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Coronavirus Cartoons

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It's easy to forget how early most of us knew Covid-19 could become a real problem.  Experts were downplaying it as a minor hazard compared to influenza.. Not until January 20 was there official acknowledgement the virus could spread from person to person. On that same day, I tried to buy face masks for our office and discovered a disturbing problem:  They were all sold out.   Something was brewing.  Though the American Public was preoccupied with Democratic Primaries and impeachment hearings, many were also aware of the new virus in Wuhan.  By January 23, I felt enough people knew of the threat to create two cartoons: The second cartoon was done at a time when people were entering crowded DMV's to get their new driver's license which would enable them to fly in airplanes.  The lines were insane and the wait was many, many hours. This one did not age well.  I thought it was pretty hilarious at the time and I got a lot of positive feedback.  Now, it looks.... kind of cliche

Vaccines

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My Measles Story: If you were born in 1957, it is presumed you had measles and do not need the vaccine.  I was born in 1958 and was always told I had gotten measles as a small child. Flash forward: In 1985, I was a medical intern working late at night.  My senior resident called:   “You need to see this.   There is a case of measles in the ER!”  Just as I jumped into the elevator, the “Code Blue” alarm rang.   We all ran to the Code Blue (not in the ER) and worked at the bedside for hours.  By the time we were done, we had forgotten about the case of Measles in the ER.   My guardian angel had saved me. In 1989, the military placed me on mobility status and gave me tons of vaccines and checked immune titers.  I never saw the results. As I was applying for hospital privileges in 1992, I needed to provide a document saying I was immune to measles.  I obtained my military records and found, much to my horror, my measles immune titer was ZERO!   I was totall

Hospital-Admin-Speak: A new language

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Anyone who has ever served time on a hospital administration committee knows what I'm talking about.  This is where the vast difference between the world of hospital administration versus the world of doctors and nurses becomes clear. As a side note for those interested in the process of creating these animations: I experimented with a different method of creating the talking head portion.  The result was not what I wanted, but it was interesting... Here is the comparison video:

Animating on Paper: The Sneeze 1992

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I made my last animation with tracing paper and a pen back in 1992.  At the time, I was mainly drawing with a Summagraphics Sketch Pad attached to a desktop Amiga Computer with a ton of peripherals. Even though they all filled a room, it still only output low resolution video. After a day of traveling 23 years ago, I sat down with a black marker and my tracing pad and drew this animation.  When I got home, I scanned the drawings, colored them and compiled them with triggered sound events in Disney Animation Studio.  Paper drawn animation of this type has an interesting jitter referred to as “Line-Boil.”  Like the early animators, I believed line-boil was a terrible imperfection.  Sometimes, however, it makes the animation interesting.  Around the mid 1990’s and later, television grew to like line-boil and added the deliberate exaggerated effect to many titles and animations. Anyway, I found the original 1992 drawing files for "The Sneeze" and, with some e
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Huge picture.  You have to click on it to view it full on your computer screen. It's my version of our hospital's computer system. It consists of a gazillion various modules, some decades old, all hobbled together to create the current system.  Multiple vendors are involved.  Many of the sections are obsolete.  I'm pretty certain vacuum tubes and mechanical switches are needed for some of the sections.
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This could work...