.

Here’s why the delay…

When I took the pre-order, the blank masks had arrived in Vancouver. Pacific Music and Art is a ferry ride away in Victoria. Because of new dock safety protocols and shipping delays, it took more than two days for the order to make it to Pacific Music and Art.
When they started test printing, it quickly became evident that the designs were off.

Usually, with licensing, I supply the image, and then the company that licenses the image has designers that fit it to their products. With Pacific Music and Art, I create all of my own designs. They’re my most significant licensee, with the most products, and I’m a control freak. So I want them to look as close to perfect (impossible) as I can get them.

For every painting I do, I create more than a dozen different designs for things like magnets, coffee cups, trivets, coasters, art cards…it’s a long list.

Because the masks hadn’t arrived yet, I based my templates on photos and measurements. 16 designs, both small and large masks, for a total of 32 images. It took quite a few hours, and one sleepless night to get them all done.

Then the company that provided the blanks also provided a template, different enough from mine that I had to redesign them all again, requiring many more hours of work.

Whenever an image is printed on a product, there is a bleed. That means the image has to be larger than the printable area so that if it’s off by a millimetre here or there, it won’t show an edge. With something like an aluminum magnet, the bleed is small because the blanks are all uniform.

When the actual masks arrived in Victoria, there was another problem. Masks are fabric, with straps, and unlike aluminum, there is more variability between each. So I worked late Wednesday night and early Thursday morning, redesigning all 32 images for a THIRD time with a much larger bleed.

I had to paint more fur, hair and features on the edges of many of the paintings to accommodate the bleed, work that nobody will ever see.

It was incredibly frustrating. I still had my daily editorial cartoon deadlines, and I haven’t worked on my new painting in over a week.

That’s just my side of it. Pacific Music and Art were working hard in dealing with their own problems.

Heads are different sizes. It’s the reason hat sizes have such small increments between them. Faces are long or short, wide or narrow. With one small mask and one large mask, finding a perfect fit for everybody is impossible, and you go with as close as you can get.

The elastic isn’t super stretchy, because then it would bite into the backs of your ears. They discovered that the ear loops need to be shorter for some people to have a good fit.

As more people wear masks, it’s now easy to find online solutions for a better fit, because so many don’t fit well. Some are fastening the ear loops behind their heads with additional clips and fasteners. Others are tying them over their heads. Front line workers and first responders who must wear them all day are developing sores on their ears and faces from masks that are too tight and elastics that are too thin.

The owner of Pacific Music and Art didn’t want to send out the masks without a solution because you wouldn’t be happy, and I wholeheartedly agree.

Between him and the company that supplies the blanks, they discovered that an addition of a grommet seems to work.
But now we’re waiting on the grommets.

He’s looking for a local solution for my order so that he can ship them to me, and then I can ship them to you.
The good news is, the masks for my order are all in Victoria, being printed right now. Despite this delay, you’ll all receive what you ordered. If the delay goes longer, I will update you again and will issue refunds for those unwilling to wait.

The bad news is, I’ve been hearing from people all week who missed the first opportunity and want to order, and I have no idea when that can happen. Because of the global demand now for any kind of mask, shipping delays on everything, it’s probably going to be a few weeks before Pacific Music and Art can get any more, and that’s only if there aren’t any further delays. My order was first priority this time, but it won’t be next time. They have other retail customers waiting.

It would be irresponsible and unfair of me to take another order with no idea when I can deliver. Masks are going to be hard to come by for everybody for a little while until supply meets the demand. Just like the toilet paper aisle in your grocery store, it needs to catch up.

I’ll also be re-evaluating orders to the US on the next go ’round. Because of stricter customs regulations on anything that isn’t paper, shipping is now more expensive and more involved, even for small packets. I’ll absorb the added fees on this order, so masks heading to the US this time will go ahead as planned, at no additional cost.

