Business Unusual from COVID Comics

The following “Business Unusual” account is part of our new initiative, Collecting in Quarantine. With current mandates for all non-essential businesses to close, business is anything but usual in Maryland. In the Business Unusual series, MdHS is asking business employees, owners, customers, passers-by and neighborhood residents to visually share their experiences during the COVID-19 crisis.

Tuesday, March 31, 2020 – On this day, C. Ryan Patterson shared the comics below along with the following dispatch:

I’m an arts administrator in my professional work and I had just a new job with the Maryland State Arts Council on February 19, about three weeks before the Governor ordered the closure of schools and assigned all non-essential state employees to telework. I’m grateful to be employed period and especially work for MSAC which has a strong, organized, thoughtful and compassionate team and leadership, however it has been strange to try to achieve a sense of foundation when so much is changing, and my workday means sharing the house with my wife and kids. The line between home and work is evaporated, or a constantly shifting scale changing hour-by-hour and which room I happen to be trying to “work” in at the moment. So when I was trying to decide between Letters from Home and Business Unusual, there seems to be an assumption of these things being separate experiences, while many Marylanders experience has been the two at the same time suddenly slammed together.

For more comics by C. Ryan Patterson, visit Covid Comics.

Please note: The views, information, and opinions expressed and shared on the underbelly through the Collecting in Quarantine project do not necessarily represent those of the Maryland Historical Society. Our staff does not verify for accuracy the information contained within these submissions. The primary purpose of this series, with the permission of contributors, is to share and collect the experiences of Marylanders living through quarantine at this moment in time.

To learn more about the Collecting in Quarantine project and how to share a story and/or photos of your own, click here.