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Rescue Party: A Graphic Anthology of COVID Lockdown
Over a hundred page-long comics from around the world, documenting humanity's retreat into COVID-19 lockdown and imagining our eventual, boisterous reemergence, from the founder of the Brooklyn Comic Arts festival and owner of beloved indie comic shop Desert Island.
On April 1, 2020, the Instagram account of Desert Island, Brooklyn's celebrated alternative comics shop, put out a call. By then, the shop had shuttered indefinitely, and the world's major cities had locked down as the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic took
"We all need something positive to think about, and a lot of us have time on our hands," the post read. "Who wants to make something?"
Hundreds of short comics from over fifty countries poured into Desert Island's inbox. Some came from notable cartoonists. Most, astonishingly, came from amateur artists just looking for an outlet to create in the midst of tragedy—for a chance to join the rescue party that leads us out of isolation.
Collected here are one hundred fifty notable entries from the Rescue Party project, capturing the loneliness and the surprising comforts of early lockdown; the mania of its middle days as the mind begins to fray; and the branching paths of humanity's future, as we re-enter a world wracked with injustice.
Bracing, beautiful, and conspicuously optimistic, Rescue Party is part graphic diary, part time capsule, and part field a grassroots project that tells the collective story of lockdown from a chorus of global voices, and charts a course to a more just future.
On April 1, 2020, the Instagram account of Desert Island, Brooklyn's celebrated alternative comics shop, put out a call. By then, the shop had shuttered indefinitely, and the world's major cities had locked down as the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic took
"We all need something positive to think about, and a lot of us have time on our hands," the post read. "Who wants to make something?"
Hundreds of short comics from over fifty countries poured into Desert Island's inbox. Some came from notable cartoonists. Most, astonishingly, came from amateur artists just looking for an outlet to create in the midst of tragedy—for a chance to join the rescue party that leads us out of isolation.
Collected here are one hundred fifty notable entries from the Rescue Party project, capturing the loneliness and the surprising comforts of early lockdown; the mania of its middle days as the mind begins to fray; and the branching paths of humanity's future, as we re-enter a world wracked with injustice.
Bracing, beautiful, and conspicuously optimistic, Rescue Party is part graphic diary, part time capsule, and part field a grassroots project that tells the collective story of lockdown from a chorus of global voices, and charts a course to a more just future.
192 pages, Hardcover
Published July 23, 2024
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Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews
August 12, 2024
Many thanks to Pantheon Books for the gifted copy.
Rtc.
Rtc.
August 13, 2024
Wonderful anthology featuring a truly eclectic array of 151 artists from around the globe. These one-page comics are thoughtful, hopeful, weird, wildly imaginative, funny, and deeply poignant. At its core it is all of a piece, which is key to any successful anthology.
Update from 8/13--my long-form review of this book is now up on Solrad:
https://solrad.co/freak-flags-flights...
Update from 8/13--my long-form review of this book is now up on Solrad:
https://solrad.co/freak-flags-flights...
October 29, 2024
This was not my cup of tea. The formatting and color scheme was odd, and the comics themselves were largely artistic statements that were so raw that they were very offputting. It is dark and unnerving. No thank you.
December 16, 2024
Maybe it was just unlucky that I started reading it on Friday the 13th? I really love the conceit of having a single page, nine panel story inspired by a single prompt, but I guess the contributors didn’t have the kind of styles that I enjoy.
Read
November 23, 2024I dnf’ed at page 23.
I went in knowing these would be hard hitting. And there’d be a lot of humor used to cope.
I just didn’t connect with this method of storytelling. I didn’t connect with a lot of the comics’s art. Or the stories. A lot of times I found them a bit confusing.
I also found it hard to read a number of the comics. A bunch just had tiny words. Others had text that didn’t have good typography. One has light red wordings on grayscale.
Just wasn’t for me. But I think the premise is good.
I went in knowing these would be hard hitting. And there’d be a lot of humor used to cope.
I just didn’t connect with this method of storytelling. I didn’t connect with a lot of the comics’s art. Or the stories. A lot of times I found them a bit confusing.
I also found it hard to read a number of the comics. A bunch just had tiny words. Others had text that didn’t have good typography. One has light red wordings on grayscale.
Just wasn’t for me. But I think the premise is good.
January 26, 2025
By now these Covid anthologies are ten a penny, but they are usually worth a look, especially when they draw from so many corners of the world, of course having such a wide pool of talent means that we get a huge variation in quality. Ranging from the crappy and forgettable to the incredibly talented, and as ever beauty lies in the eye of the beholder.
This gets off on the wrong foot by falling into the too many introductions/forewords trap, which starts to feel like you’re stuck at some event listening to the bores droning on with pointless preambles before the main event in a draining exercise of ever diminishing returns.
