CHARLOTTE, N.C. — For the last nine months we’ve all experienced the effects of COVID-19.

Now reporters and artists in Charlotte are teaming up to find a new way to share stories of the pandemic.

Working from home is the last thing David Boraks imagined he’d be doing.

“We had to clear out our office when it hit, and I was sort of in denial at first,” he said. “I really wanted to stay in the office, but as it became clear that this thing was pretty serious and the virus was spreading, we all moved to our home offices.”

Boraks is a reporter for WFAE, a public radio station in Charlotte, and as the pandemic began to get worse, it was all he was covering.

“To hear these stories one after another, it’s difficult, and you realize that this is a serious illness that we all need to take seriously,” he said.

There were many stories of the homeless in Charlotte, which Boraks spent a lot of time covering.

“A lot of these people have been kicked out of where they are, or they have moved from other encampments into this situation, and they are waiting for help, and some of them are the kind of people that you meet them and you wonder why are they homeless,” he said.

Chris Taylor is a digital artist in Charlotte, and until recently he and Boraks had never met.

Now the two are working together to create a chapter for a comic book series called The Pandemic.

“I learned a lot more about the homeless situation, so that’s what our chapter is about,” Taylor said. “It’s about how COVID has affected the homeless situation in Charlotte, so I learned a ton more about what they are going through.”

Taylor and Boraks are just a handful of artists and journalists working together on this comic book, put together by a nonprofit called Boom Charlotte and the Charlotte Journalism Collaborative.

Every two weeks they release a new chapter, which shares the stories of how the pandemic has impacted people in the city.

“It’s kind of hard to see the effects first hand if you’re not experiencing it, but there are a lot of people who are dealing with COVID that has hit them really heavy so it gives a different perspective if you’re not seeing it first hand,” Taylor said.

Taylor works to draw out this chapter, while Boraks provides his material and insight to help this story come to life.

“This is interesting to work with an artist because this gets us access to a whole different audience,” Boraks said. "I mean there are people who are going to read this in a graphic form that might not listen to the radio, they might not read a newspaper and so these stories are being told in a way that gives us access to a whole new audience.”

The pandemic has changed at lot of things, but Boraks and Taylor hope this comic book will help people better understand that change and those it impacts.

“I think it has lots of possibilities, and I’d love to see us continue it in other avenues and other news topics because I think it tells a story in a way, like I said before, you can’t tell it any other way,” Boraks said.

The chapter that Boraks and Taylor worked on has been released and can be read here.

The Charlotte Journalism Collaborative says it will release new chapters every two weeks and is currently working to print physical copies of this comic book.