The best I can offer is to stay tuned. If you have friends and family who want to order, they can sign up for the newsletter, and I’ll announce the next order opportunity here, whenever that might be. But please don’t promise them anything.

All I can do is ask for your patience and to trust me that as soon as I can get these shipped, I will.

Cheers,
Patrick

Now go watch that video.

And here’s an article from CBC talking about the Canada Post delays, but also why businesses are having a hard time meeting their orders right now. One more thing we must get used to.

___

© Patrick LaMontagne
Follow me on Instagram @LaMontagneArt
Sign up for my newsletter which features blog posts, new paintings and editorial cartoons, follow this link to the sign up form.

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Do What You Can, With What You’ve Got

In every crisis, there comes the inevitable requests for financial help.

The situation in which we find ourselves right now is challenging in ways we’ve never seen, especially with so many affected. Homeless shelters, food banks, and aid organizations are the obvious ones, but now we have friends whose businesses are failing, neighbours with challenges they’re unable to meet, not to mention that many of us have lost our own jobs or businesses.

The need is overwhelming.

We’re now seeing the sprouting of GoFundMe pages and those are likely to increase as this pandemic wears on. Organizations, businesses, and neighbours who were barely going to make it if this thing wore on for a month, are now realizing that it’s going to drag on for much longer and are desperate to find solutions.

Donation fatigue is something we’re already used to around the holidays, and when schools, children’s groups and charitable organizations do their annual fundraising. It’s going to set in a lot quicker right now, as we all deal with having less to spread around.

Despite the guilt we might feel by having to say No to most of these requests, you’ll be doing nobody any favours to exhaust your own savings and resources trying to be everything to everybody.

If you have organizations you help throughout the year already, and I hope you do, the best thing you can do for them is to continue to focus on their needs, especially if you have much less to go around.

My wife donates to the local SPCA every month and she’s going to continue doing so. I give a monthly donation to the Alberta Institute of Wildlife Conservation and they can count on my continued support.

Discovery Wildlife Park has established a GoFundMe page to help them make it through this tough time as they have many mouths to feed and don’t know if they’ll be able to open this year. If you’ve followed my work for longer than five minutes, you know how important those people and animals are to me, so we were happy to donate to that yesterday.

While I haven’t yet made a donation to the Alberta Birds of Prey Centre in Coaldale this year, I hope to in the very near future.

When my whimsical wildlife face masks are available, I’ll be sending some to all four of those places, whatever I’m able to give.

But like everybody else, my own business has taken a significant hit and I expect those hits will keep coming, especially with no immediate end to this crisis in sight.

What that means is I’ll have to decline any other requests for help. It’s the only way I’ll be able to keep my own livelihood intact and also keep helping the organizations to which I feel a close connection and obligation.

Everyone’s situation is different, some are better and worse off than you think during this crisis, and it all depends on how well they hide it.

So, I’d like to make three requests.

First, if you can help any organization, give anything at all, please do. If a struggling neighbour or local business needs your help and you can give, do that, too. But if you can’t help right now because your own financial situation is stressed, then think about your favorite charities and organizations once you’re back on your feet. They need help now, but they’re going to need even more later on.

Second, if you’re one of those making the request for help, understand if people have to say No and have some empathy for how hard it is for them to do so. We’d all like to give to everyone, and to have to decline comes with no small amount of shame. It’s a double hit to our fragile egos, that we don’t have enough and thus don’t feel we are enough if we can’t help.

Finally, be careful about volunteering somebody else. It’s very easy to see a need, then tell a friend, “you know what you should do…” putting them in an awkward position from which it’s difficult to escape.

We’re all learning as we go as we navigate these uncharted waters. It’s going to get more difficult before it gets easier, in ways we haven’t yet begun to fathom.

Resist the urge to point fingers of blame at anyone you see making choices with which you don’t agree. That includes our elected officials at all levels who have the weight of so many lives resting on each decision they make. The information they get is changing day to day and the strain can’t be easy to bear. Despite any preparation they could have done, nobody saw this coming to this extent. This will be a significant landmark in modern human history, the full effects of which will only be known in hindsight.

