Havana, June 4 (RHC) - COVID-19 hasn’t stopped the perseverance of Cuban cartoonists. Fernanda, Jaime, Samanta y XP from Equipo 009 or Rui la Pestex these days now incorporate the ‘nasobuco’ (facemask) as another garment and give joy at times when children cannot play with their friends or attend school.

The friendly detective Fernanda, along with her friends Tocho and Cuso, now wearing masks and isolated in their homes, is the protagonist of short animated films that are broadcast on Cuban TV and shared in the social media. Team members of the animated series Equipo 009 show that it is possible to have fun from isolation; while the ‘Stories, jokes and riddles of your friend the  facemask’, created by cartoonist Jorge Oliver, make viewers think from home.

‘The isolation and physical distancing imposed by the novel coronavirus have not prevented us from continuing to think and work as a team in the desire to create and dream,’ Armando Alba, production deputy director of the Cuban Film Institute’s Animation Studios told Cubadebate.

According to Armando Alba, the choice of the protagonists responded to animation and video game consumption studies led by psychologist Nilza González along with students from the University of Havana’s Psychology School. He added that these investigations and the analysis of the guidelines provided by WhatsApp psychological support groups revealed the line of messages that the characters could convey in times of coronavirus. According to Alba, all filmmakers, cartoonists, animators and actors worked from home.

The song ‘Dale Candela’ (Set fire to it) by comedian and singer-songwriter Alejandro García (Virulo) has also positioned typical Cuban humor in the social media in the face of the current situation caused by COVID-19.