Medical Mentions is a group of graphic works. The graphic works reviewed here are books whose primary topics are not medical, and yet they cover a medical topic with some depth at some point in the work. The rest of the work might be fictional or nonfictional, while the medical portion is often technical and five pages or more. The reviewer will usually neither recommend nor discourage reading the work, except when the rest of the work is deemed outstanding or terrible, respectively. Typically, six graphic works will be part of the review with one paragraph for each. Prior Medical Mentions can be found at I, II, III, IV, V, VI, VII With that in mind here’s Medical Mentions VIII.
Book Reviews by Kevin Wolf
Change the Game by Colin Kaepernick, Eve L. Ewing (writers) and Orlando Caicedo (illustrator) with lettering by Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou and color by Bryan Valenza; ISBN: 978-1338789652; Publisher Kaepernick Publishing & graphix (imprint of Scholastic) www.scholastic.com); Publication March 2023; paperback; 144 pages; author’s website: https://kaepernick7.com/; Medical topic: public health, racism
Discussing racism is not easy for my cisgender white male self. I have encountered racism mostly as an outsider. I have directly encountered it on a few occasions. When I was in sixth grade—totally unexpectedly—I was isolated on the school sports field when a popular student unprovoked slapped me and called me “dirty Jew!” I said nothing before or after the outburst; and that person just walked away. Fleeing the Holocaust was part of my father’s and grandparents’ history. I have otherwise heard the N. word and ethnic slurs on rare occasions; and regret making a few ethnic jokes in my youth. In Change the Game Colin Kaepernick’s graphic memoir about his senior year in high school, Kaepernick lives in two worlds; the world of his white parents and that of his peers, mostly people of color. Occasionally these worlds collide, such as when he wants to have his hair in cornrows and another time when Kaepernick invites Tiffany, who’s African-American, to the prom while his parents want him to invite Lindsey, who’s white. Among other students, Kaepernick overhears two others making a racist “joke” using the N word; and another time he gets into trouble when his baseball coach sees—but doesn’t care to get the whole story—Kaepernick calling out his peers who made an ethnic slur. He sees parent school boosters putting up a Pitman (name of High School) Pride sign and hears them speak about student African-American athletes with animal metaphors but calling a white student athlete “leader” with a “high football I.Q. [pg. 84].” During his high school senior year Kaepernick excels in baseball and football, though he’s more recognized at that time for his baseball prowess. He’s hoping for a football college recruiter to recognize his talent, while he gets multiple offers for baseball. The book ends before he starts college; though there’s a leap to one of his current missions (“Know Your Rights Camp”).
Marry Me a Little: a graphic memoir by Rob Kirby; ISBN: 978-1637790397; graphic mundi (www.graphicmundi.org); February 2023; paperback; 112 pages; author’s website: http://www.robkirbycomics.com/
Marry Me a Little is a graphic memoir of the author, Rob Kirby, marrying his ten-year partner, John, on 3 October 2013 after Minnesota legalized same-sex marriage in January 2013 before the 2015 Obergefell v Hodges U.S. Supreme Court (USSC) decision making same-sex marriage legal in all fifty states. One reason Rob and John got married was after Minnesota’s legislature passed same-sex marriage, Rob’s employer decided to no longer cover “domestic partners”—the precursor to marriage—under the employer’s healthcare benefits. John tells Rob, “So we went from being legally unable to get married to practically being forced [to get married, pg. 7, emphasis in original].” Other technical reasons included, joint tax filing, social security spousal benefits, and inheritance rules. Rob refers to a 2014 HBO documentary, The Case Against 8—about California’s proposition 8 which made same-sex marriage illegal and later found unconstitutional by the USSC; with Kris Perry—one plaintiff in the case against Proposition 8—who argued that gay couples and their children weren’t being treated equally—like other families—under the law. Other medical issues that arise are Rob’s parents dying years before their marriage with his mother in hospice when Rob’s sister had gotten married. Rob has a bout of anxiety and PTSD after Trump was elected President of the U.S. in 2016. There’s fourteen pages (70 – 83) emphasizing this stress with only a single panel in the center of each of these pages. The day after the inauguration, Rob attended the massive Women’s March on January 21, 2017. He narrates, “… 2017 seemed to seesaw from victories … to soul-crushing events [86] …” including Charlottesville’s white supremacy rally. They grieve the death of their long-loved pet, Ginger; and Rob recalls his life with Ginger—with “Each loss brings up every other loss,” said John’s “old therapist. [90]” With most of the story taking place in Minneapolis and ending in 2022, George Floyd’s death and police brutality are briefly mentioned. The 2020 election brings some relief with a change in administration, but the anxiety of keeping their marriage legal arises again when Roe v Wade is overturned in the USSC’s Dobbs decision. The final medical mention occurs just before the ending when Rob shows his first meeting with John—it had seemed like they were always together—and John speaks about being so excited at age 13 that he fainted at the site of the Aztec calendar in Mexico. Rob calls it Stendahl Syndrome, where one gets physically or mentally over-stimulated from being “overwhelmed by the beauty of a work of art.” At the Small Press Expo (SPX) in 2014 Rob won the Outstanding Anthology/Collection Ignatz award for QU33R.
