Krisha Tamrakar’s newly released series Corona Comics is not an animation that is trying too hard. The colours are subdued, there are no dialogues, the frames are simple, and the main character is Covid-19, who looks a little bit like Charlie Brown from the comic strip Peanut, but with spikes for hair.

“The Covid updates have become overwhelming for people,” she says. “It’s a stressful time and there’s an information overload too. I just wanted to create something that would inform people, but at the same time put a smile on their faces,” she says, a budding artist, an illustrator and graphic designer. Her series is an attempt to stay occupied and engaged during the nationwide lockdown, and will be 10 to 12 episodes, she says.

But before the Corona Comics, Tamrakar once made visitors curious during the Kathmandu University’s BFA Exhibition with her graduation project: Kirimi Design, under which she produced an illustrated book Yomarhi. It was a picture book oriented towards children that told the story behind the Newar festival, Yomarhi Punhi. Today, Tamrakar continues to work under the brand name she had established to produce the picture book.

Her Corona Comics series, under the same production name, is just three weeks old on Vimeo, with just a few hundred views. There is little chance the video will go viral, and that was not the purpose for the video, she says. “The intention was never to get massive views but just to keep adding to my work and to just give people something to laugh at,” says Tamrakar.

As the nation-wide lockdown steps into its ninth week, many people are finding it difficult to stay home and keep themselves positive, she says. And it is at a time like this that art has more of a role to play in society, to spread hope, positivity—and to document history. “Art brings people together, and it has a way of valuing memories, and it also imbues emotions and emotes history as well,” she says. “When this lockdown will be over, a few years from now, I believe this work too will be a reminder of this time, a documentation of some sort, even though it is something light-hearted.”

For now though, her work is just a reminder to people: that no matter how bad days seem, a little humour goes a long way. “It’s important that we find something to laugh about during this time too, and that is what I am trying to do with my fictional Corona Comic,” she says.