Join us at Artisan Gallery 218 in Valley Junction as Iowa native Dan Hunter shares his new book, Pandemic Panacea. It’s a collection of cartoons juxtaposing old magazine photos with crisp new captions, reminiscent of Gary Larson. Each cartoon first appeared as a postcard sent to a friend to share a laugh. On March 12, 2020, Dan Hunter began self-isolation, sheltering from the Covid 19 pandemic and while house cleaning, ran across a box of Popular Mechanics magazines from the 1940s and ’50s. They were full of racy race cars, speed thrills, and most of all rampant hilarity. Not intentionally humorous but rendered absurd with the passing of decades. So, he started to cut out vintage photographs and images to Scotch tape to an index card. At first, the cards were oddities—the sweeping fins on the cars or the peculiar fashions. Then he started adding captions. And he laughed more—an anti-pandemic laugh. That’s when he decided to make other people laugh—write a caption, imagine a friend laughing, put a stamp on it, and send it off. Although the first few months of isolation stretched into six months, 10 months, 12 months and more without a return to normal, he kept making postcards—through the summer, into the fall and right into 2021. Eventually, he had sent a new postcard every day for a year, excluding Sundays.

Dan Hunter is a playwright, songwriter, teacher, and founding partner of Hunter Higgs, LLC, an advocacy and communications firm. He performed for many years as a singer, songwriter, and humorist known for songs like Walkin’ Beans, Ballad of the Iowa Pork Queen, and Please Don’t Burn Perry Como.

Hear an interview with Dan Hunter by John Busbee of THE CULTURE BUZZ!