Posted in: Comics, News | Tagged: Comics, coronavirus, coronavirus comics, md, pilbrow, private eye

Private Eye, M.D. and Pilbrow – This Is A Superhero Outfit

Published Wed, 01 Apr 2020 15:00:59 -0500

Last updated Sat, 04 Apr 2020 06:37:28 -0500

British cartoon-and-news magazine Private Eye has not let a pandemic prevent publication this week. Renamed Private Eye-Solation, subscribers received copies this morning and it is as scabrous as ever. The cover features Prime Minister Boris Johnson, heading up his British Government Cabinet meeting. It is remotely led by a number of prominent British politicians, most of whom have now caught the coronavirus. A multiple speech balloon cover jams in as many ideas and takes as possible, looking at Boris's nefarious career.

Cover to Private Eye magazine — Cover to Private Eye Magazine #1519

Joe Wicks, is a British fitness coach who has gained new fame with his "P.E With Joe" YouTube, helping children stay active during the shutdown. Private Eye has gained a lot of notice of late for its anonymous columnist M.D. A working NHS doctor who reports for the magazine on medical matters, their column two weeks ago on the current situation went, appropriately, viral.

Private Eye-solation

The new issue of the magazine is critical of Boris Johnson's claims that the country's response to the pandemic was 'led by the science' came late with scientific advice given in February taking until late March to be enacted.

This is echoed by MD over two pages of tiny type and the odd cartoon. MD also states that under these current circumstances, everyone should be allowed a U-Turn if they own up and face the right direction in the end. This includes the Chinese government and the W.H.O. MD also highlights the big issue of general lack of public health, including obesity and smoking, when it comes to fighting off the coronavirus, which also doomed any 'herd immunity' plans. "Many young and middle-aged people have a full house of chronic disease. They were never going to get Covid-19 "mildly" and would die with octogenarians in an overwhelmed NHS, alongside exhausted frontline staff".

MD also looks at the cause of the spread of this – and other – pandemics. They suggest many are due to poor animal husbandry. They also cite a lack of government transparency. The column also includes a rather Bleeding Cool-relevant cartoon courtesy of Pilbrow.