The New Yorker Encyclopedia of Cartoons: A Semi-serious A-to-Z Archive edited by Bob Mankoff (foreword by David Remnick); ISBN: 978-0316436670; Black Dog & Leventhal; October 2018; hardcover – 2 volume boxed set; 1,536 pages
How many different ways can one entity put the same cartoons into collections? If you’re The New Yorker cartoon editors, the answer seems to be an infinite number of ways. In the two volumes of Encyclopedia of Cartoons provides yet another way to present New Yorker cartoons: this time alphabetically by topic. Here are the medical topics (some medically stronger than others) with their page numbers: Volume I includes Aging (20 – 25), Dentistry (240 – 245), Depression (246 – 249), Diet (256 – 259), Doctor vs. Patient (264 – 267), Endangered Species (330 – 333), Environment (public health, 334 – 339), Ethics (340 – 343), Eureka (i.e., discoveries, 344 – 345), Evolution (346 – 351), Experiments (356 – 359), Eye Charts (360 – 363), Fitness (394 – 397), Funerals (424 – 427), Global Warming (public health, 442 – 445), Grim Reaper (494 – 499), Guns (public health, 504 – 507), Happiness (518 – 521), Heat Waves (public health, 522 – 525), Insanity (608 – 613), Insomnia (614 – 617), Intoxication (626 – 631), Jogging (682 – 685), and Kleptomania (736 – 739); while Volume II includes Marriage Counselors (80 – 83), Maternity Ward (88 – 93), Medications 98 – 101), Meditation (102 – 105), Narcissus (166 – 167), Nature (public health, 170 – 173), Nuclear Weapons (public health, 204 – 207)), Operations (228 – 233), Organ Donors (242 – 245), Oxygen (254 – 255), Pollution (public health, 312 – 315)), Psychiatrists (322 – 329), Scientists in Lab (436 – 439), Sex (444 – 449), Smokers (464 – 467), Tombstones (538 – 541), Ulcers (584 – 587), War (trauma, 642 – 645), and X-Rays (714 – 717). Here and there are cartoons covering other medical issues within other topical areas. An example is shown under the Divorce section (Volume I page 261) with a cartoon by Jack Ziegler when—over cocktails—one woman says to another, “I was on hormone replacement for two years before I realized that what I really needed was Steve replacement.” And under Job Interviews, Warren Miller provides a cartoon with the human resources. punchline: “Of course, with the position that has the benefits—medical, dental, et cetera—there is no salary. [Volume I pg. 677]” A doctor (vet?) comes outside an operating room to two men in the waiting room to say, “It’s kittens [Volume I pg 735];” oh yeah, and there’s a cat anxiously waiting, too. Apparently, the editor at times lost track of the topics covered; for example, when Tombstones are presented, the editor suggested to see also Death and Grim Reaper, but death wasn’t a topic directly covered. If you have favorite New Yorker cartoonists, there’s an index at the back of each volume giving page numbers for all illustrations by that cartoonist.
Typo and Skim by Thomas Hummel (Adapter), Tomáš Končinský (Author), Barbora Klárová (Author), Daniel Špaček (Illustrator), Petr Štěpán (Designer); translated from Czechoslovakian by Andrew Oakland; ISBN: 979-8985878714; Publisher Val de Grace; October 2022; hardcover; 120 pages.
The small, perhaps microscopic protagonists, Typo and Skim, play a critical role in our entropic universe. That is, the universe where things fall apart. But when Typo—who puts typographical erors in writings—sees a huge (relatively speaking) human child cry over a typo on her birthday cake, Typo decides that aging—the inevitable deterioration of all of us and other things—must be stopped. Skim puts blotches and stains on everything they touch. This is a philosophical adventure story of anachronistic characters; with a dung beetle playing a critical role. What would happen if aging stopped? Would we finally be happy? This book has lush (or is a better word decrepit?) illustrations, emphasizing shades of brown. Some illustrations are very detailed covering two large pages (2 x 12.8 by 9.6 inches) with lots of activities and sites to see. I thoroughly enjoyed this book; and it reminded me of my unsuccessful attempt to explain the essential nature of time in our universe to my sister. Perhaps this book would have made my explanation understandabl.
