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 (3-color risograph: pink, blue, green) 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. Which is to say he is forever observing, recording, musing and brooding, commenting, transmuting the dross of his daily grind into artistic gold.
I for one will continue to hang on every word and penstroke.