Diamond Princess II

Abstract

This graphic tale takes place among a group of six passengers from the Diamond Princess — a cruise ship which formed a COVID-19 cluster in the beginning of 2020 — who meet later in the city of Yokohama, Japan. They need to discuss a collective condition: a mental communication between them, which they don’t know whether it can be attributed to the treatment they received or to the original illness. The main references for this graphic tale are the movies El ángel exterminador (1962) and Le charme discret de la bourgeoisie (1972), both written and directed by Luís Buñuel. The movies, immersed in a surrealist atmosphere created by the relationships between the characters, bring elements to the script that were observed at the Diamond Princess, such as people held up in a location by an “invisible force,” a sense of broken communication, and the spread of misleading information. These are some issues that we now have to face during the pandemic: a combined breakdown and continuous flow of (mis)communication which challenges the referential framework of the world we inhabit, outsourcing reflexive power onto international bodies (such as the WHO), social media (through biographical text and video), or the reader.

Keywords

• COVID-19
• graphic novel
• surrealism
• communication
• illustration
• art