The vast majority of these comics are limited to nine panels and more often than not they don’t really convey anything of substance or depth that will appeal to most. Yes its great that the seeds of this were sown as a positive counter attack on all the negativity that came with the pandemic, but that shouldn’t render it immune to criticism, and unfortunately like most “well-meaning good causes” quality control is substituted for novelty and sentimentality and what we’re left with is a largely mediocre and forgettable collection.
Read
July 4, 2025(A version of this review was published, in German, in the Swiss comics journal STRAPAZIN.)
During the global pandemic lockdown in 2020, some of us took up painting, others yoga, others sewed masks. Some of us learned to make craft cocktails, some of us drank too much, some unlucky ones suffered severe loneliness and the loss of people they loved. (I lost my mother and a good friend.) Our family made a watched at least one movie every day after Zoom School.
Gabe Fowler, proprietor of the legendary Brooklyn comics shop Desert Island, moved to an isolated cabin in the woods of New England (presumably an actual desert island was too difficult to get to) and sent out requests for original comics about the pandemic. (“We all need something positive to think about, and a lot of us have time on our hands. Who wants to make something?”) The result is the magical and magnificent anthology Rescue Party: A Graphic Anthology of COVID Lockdown, a collection of what could be imagined as one-page messages for bottles to be sent out into the strangely transformed world of Covid-19.
Some Strapazin readers may recall Comix 2000 which, prior to Rescue Party, must have been the most celebrated “occasional comics anthology”—“occasional” as in “meant to mark an event.” Comix 2000 was a two-thousand-page black-and-white collection of silent comics from around the world, pulled together to celebrate the turn of the millennium. Rescue Party is a more modest 150 or so pages, and while it doesn’t feature submissions from quite as many countries, it is in wildly vibrant full color—paints, crayons, collages, computer artwork, and who knows what other media—essentially a different medium from the way most comics from the last century were presented.
Rescue Party is also a book chock full of optimism. Fowler’s guidelines were simple: submissions were to be a single page in a classic 9-panel grid and should share hopes and dreams for a return to “normal life” post-pandemic. The results (or at least the 150 or so Fowler curated from more than 250 submissions from more than 50 countries) overflow with positivity, kindness, and caring. The pandemic brought out the worst in many people—from pettiness to selfishness to meanness—exacerbated by a mass migration to the generally toxic medium of social media, but there’s none of that here. Indeed, while Fowler’s request went out via Instagram, few of these stories even mention the internet. And the result not a Facebook group or website, but a celebration of our humanity through that most human and humane medium, the book.
Rescue Party is also a time capsule of the state of comics at the 1/5 marker of the 21st Century. I consider myself comics-literate, yet I’d only even heard of three of the 140 contributors. In fact, many of the contributors are previously unpublished amateurs. That shows how comics have become a truly universal medium and how good Desert Island is at finding new talent.
In one of the text sections in the book, Fowler observes that Covid put us “together in our isolation.” Nobody alive had every experienced anything like what the entire world crashed into. God willing, none of us ever will again—but if we do, Rescue Party can serve as an inspiration to tap into the creativity and compassion our fickle species is capable of.
During the global pandemic lockdown in 2020, some of us took up painting, others yoga, others sewed masks. Some of us learned to make craft cocktails, some of us drank too much, some unlucky ones suffered severe loneliness and the loss of people they loved. (I lost my mother and a good friend.) Our family made a watched at least one movie every day after Zoom School.
Gabe Fowler, proprietor of the legendary Brooklyn comics shop Desert Island, moved to an isolated cabin in the woods of New England (presumably an actual desert island was too difficult to get to) and sent out requests for original comics about the pandemic. (“We all need something positive to think about, and a lot of us have time on our hands. Who wants to make something?”) The result is the magical and magnificent anthology Rescue Party: A Graphic Anthology of COVID Lockdown, a collection of what could be imagined as one-page messages for bottles to be sent out into the strangely transformed world of Covid-19.
Some Strapazin readers may recall Comix 2000 which, prior to Rescue Party, must have been the most celebrated “occasional comics anthology”—“occasional” as in “meant to mark an event.” Comix 2000 was a two-thousand-page black-and-white collection of silent comics from around the world, pulled together to celebrate the turn of the millennium. Rescue Party is a more modest 150 or so pages, and while it doesn’t feature submissions from quite as many countries, it is in wildly vibrant full color—paints, crayons, collages, computer artwork, and who knows what other media—essentially a different medium from the way most comics from the last century were presented.
Rescue Party is also a book chock full of optimism. Fowler’s guidelines were simple: submissions were to be a single page in a classic 9-panel grid and should share hopes and dreams for a return to “normal life” post-pandemic. The results (or at least the 150 or so Fowler curated from more than 250 submissions from more than 50 countries) overflow with positivity, kindness, and caring. The pandemic brought out the worst in many people—from pettiness to selfishness to meanness—exacerbated by a mass migration to the generally toxic medium of social media, but there’s none of that here. Indeed, while Fowler’s request went out via Instagram, few of these stories even mention the internet. And the result not a Facebook group or website, but a celebration of our humanity through that most human and humane medium, the book.