E.T.A Hoffman’s The Nutcracker and the Mouse King Illustrated & Adapted by Natalie Andrewson; ISBN: 978-1596436817; :01 First Second (www.firstsecondbooks.com); September 2020; hardcover; 145 pages; https://www.natalie-andrewson.com/
In 1816 E.T.A Hoffman wrote Nussknacker und Mausekönig (The Nutcracker and the Mouse King) in Prussia/Germany. The newest adapter, Natalie Andrewson, provides some history for this story in her Author’s Note that “… years later it was re-popularized in English by Alexandre Dumas [1841], and Pyotr Tchaikovsky [1891/1892] into a wildly successful ballet … [pg. 138]” that continues to be performed somewhere at least annually. Andrewson also writes “I was … obsessed with its perfection as a fever dream … I was completely sucked into this dark, bizarre story with a girl’s [Marie Stahlbaum’s] imagination at its core … and I was disturbed by the ways she was shamed by it. [137]” This adaptation was the first version that I’ve read of the Nutcracker. Stahlbaum is “steel tree” from the German. The high fever that Marie acquires brought this tale to my graphic medicinal attention. The Mouse King makes sacrificial demands of Marie so that he won’t steal and destroy Marie’s newest and now favorite toy, her nutcracker prince. Her godfather Drosselmeier, blind in one patch-covered eye, did lots of technical repairs (e.g., clocks) at the Stahlbaum’s home; and always brought gifts for Marie and her brother, Fritz. They fought over the newest Christmas gift, a nutcracker soldier. Drosselmeier refereed with a story and left Marie in charge of this new toy. This large headed toy could be both hero and practical by making a large bowl of walnuts edible; Fritz likes the practicality, but Marie fears it hurts her hero. Marie takes to bed, only responding to the Mouse King’s entreaties for gifts to sate his ego. Only Drosselmeier believes that Marie’s Mouse King “exists” for Marie. Over many evenings Drosselmeier provides the story of the Nutcracker and Mouse King to rescue Marie from her fever and entertain the children; sometimes against their parents’ wishes. I found this story of real imaginary nightmares among sibling rivals very enjoyable. Andrewson connects this story to herself when she was in school and upset teachers with her doodles in workbooks; and not following “rules” in art class, like drawing unrealistic characters; and how those characters became her “…deepest and oldest friends … [139]”
¡Ay, Mija!: My Bilingual Summer in Mexico by Christine Suggs; medical mention pages 243–245, 275–293; ISBN: 978-0316591928; Little, Brown & Company (Hachette Book Group) (www.lbyr.com); April 2023; paperback; 336 pages; author’s website: http://christinesuggs.com/
As described on the back cover, “Inspired by real-life trips [summer after 7th and 10th grades], Christine Suggs makes their graphic-novel debut with this bilingual [Spanish/English], inventive, and heartfelt memoir.” Christine is Mexican-American and working on being bi-lingual in this enjoyable memoir. They—initially alone and later joined by their mother—travels to their mother’s and their own roots in Mexico City and central Mexico (El Ciervo Querétaro). Mija is “my daughter” in English. The reader learns about many foods, Mexican words, and some Aztec culture along the way. Christine travels with her tiny translating avatar to help her (and non-Spanish-Mexican speakers … I among them) better understand some of the language. However, the general meaning of most of the dialogue is readily understood from context and wonderful imagery. Each chapter opens with six repeating (three sets of two) or twelve (3 x 4) panels, like wall tiles, of images important to the author and the chapter. For example, Chapter 4 has a cat’s face (Chiquito, pet), a puerquito (pig-shaped gingerbread cookie), and tea cup; Chapter 8 in Ciervo includes a scorpion. Medical issues that arise, include Christine’s mom being diabetic and bringing her insulin kit with her, and Christine coming down with elevation sickness in El Ciervo. El Ciervo is 1,987 meters (over 6,500 feet) with symptoms of nausea and dizziness shown through imagery … even her little avatar sickened. The elevation sickness typically goes away after returning to lower elevations or with time one’s body acclimates to higher elevations. Food plays an important role (roll?) with funny food discussions while eating. For example, Papá (Christine’s grandfather), smelling and acquiring from a street vendor 27 gorditas immediately after eating a large lunch at Christine’s favorite Mexico City restaurant. The book closes with actual vacation and family photographs. All-in-all a feast of activity; makes me hungry for more.
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