Minis: Tyler Cohen

Tyler Cohen's comics vary between her surreal, feminist characters in Primazon and her intensely personal observations in Mamapants. There's a powerful tension in her comics that veers between the radical and the traditional, as she approaches all aspects of motherhood, political action, and artistic expression through a lens that defies any kind of conventional definitions. Her short mini, Shelter In Place, is a diary of the first three months of quarantine in her San Francisco home. The drawings range from expressive, spontaneous scribbles to more carefully rendered and colored art. 

Cohen's self-caricature is a delight. The way she draws herself with a square head, huge square glasses, and a big nose is funny and distinctive, reflecting once again a level of self-deprecatory comfort that at the same time eschews societal norms. All of Cohen's art, in fact, tends to wave a big middle finger to so-called conventional behavior, especially with regard to hierarchical divisions. Cohen is also funny; there's a strip with her kid twenty years from now where they're sitting in a rowboat (because of the rising tides from global warming, no doubt), reminiscing about the first pandemic in 2020. It's funny, but it's also part of a group of strips that refer to the contentious but loving relationship Cohen has with her kid, who is currently in full teenage defiance mode. 

At the same time, there is enormous sympathy for them, considering that this is an age where separation and independence should be happening, and instead there are millions of kids stuck at home. Cohen's observations about the odd quarantine custom at the farmer's market, drawings of herself when she was 18 and 20 (based on internet memes), and a lamentation with her partner that it's hard to have sex in a small apartment when their kid is awake at all hours all reflect her sharp comedic sensibility and understanding of how best to express these details.