Rescue Party is also a time capsule of the state of comics at the 1/5 marker of the 21st Century. I consider myself comics-literate, yet I’d only even heard of three of the 140 contributors. In fact, many of the contributors are previously unpublished amateurs. That shows how comics have become a truly universal medium and how good Desert Island is at finding new talent.
In one of the text sections in the book, Fowler observes that Covid put us “together in our isolation.” Nobody alive had every experienced anything like what the entire world crashed into. God willing, none of us ever will again—but if we do, Rescue Party can serve as an inspiration to tap into the creativity and compassion our fickle species is capable of.
![Profile Image for Kelly {SpaceOnTheBookcase].](https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/users/1672255572i/4799500._UX200_CR0,0,200,200_.jpg)
August 7, 2024
It's only been four years since the dreaded Coronavirus grinded the world to a halt and Gabe Fowler, editor and owner of the comic book shop Dessert Island, launched a unique project. Using social media, he invited artists to submit 9-block strip comics envisioning an ideal future in a post-pandemic utopia. The response was astounding, with over 250 artists from 50 countries contributing.
"Rescue Party: A Graphic Anthology of COVID Lockdown" showcases these diverse entries. The anthology spans a wide range of styles and tones—from bright pastels to dark bold colors, and from joyful and funny to deep and dark. No matter your experience with COVID-19, you'll likely find a comic that resonates with you. The variety of artistic styles, particularly from international artists, is especially enjoyable.
Personally, my COVID-19 experience was unique, as quarantine wasn't an option and I worked 60-80 hours a week. I hadn't heard of the Rescue Party project until I received this book. It's both timely and distant enough to explore the myriad emotions and experiences from that period.
The book is well-organized, allowing for a linear read or random exploration. For those who enjoy annotating books, this one is a perfect candidate!
Thank you to Pantheon Books for the gifted copy.
"Rescue Party: A Graphic Anthology of COVID Lockdown" showcases these diverse entries. The anthology spans a wide range of styles and tones—from bright pastels to dark bold colors, and from joyful and funny to deep and dark. No matter your experience with COVID-19, you'll likely find a comic that resonates with you. The variety of artistic styles, particularly from international artists, is especially enjoyable.
Personally, my COVID-19 experience was unique, as quarantine wasn't an option and I worked 60-80 hours a week. I hadn't heard of the Rescue Party project until I received this book. It's both timely and distant enough to explore the myriad emotions and experiences from that period.
The book is well-organized, allowing for a linear read or random exploration. For those who enjoy annotating books, this one is a perfect candidate!
Thank you to Pantheon Books for the gifted copy.
August 16, 2024
I love the creative idea behind this comics anthology and how it came together. Gabe Fowler, owner of a comics store called Desert Island, challenged fellow artists to put together 9-panel comics about their hopes for life after covid. And his community responded in full! Fowler eventually selected about 140 of what he considered to be the most impactful submissions and put them together into a beautiful 9x12 sized book (with amazing cover art as well).
As you can imagine, the submissions are all over the place, from tender and hopeful (imagining future utopias) to the utterly bizarre (sometimes delightfully bizarre, sometimes just bizarre). I enjoyed the variety in style and approach. I was a bit shocked by the levels of nudity (but really, SHOULD I have been surprised??). It was interesting to read this 4+ years out from covid when it feels like the world has more or less returned to pretty similar places that it was before covid. Which made me a little sad. Some of the visions of utopia within were quite lovely.
As you can imagine, the submissions are all over the place, from tender and hopeful (imagining future utopias) to the utterly bizarre (sometimes delightfully bizarre, sometimes just bizarre). I enjoyed the variety in style and approach. I was a bit shocked by the levels of nudity (but really, SHOULD I have been surprised??). It was interesting to read this 4+ years out from covid when it feels like the world has more or less returned to pretty similar places that it was before covid. Which made me a little sad. Some of the visions of utopia within were quite lovely.
September 3, 2024
The concept of this appealed to me greatly, but the execution did not. There are a few comics that represent aspects of daily life in lockdown in a soulful, thoughtful way, but the comics in this book are mostly surrealistic and strange, and many of them are bizarre fever dreams full of political posturing and nudity. This is for a niche audience of arty people who like to see profundity in what seems like random weirdness to everyone else.
Did Not Finish
October 8, 2024This was great in concept, but the lack of editing and appropriate formatting really killed it. It makes absolutely no sense to force people’s comics onto one page when it compromises the quality so intensely, with the art, but ~especially~ with the text. I couldn’t read many of them because they were blurry or too small.
December 3, 2024
An amazing compilation from around the world.
March 8, 2025
It was a wonderful thing to see what visual styles of story are possible with heart and raw drive.
June 3, 2025
Like all anthologies, some good - some bad - some great.
November 29, 2024
Painfully long explanations. Curation somewhat one-note.
Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews