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A six-panel comic drawn in graphite on off-white paper titled “Leverage, explained”. Panels 1 through 4 and 6 are the same size; panel 5 is twice as tall. Panel 1: A man struggles to lift a large ball. Three tiny stick-figure people watch in the distance. Panel 2: The ball has been placed on a horizontal scale. The man holds it level on the other end. The stick figure crowd is still watching him. Panel 3: The man begins to push down on his side of the scale, lifting the ball slightly. The stick figure crowd is growing, pointing at and filming him. Panel 4: The man is straining to lift the ball higher. The crowd of spectators continues to grow. Three of them have joined the man; two hang by their hands from the handle of the scale, and a third sits on top of it. Panel 5: The man has lifted the ball high into the air; too high. He watches in horror as it begins to roll back down the scale, towards him. His stick figure helpers have either fallen off the edge of the scale handle or cling to it to stay on. More have joined to watch. Below the ball, a taller, thinner second person is standing and watching the man with a lit cigarette in his hand. Panel 6: The man has been squashed by the ball. The scale lays toppled over in the background. Most of the crowd of spectators have been knocked over, and the few left standing watch in horror or flee. The second person watches on with their back turned.
Image 1970

Leverage, Explained

R.C. Barajas

I admit to feeling a certain amount of guilt about how creatively productive I have been during this pandemic. Most certainly a defense mechanism or survival instinct or a desperate need of a shell into which I could shield my hermit crab self, I found the external restrictions permitted an internal freedom to explore.
There was not a moment in creating these things in which the pandemic did not factor. The mere fact that I had the time and drive to do them was in response to the pandemic, its horror for so many, its legacy. In looking back at this work, there will always be an asterisk in my mind regarding their genesis, their backstory.