Help where you can, and if you can’t right now, then cut yourself some slack. This will be a long game, and your time to play your part will come.

Cheers,
Patrick

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© Patrick LaMontagne
Follow me on Instagram @LaMontagneArt
Sign up for my newsletter which features blog posts, new paintings and editorial cartoons, follow this link to the sign up form.

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MORE Face Masks

The response to the forthcoming non-medical masks has been a little overwhelming and I’m glad that there is such great interest.

Here are the other seven designs being produced. If you missed the first batch I shared, you can see them here.

People are asking the same questions, so here are the answers, based on the information I have. Like this situation in which we’re presently living, things may change, but hopefully not.

1) How much will they cost?

Based on what we know right now, they’ll be $12.99 for the large, $12.49 for the small, or 3 for $30, plus tax and shipping. As they are small and lightweight, shipping for 3 masks will be something like $2.25 for Canada, around $4.00 for the US.

2) When are they coming?

The masks are in transit to Pacific Music and Art right now. I won’t link to their website, because it’s under renovation this weekend. Once they arrive, they need to be printed and shipped. So when I have them, I can fill orders. They are expected to arrive sometime this week, might be shipped to me the following week.

Your patience is appreciated, and it’s likely we’ll be wearing masks for quite some time, even when they relax the isolation rules. I’d love to be able to ship these tomorrow, but everything moves a little slower right now as we’re all hobbled by our present circumstance.

3) How can I order?

I will be offering the first batch of these masks as an exclusive pre-order offer to my newsletter followers. I know that some people have shared the first post on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter and a common comment has been “let me know when they’re available.”

The only way to know is by signing up for my newsletter. These won’t be available on my site (at least not yet) and all orders will be done by e-transfer or Paypal invoice. If you’re local in Canmore, I expect to be able to deliver them in person; physical distancing rules apply of course. Or I can just mail them to you with the rest.

The reason I’m doing them by pre-order is because I only want to order what people want. Ordering large numbers of all 16 designs means I’ll undoubtedly end up with a stockpile of the least popular ones. While prints don’t go bad if I hang on to them for a couple of years, here’s hoping there won’t be any demand for masks a year from now.

As it can’t be repeated enough, these are non-medical masks and not a substitute for staying at home, hand-washing and keeping a distance of 6ft/2m or greater if you have to go out and run errands.

Feel free to share this post with anyone you like, but when the pre-order is released, only newsletter subscribers will be notified. Here’s the link to sign up.

Stay healthy,
Patrick

EDIT: Yes, these masks will be washable. 🙂

___

© Patrick LaMontagne
Follow me on Instagram @LaMontagneArt
Sign up for my newsletter which features blog posts, new paintings and editorial cartoons, follow this link to the sign up form.

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Face Masks


Medical professionals and officials have recently changed their messaging about wearing fabric masks to prevent the spread of Covid-19. While they still agree that a non-medical mask won’t prevent you from getting the virus, they admit that it’s possible that a cotton or other fabric mask could prevent the wearer from infecting others, especially if you have the virus but aren’t showing any symptoms. Since coughing, sneezing and talking spreads droplets from your mouth and nose, wearing a mask could prevent those droplets from being inhaled by others.

Of course, nothing is a substitute for staying at home, hand-washing and keeping a distance of 6ft/2m or greater if you have to go out and run errands. Some medical professionals have also said that a side benefit of people wearing masks is a visual reminder to each other of the need for diligence, to keep our distance while out in public.

Even when we’re allowed back out into the world,  it now appears that masks will be a part of our culture for the foreseeable future and Pacific Music and Art is launching a line of masks featuring my artwork. I spent most of Saturday going through my images, playing with the template and designs and the production is now underway. I’ve got fifteen different designs, nine of which you can see below.

