Since the 1st of April, I started creating a series of heartwarming comics to show my respect for our tireless healthcare workers. These short comics are mostly inspired by real-life and what these Healthcare Heroes are experiencing every day.

After the first set of 14 comics, I continued and created 10 more. Hope that more of us can appreciate the sacrifices that healthcare workers around the world are making.

More info: Instagram

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Since the 1st of April 2020, I started creating a series of heartwarming comics to show my respect for our tireless healthcare workers. These short comics are mostly inspired by real life and what these Healthcare Heroes are experiencing every day.

After the first set of 14 comics, I continued and created many more. Hope that more of us can appreciate the sacrifices that healthcare workers around the world are making.

Between April 2020 – June 2020, I created about 30+ short comics in total, inspired by real-life stories of Healthcare Heroes. That was the period whereby Singapore had our ‘Circuit Breaker’, which is our version of a partial lockdown and everyone had to work from home, and dining out was prohibited. Those 3-4 months became really productive for me as I was hoping to contribute positively while being stuck indoors. I was averaging one comic (between 5-8 frames) about every 3 days, and constantly looking for new inspiration for healthcare workers’ related stories from the media.

I started sharing this comic series on my Facebook and Instagram accounts and very soon, it attracted the attention of healthcare professionals and their families. There were doctors and nurses from all over the world who wrote to me to share their appreciation for these comics and to also tell me how they were touched by these works. Families of healthcare workers also contacted me to share their thoughts and experiences. I found new inspirations from some of these emails and private messages, and many of the subsequent works in the series were the results from these correspondences.

By the end of June 2020, it seemed like everyone was starting to get pandemic fatigue, including myself. And that was when I wanted to take a break and stopped working on the series. I got back to creating children’s picture books, which was what I was doing before COVID started. At that time, I did not expect that the short break would stretch to almost a year.

In May 2021, after almost a year, Singapore started to experience an outbreak in the community, due to an infected case in a hospital. That resulted in many people fearing and shunning healthcare workers in uniforms. A voluntary group of healthcare workers in Singapore contacted me and hoped I could help draw something to support and encourage the healthcare professionals. They shared with me many short anecdotes from these HCWs on how they were being ill-treated by the public. I felt very strongly after hearing these stories and that gave me the inspiration to draw a story of how these Healthcare ‘Heroes’ ended up becoming ‘Zeroes’.

A big salute to the real heroes

That comic sparked a lot of reactions when I shared it online. On Instagram, that post was liked by over 22,000, along with thousands of shares, the most I ever had. It got many people to sit up and see what the healthcare workers were going through, despite their sacrifices. And that story made me realise the power of a good visual story and how it can bring awareness to social issues. Following that, I started to create more visual commentary stories that bring attention to social issues.

Appreciate our “invisible” heroes

Nursing schools and license regulations are being lifted in many countries to allow nursing students and retired nurses to return to the workforce easily

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Stay strong

Happy Birthday

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Family love and support is always the best energy booster

The fighting spirit lives on

Many healthcare workers are getting attacked or shunned, and even rendered homeless

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Courage is not the absence of fear

Many healthcare workers on the front line have been in overdrive for over a year fighting this global pandemic, with no end in sight

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Even as healthcare workers are being applauded as heroes, they are also getting attacked or shunned for being on the frontlines in the battle with COVID-19

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