The Art of the Graphic Memoir – Tell Your Story, Change Your Life

by Adela Wu

From bestselling cartoonist, Tom Hart, The Art of the Graphic Memoir is a special volume for readers who both enjoy graphic novels and desire to learn the craft underlying this unique form of storytelling.

Hart is the co-founder of the Sequential Artists Workshop (or SAW), a non-profit comics school and creative community founded in 2011, and he brings his many years of experience in teaching and comics-making in creating The Art of the Graphic Memoir. The chapters are easy to digest, with specific lessons about each stage of the idea gathering, drafting, sketching, and writing process. With plenty of examples from celebrated graphic memoirs, Hart breaks down how different artists chose moments to illustrate for cohesive and interesting stories. Each section is bookended with additional recommended readings with numerous prompts and creative exercises to inspire readers, from exploring different visual styles to making lists of memories and anecdotes tied together by themes.

Hart adds personal insights throughout The Art of the Graphic Memoir. Of note, he writes and reflects often on the death of his young daughter, a personal tragedy that he has chronicled in his powerful graphic memoir Rosalie Lightning, which was published in 2016 (and reissued in 2025). These lessons, including images of old notes and drafts as he processed his grief through art, offer intriguing glimpses of a thoughtful creator at work. Every chapter also includes a “live” example, as Hart shows readers how he brainstorms, writes, and draws meaningful stories.

I admire Hart’s commitment to featuring graphic memoirs by diverse artists on topics as wide-ranging as love and relationships, world wars, chronic illness, and everyday life. Readers are treated to full-page, full-color facsimiles of numerous exemplary works that he references throughout the book. These samples of published panels, as well as early sketches, are drawn from works by Alison Bechtel, Raina Telgemeier, Art Spiegelman, Will Eisner, and many more.

For anyone interested in creating their own illustrated memoir, The Art of the Graphic Memoir is truly an excellent educational resource.

Adela Wu, MD is a neurosurgeon working in the Bay Area, who is broadly interested in the intersections between her clinical practice and the medical humanities.