IT’S NEVER EASY
By:
March 5, 2026
I was fortunate enough to get my hands on a sample copy from the limited edition risograph print run of It’s Never Easy. Which is a collection of HILOBROW friend and contributor Joe Alterio’s lovely little web comics from 2020–2021, i.e., chronicling the COVID moment. A few of these were cross-posted to HILOBROW in 2021.
The comics collected here are not only smart, and funny, but also sweet, unflinchingly honest, and — as the title suggests — anxious. Ours are “interesting times,” in the grimmest sense of that phrase, and it’s a privilege to watch them unfold through Joe Alterio’s eyes.
Hopefully Joe, a tireless creator of everything from digital products to podcasts and protest posters, will make movies one of these days. Because it’s a delight to “sit in the audience,” if you will, as these comics zoom in on significant details…
…and zoom out again to take in awe-inspiring natural scenes.
We encounter the creator of these comics as a father, husband, son, employee, neighbor, community member, American… but he’s always an artist too. He’s forever observing, recording, musing and brooding, commenting, transmuting the dross of his daily grind into artistic gold — and I for one will continue to hang on every word and penstroke.