Giorgio Carpinteri's Quarantine Diary: Comics and Irony in Pandemic Times

Italian cartoonist Giorgio Carpinteri, born in Bologna in 1958, has turned to a daily diary on Instagram and Facebook during the COVID-19 lockdown, producing a series of sharp and ironic illustrations called 'Quadernetto antivirus' (2020). Carpinteri, known for his pop eclecticism and references to Futurism and early 20th-century avant-gardes, debuted in 1978 on Il Mago and later contributed to iconic magazines Frigidaire and Linus. In 1985 he published the graphic novel 'Polsi sottili', and in 1986 he moved into television as an art director and author. He returned to comics in 2018 with 'Aquatlantic', a Kafkaesque graphic novel set in the deep ocean. Currently in Rome, Carpinteri describes the city as 'sorniona' (sleepy) and notes that people seem to follow rules but a well-known politician neighbor walked with his nose out of the mask. He abandoned a long-form comic project to focus on the present, creating daily drawings that combine paradox, surrealism, and irony to reflect on the pandemic with childlike simplicity. The illustrations are published on Artribune. Carpinteri emphasizes the need to discard prejudices and learn from the crisis, rather than merely hoping to become better.