I’ve been told these will be available soon, but won’t know the exact date for a little while. I also don’t know what the price will be for each of these, but all of that information will be available as soon as I know it. Newsletter subscribers will be the first to know and have a chance to purchase. So if you’re not a subscriber, here’s the link.

As with all of my posts, feel free to share and stay healthy.

Cheers,
Patrick

___

© Patrick LaMontagne
Follow me on Instagram @LaMontagneArt
Sign up for my newsletter which features blog posts, new paintings and editorial cartoons, follow this link to the sign up form.

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Daisy

Many of my paintings have an interesting back story, but not this one.

A friend posted a picture of her daughter’s dog on Instagram, and because she’s already kind of a caricature…the dog, not the friend, or her daughter…amazing how quickly this went off the rails. Anyway, I realized I wanted to paint her…the dog, not the…never mind. Before I knew it, we were exchanging emails with photos and I was painting a dorky little Corgi named Daisy.

As this wasn’t a commission, this will eventually end up as a print and I’ll be uploading it for licensing. There’s a market for Corgi images, right? I mean, other than Buckingham Palace?

Seems a lot of people are dealing with boredom right now in our self-isolation, but I’ve actually been working longer hours than before. Drawing editorial cartoons, communicating with clients, investigating and preparing images for new revenue streams, writing and painting, it’s all keeping me busy. I’m still getting up at 5 every day, trying to keep to the same routine.

I mentioned in a recent post that I was having a hard time finding my painting groove in all of this, but I seem to be over that hurdle. Finishing this painting was easier and more enjoyable than the middle part. I’m pleased with the result, and I’m already thinking about the next one.

Cheers,
Patrick

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© Patrick LaMontagne
Follow me on Instagram @LaMontagneArt
Sign up for my newsletter which features blog posts, new paintings and editorial cartoons, follow this link to the sign up form.

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Snake Bite

I’d like to begin by saying that I’m feeling better since my last post, so no need for a warning on this one.

I’ve concluded that what I needed was to get that shit out of my head and onto the page. It’s a cliché from old westerns that if a cowboy gets bitten by a rattler, the first thing you do is suck the poison out.

Now, putting aside the fact that it would never actually work and, depending on the level of innuendo that infers, the disturbing imagery, it’s what came to mind when I woke the morning after I wrote that post.

While I had reservations about posting it in the first place, I’m glad I did, because the response from many of you was a little overwhelming. Some of you just wrote to tell me they hoped I’d feel better, others shared their own issues with all of this, and apparently, I put into words how many of you are feeling.

A couple of you even attempted to give me a bit of ass-kicking. I tolerated that because I knew it came from a place of good intentions. At least that’s what I’m choosing to believe.

My friend Crystal from Calgary, a self-employed graphic designer, always a source of encouragement to her fellow artists, sent me a link to Brené Brown’s latest podcast. It was a welcome suggestion because I’ve long enjoyed Brown’s insights, but also because that particular episode gives me (and everyone else) permission to feel bad without the accompanying shame that often goes with such self-pity.

I’d encourage you to give it a listen; there’s a link at the end.

Writing all of that was cathartic. That evening, I avoided the news altogether, stayed away from the internet and slept well in my own bed that night, woke at five feeling better and worked on cartoons while listening to music.

Feeling better the next day was evidence of what I said in that dark post. You have to give yourself room to feel your pain, so it doesn’t overwhelm you. I’m not saying I won’t visit that abyss again, probably more than once in this self-isolation experience, but I know what to do when it happens.

I’m going to write it down. Not to worry, I won’t continue to inflict them on you by posting them, but just the exercise itself, to vomit it all out to make room for moving forward, is therapeutic.

I know that many people feel their writing skills are lacking or that they don’t write well, and that’s fine. You can still go through the exercise without showing it to anybody, just put onto the page what you’re feeling, without judgment. Don’t worry about sentence structure, paragraphs, grammar, spelling or any of that crap. Just get it out onto a piece of paper or a screen as fast as you think it. You can write swear words for a full page or a four hundred character, “AAAAAAAAGH!”

