Alex Demetris got in touch recently. He’s working on a comic about Lewy Body Dementia. It looks very interesting and I can’t wait to see more (there is a printed copy in the post to me!). This is what Alex has to say about his project: ‘Having produced numerous cartoons and short comic strips over the past six years, last autumn I decided to enrol on an MA in Illustration at Camberwell College of the Arts in order to explore fully my interest in producing a longer narrative comic. In 2007 my father had been diagnosed with Lewy body dementia,… Read More
Family Fun
A couple of months ago I heard a talk given by a comics artist who goes under the name of Una. One of her projects is a comic about dealing with psychosis in a relative, including being with them while they undergo the process of being detained under the mental health act. The series is in development and will be launched as a comic book at an exhibition in Leeds in February http://www.leeds-artexhibitions.co.uk Here is a sneak preview:
Gesundheit braucht Politik
My comics work as Thom Ferrier has been featured in the latest edition of “Gesundheit braucht Politik” the newsletter of the Association of Democratic Doctors of Germany– a small group of critical doctors fighting against the economisation of the health system. You can download a pdf by clicking the image below See Thom Ferrier’s work online here
Mike Keeper’s ‘I Have Crohn’s Disease’
Mike Keeper alerted me to his comic about Crohn’s disease, and Graphic Medicine is pleased to host this 12 page strip. Mike says: ‘Since being diagnosed with Crohn’s Disease in 2007, I’ve pilgrimaged, like so many others, on that long road toward the Mecca of consistent bowel health. So far, I’ve found the way to be not-so-difficult. I’m fortunate. Good doctor, relatively mild case. Still, what a frustrating, inexplicable disease Crohn’s can be! Embarrassing, slapdash, specific in its unspecificity. And that the origins of Crohn’s remain a mystery (i.e. we know what it *is*, just not *why* it is), a mystery even as… Read More
Emma Vieceli illustrates Tranexamic Acid comic for Emergency Teams
Researchers at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine have created a comic influenced by the Japanese manga style to help busy medical staff who treat patients suffering from bleeding. Professor Ian Roberts devised a storyline to highlight the latest research into the life-saving benefits of tranexamic acid (TXA) in a way which he hopes will appeal to doctors, nurses and paramedics on the front-line of medicine. The comic by professional artist Emma Vieceli and colourist Paul Duffield sets the scene in a busy emergency department as staff rush to treat people following two explosions. As well as… Read More
Thick and Thin by Bruce Mutard
I have just returned from the Graphic Novel Conference at Mansfield College Oxford, where MK, Michael Green and I conducted a panel on Graphic Medicine. Among the speakers was the Australian graphic novelist and writer Bruce Mutard to whom I was introduced by Paul Gravett. Bruce was interested in what we are doing at Graphic Medicine, and told me that he had previously drawn a strip on eating disorders in the male. The strip is viewable online (scroll down through Bruce’s short stories to find it) Published in Tango, Love and Food. Edited by Bernard Caleo, published by Cardigan Comics. This… Read More
Graphic medicine: female cartoonists tackle life’s dark moments
Cinders McLeod of the Globe and Mail has posted this article that grew out of our Toronto conference: Graphic medicine: female cartoonists tackle life’s dark moments “Lynn Johnston’s For Better or For Worse won millions of fans with largely autobiographical stories of family foibles. But for a growing wave of female artists, comic art has the potential to go deeper – speaking to the dark side of domestic life and personal demons. Their subject matter includes anorexia, abuse, depression and death. There’s humour to balance the pain, however. And a clear payoff to the genre, sometimes called ‘graphic medicine’: a healing… Read More
Stem Cell comic and a Malaria Comic
Edward Ross contacted me to flag up the recent science comics he has been making with researcher colleagues. These two web-based comics follow on from 2010’s Parasites! produced by Ross and molecular parasitologist Jamie Hall of the Wellcome Trust Centre for Molecular Parasitology in Glasgow. CLICK ON THE COVER IMAGES TO GO TO THE COMIC WEBSITES The Hope Beyond Hype graphic story grew from the desire of OptiStem, a large European consortium of stem cell researchers, to go beyond just explaining the science of stem cells. They wanted to depict the process they undertake as they try to move stem cell… Read More
Making better doctors, a panel at a time
Comics are teaching tool for Penn State College of Medicine students Our colleague, Professor Michael Green, one of the originators and luminaries of Graphic Medicine, teaches a course called ‘Graphic Storytelling and Medical Narratives’ at Penn State College of Medicine in which Medical Students study graphic novels and comics and make their own strips. Michael, his students and the course is featured in this article by Cindy Stauffer in the Read the full article here
‘On and Off’: The Alaska Parkinson’s Rag
Peter Dunlap-Shohl hosts a blog for people with an interest in Parkinson’s Disease. It started as an information clearinghouse for the Anchorage Parkinson’s Disease Support Group, where meeting schedules, agendas, speakers etc could be found, but it became a kind of therapeutic hobby. Then Peter started to make a comic, taking a look at PD. The 11 pages he has completed so far are viewable here.