Little Demons, Death And Biting Dogs: How We Picture Disease
Today's cartoonists are depicting the novel coronavirus as an angry, spiky ball — reflecting our knowledge of viruses. But before we knew what they looked like, we imagined disease differently.
Picture an angry little ball, covered in spikes, perhaps equipped with arms and legs, and definitely an evil grin. That's how cartoonists and animators are anthropomorphizing Covid-19. Which seems to make the coronavirus unique in our long history of anthropomorphizing diseases.
"What's been remarkable about Covid-19 is from the beginning, we had a visual of the pathogen," says MK Czerwiec, a nurse, artist and . That means, she says, that cartoons of the virus are somewhat accurate, at least compared