Exhaust yourself with it. Write until you can’t write anymore. Leave it all on the page. Be whiny; feel sorry for yourself, make it all about you; feel your pain. That post I wrote was twice as long before I edited it and went even darker than what you read.

Then take that page, or two pages, or three, crumple it up, tear it into little pieces, throw it in the trash, light it on fire (outside!) or close the file, and when it asks if you want to save it, click NO.

If writing doesn’t work for you, find a way to feel it without guilt or shame. Listen to that podcast episode, if for nothing else than to remind you that we all crack from time to time, and it’s OK.

I don’t regret writing that dark, depressing post. I needed to write that post. I don’t regret sharing it, either. We spend so much time in this life pretending we’re strong when we’re not, denying that we’re vulnerable, feeling ashamed of who we are and trying to be everything to everybody. All it does is make us miserable and no good to the people around us, anyway.

The proof is in the practice. After writing all of that, I wanted to paint again.

Cheers,
Patrick

OTHER NEWS:

Speaking of news, I’d like to make a request. Please don’t send me news articles or links to news articles, especially not opinion pieces. I’ve been following the news more closely than anybody should for more than twenty years. The deluge of information we’re receiving now is ridiculous and moving so fast that what was news this morning is no longer news in the afternoon. I appreciate that it probably comes from good intentions, but thanks in advance for refraining.

Other types of emails, however, are always welcome.

CALGARY EXPO:

The Expo was postponed until July, and they gave vendors the option of a refund, a booth at the July show, or skip this year, with paid funds moved to next year’s booth at the same rate. I chose the last one for a few reasons.

If there is an event in July, I don’t think there will be many guests, people will still be in shock from this and won’t want to assemble with that many people, and they won’t have much money to spend anyway. There’s no doubt I would lose money by doing the show in July.

So for those of you I see each year at Expo, I’ll see you in April 2021…unless we’re still in lock-down.

Here’s the Brené Brown podcast link.

Cheers,
Patrick

___

© Patrick LaMontagne
Follow me on Instagram @LaMontagneArt
Sign up for my newsletter which features blog posts, new paintings and editorial cartoons, follow this link to the sign up form.

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Intolerable Uncertainty

(WARNING: The following is dark, contains profanity, and you may not want to read it)

Last night I gazed too long into the abyss, and before I knew it, the abyss had taken my hand, and we were going on a tour of all of the bad shit that was going to happen in the next few months.

For about two hours before bed, while watching TV I wasn’t really watching, against my own advice from my last blog post, I surfed news stories on my iPad, going from one to the next, basically asking the same question, “How long will this last?”

My mind has been telling me, “Your business will not survive this. You’re fine right now, but what about tomorrow? You just cancelled a trade show and a business trip, what about the next trip, what if my clients go out of business, what if this art thing I’ve worked on for the past 20 years just vanishes like a fart in the wind, where am I going to work when this is over, ….what if, what if, what if…”

I’ve slept on the couch two or three nights a week the past month, so I didn’t toss and turn and keep Shonna up. No reason for both of us to lay awake wrestling demons. Then I read something that says if you’re not sleeping, it’s even worse for your mental and physical health because it compromises your immune system.

Well, thanks. That makes me nod off with dreams of kittens and rainbows, now doesn’t it?

As mentioned in a recent post, catastrophizing is one of my worst bad habits, and this virus has opened the flood gates of despair, as I’m sure it has for many. This post pretty much contradicts the slightly more optimistic tone of the other, because as we’re all learning, this situation changes by the minute.

Now with what should be more time to do anything I want to do, paint, write, draw cartoons, everything takes a lot longer because I get distracted by a news story, news alert, phone call and then down the rabbit hole I go.

A cartoon I drew yesterday that should have taken a couple of hours to draw took about five, because, in the middle of that, I had several newspapers from one chain tell me they were shutting down for the month of April, possibly May. That’s in addition to the half dozen that did so at the end of last week.

We’re bombarded by stats and articles telling us how bad this is going to get, and projections that tell us we’re in this lock-down until the end of April FOR SURE…no wait, MAY…no wait…JULY…no wait…FOR THE REST OF OUR LIVES.

Logically, I know that the majority of these articles, blog posts, science journals, pseudo-science journals are all just spewing information so that they have something to post, and that 95% of it is conjecture, but I seek out the worst ones. It’s a desperate search for anything I can control. If I can deal with the worst-case scenario, then I can deal with anything better than that. But it means reading a lot of bad shit.

It doesn’t matter that I know I’m being illogical, Spock. I’m human, which means I’m illogical, you green-blooded pointed eared Vulcan!

Anybody else notice that Dr. McCoy was racist?

The worst-case scenario almost never happens, but because I said almost, that means it could happen, so hello darkness, my old friend.

I would love to be spending my time writing, but all of the story ideas, notes, the novel I’m working on, sitting there waiting for me to put in the time, I just can’t focus. And in the time I do make to work on anything creative, it all seems like garbage because I see it through a dark negative lens.

It would be nice to come out the other side of this with a stack of new images to license and yet I’m finding it hard to paint. It doesn’t feel like this will ever end, and when it does, I’ll have lost so much that my focus will be on survival, not success.

That’s the problem with catastrophizing. It’s sticky stuff, and if you do manage to get one leg free from it, you’re in it up to your knee with the other.

At this point in the post, I’m supposed to turn this around and start saying that we’ll get through this, we‘re in it together, there are always people worse off, do your part, it’ll be over soon, take this opportunity to discover new things, when one door closes, another door opens, blah, blah, blah.

There’s a meme I thought was funny when I first saw it, but now I find it infuriating. It reads, “Your grandparents were asked to go to war. We’re being asked to sit on the couch.”

Then it ends with variations of, “Don’t screw this up,” or “We got this” or “Suck it up, Princess.”

It just feels like so much bullshit.

Shaming people into acceptance doesn’t work. All it does is tell us that who we are is unacceptable and makes us bury our feelings of despair, so we don’t make strangers feel uncomfortable. Too long on that course and you’re looking at a nervous breakdown, a heart attack or worse.

The truth is, life has always been hard, and this is hold-my-beer level hard. People need to feel their pain and chastising somebody else to cheer up does more harm than good.

I try to tell myself that many others have gone through horrific stuff and came through it, far worse than this. The people who went through the 1918 pandemic, those who endured concentration camps, devastating financial crises, health crises, 9/11, our history is replete with people surviving long odds.

For 10 million people who died in the concentration camps, I can’t imagine the hopelessness and despair, a horrific end to their lives at the hands of cruel oppressors. And despite the courage and endurance of those who survived it and lived to tell the tale, I can’t imagine there were many, lying in their hard wooden bunks, packed in like sardines, freezing all night, awaiting their fate, telling each other, “Hey, we’re all in this together, and some people have it worse, cheer up, mmmK?”

Sharing online finger-wags about what Anne Frank, John McCain, or the Chilean miners put up with while imprisoned in their own circumstance is just more online shaming. Yes, they endured, but they weren’t having a good time!

This isolation we’re being asked to do is not just sitting on the couch watching Netflix, drinking wine and playing board games, without a care in the world.

It’s watching our savings dwindle away, the panicky market destroy investments, our businesses close, possibly to never open again, our careers implode, relationships suffer, the fruits of our labour shrivel up and die on the vine, and any plans we made up and vanish, while we just sit and wait, unable to do anything about it, for who knows how long?

This is not a vacation for which we should be expected to feel grateful.

Yes, people have gone through worse, but putting a metric on somebody else’s pain does not diminish our own. These are still our lives. Expecting people to shrug and say, “aw shucks, shit happens” is not only unrealistic, it’s cruel, especially when it took two seconds to share a meme or post that wasn’t designed to make somebody feel better, but to make them feel worse. You’re just scolding friends, family and strangers for having real human emotions and a difficult time coping with them. People have different tolerances for pain, and most of us are pretty damn hard on ourselves already without the added weight.

Knocking somebody down does not make you taller. It makes you a bully.

Instead of drawing first thing this morning, I just poured all of the angst into this, hoping for some sort of pressure release valve, because having a global sing-along is not going to do it for me. I almost didn’t post this because of worries over branding, being negative, pissing people off, and not being enough of a Polly Anna.

I’m not dealing well with this, and I imagine that’s the case for most people, each with their own unique grievances.

I don’t know where we go from here. I don’t know if this will go on for a couple of months or many months? I don’t know if, at the end of this self-isolation, there will still be money coming in from anywhere for anybody. I don’t know how many will get sick, how many will die, if these measures are overkill, not enough, necessary, unnecessary, if the media is being irresponsible with the constant fear-mongering and death toll scoreboard, or if the fear is needed to scare people into compliance with the new rules.

I don’t know much of anything.

And that’s what’s keeping me up at night.

___

© Patrick LaMontagne
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Broken News

I follow the news for a living, and at the best of times, it wears on me. A constant diet of negative news is awful for your mental health. I have to limit it as much as I can, or my mind goes down that dark rabbit hole of despair.

Now that many of you are home all day, I know you’re spending a lot of time on the internet, surfing through the horror, continual updates on the global death toll, getting into arguments online about which information is right or wrong, and then sharing news stories to your social media that you think sound right as if your friends aren’t surfing the same news you are.

We do this because it makes us feel like we’re in control and informed, when we all know that we aren’t.  In fact, by reading this stuff and sharing it, you’re making yourself even more anxious. When you share it, you’re not making people feel better; you’re making them feel worse. This virus of anxiety we’re all spreading is more damaging than the virus itself.

I’ve been actively avoiding phone calls and conversations with people because the whole discussion just ends up being about the news, this article and that, these facts and those, what Trump said, what Trudeau said, what this doctor said, what this victim said, and the numbers. I end up leaving the phone call feeling worse than before and wished I’d never called or picked up.

I understand it’s the topic on everybody’s lips, we’re all frightened, and we think that by talking it to death, it will make us feel better. Ask any psychologist, and they’ll tell you the opposite.

The media is hurting for revenue right now; they’re fighting each other for your online attention because they’re trying to get advertisers to keep paying them. The only way they can do that is to be upping the tragedy, to find new angles to make you afraid, new headlines to get you to open their link. They will never do that by telling you, “It’s going to be OK.”
I’ve always gotten news alerts from multiple outlets; it’s part of my job as an editorial cartoonist, it’s how I know a breaking story is happening, one that I might have to comment on with a cartoon. But in recent weeks, these outlets have been abusing the privilege. I now get multiple BREAKING NEWS alerts from each outlet throughout the day.

The Prime Minister’s been offering a daily briefing from his house because he’s been in isolation since his wife was exposed to Covid-19. CTV was sending me an alert that this was happening, which was helpful. But in recent days, they’ve been sending the alert about a half-hour early, meaning I tune in and have to watch/listen to doomsday coverage I don’t want to hear before I get to the coverage I need to see.

That’s click-baiting. And while I understand it, I resent it. And so should you.

The constant apocalypse feed breeds more anxiety, contributes to depression, and when those two degenerates get a hold of you, you start thinking irrationally and make poor decisions. Spending hours on social media, surfing the news and talking about all of this is not only detrimental to your mental health, but it’s also unsustainable.

I’ve had OCD for years, ever since I was a kid, though I didn’t know it until I was in my early thirties. While I’ve always been mindful of washing my hands, not touching my face, etc., mine doesn’t manifest as germophobia. OCD is much more than that. It’s about control, worrying, ruminating, fear, and anxiety.
After I went for groceries yesterday, I mentioned to a friend over email that the fear and tension in peoples’ faces were disturbing. But when this is all over, if people ask me what OCD is like, I now have an example. Do you remember how you felt all day long during the pandemic? That’s it, except that you feel it when times are good, too.

Mine has been much better over the past couple of years, mainly because I read some excellent books, was in therapy for a while, found coping tools, meditate almost every morning and I’ve established boundaries. I still worry more than is necessary about things I can’t control, but it doesn’t consume me like it used to.

The most significant contributing factor to my feeling better than I did, however, was limiting my exposure to the news and social media. The easiest way to know if it’s a problem for you is to try and turn it off for a day.

One day.

Don’t even look at it. If you can’t, you have a problem, and the first step to solving any problem is to admit that there is one.

If you can’t go one whole day without social media or the news, you don’t need me to tell you that’s an issue.

I’m not saying to avoid the news or social media forever. While we’re in isolation, we need to be informed, but be smart about it. Pick the news outlets you trust and follow them, especially your local news. Don’t click on anything and everything your friends post just because the headline or graphic triggers your fear. That’s what it was designed to do.

It shouldn’t matter to somebody in Saskatchewan that some people in Australia aren’t following social isolation rules. That’s a problem for them to solve. The borders are closed. They can’t get to you. There are almost 8 BILLION people on the planet. Following every story of tragedy for all of those people will ruin you, especially when most of those tragic stories are embellished, spun and manipulated for maximum fear.
My wife had to tell a friend two days in a row that a “news” story she shared was inaccurate; it took her no time at all to find evidence that it was false. But then she saw the same stories shared by a bunch of other people. Nobody is even bothering to check, primarily if it supports what they already believe. I shouldn’t have to explain how dangerous that is.

But to spend our isolation with a display in our hand all day long, punching that refresh button, madly scrolling for fear of missing out, you’re making yourself miserable, along with everybody with whom you’re sharing it.

If you’re going to share stuff, why not good news stories for a change? There are still plenty of those out there, too. Videos of people on their balconies singing, applauding first responders, live concerts online for charity, and kitten videos. Come on, you can never have enough kitten videos.

Your friends and family are already scared. You can contribute to that fear, or you can help them down off that ledge.

It’s a choice.

__

© Patrick LaMontagne
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Trudeau Update – A Cartoon Video

I recorded a high speed video of a cartoon I sent out this morning, some bonus content for my newspaper clients.

The type of cartoon in this video would normally take me about three or four hours since detailed caricatures are a lot more work. Add in camera setup, periodic recording throughout the process, sourcing and buying music, and editing, and I spent about nine hours on this yesterday, which is why I can’t do these as often as I’d like.

Because of the way I’ve set up my office, having a camera on a tripod over my left shoulder while recording is kind of clumsy. I can’t have it on the right, where there is a lot more room, because my hand would obscure the drawing. With a tripod leg right behind me, I have to be careful not to move my chair back and bump it. So there’s really no way to get into the groove of drawing while recording, at least not one that I’ve found.

I’ve tried recording with my phone or iPad on a goose-neck, since that setup is much more user friendly, but the problem is that even if you manually adjust the brightness, the cameras on portable devices just aren’t designed for recording the backlit display of another screen. I’ve even tried a GoPro camera, but none of them have worked as well as the DSLR camera you see here.

In the photo, you can see my second monitor, where I’ll often put the images I’m using for reference.

The display I’m drawing on is a Wacom Cintiq 24HD and the software is Photoshop, which is the most widely used professional illustration and digital drawing/painting software on the planet. There have been plenty of times I’ve wished it were called something else, because for many years, people assumed that if you were using Photoshop, you must simply be manipulating photos.

Thankfully, anybody younger than me has grown up with this technology, so I don’t have to explain it as often as I used to.

If you like the video below, feel free to share it from YouTube.

Cheers,
Patrick

© Patrick LaMontagne
Follow me on Instagram @LaMontagneArt
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