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, VIII, IX. With that in mind here’s Medical Mentions X – Comic Strip Edition #1; So named, because it contains only reviews of comic strip collections; and #1 because I expect there will be more comic strip only reviews in the future.
Book Reviews by Kevin Wolf
Green Pieces: Green from the Pond Up by Drew Aquilina; ISBN: 978-0983344438; Green Pieces Cartoon Studio (www.greenpiecescartoons.com); January 2011; paperback; 197 pages; author’s website: www.greenpiecescartoons.com
First some history. According to the author’s website, Green Pieces, the comic strip, began in 1987 as a college strip entitled Iggman on Campus. It morphed into Green Pieces and was published in some Connecticut newspapers until 1994, while Drew worked as a landscape architect trainee; and moved to an Arizona paper after going to Arizona State University to study art. Green Pieces anthropomorphic stars are Iggy the turtle (not tortoise!) whose shell houses wonders and travels a lot; Radic, a dragonfly, who truly bugs Iggy; Cabby, the genius bullfrog, scientist and has Iggy as his guinea pig; Roc, the racoon, “When he is not sleeping off a night of heavy rubbish rummaging, Roc can be a very good friend and fun companion [pg. 9];” and additional characters as the need arises. Green Pieces includes a foreword by Brian Walker (a cartoon art historian; and carrying on the legacy strip Beetle Bailey from his father Mort). The medical (zoology, biology, public health) aspects usually revolve around real birth/life and environmental issues. The first life/death issue occurs when a muskrat slowly crosses the road (19; with the same idea repeated later for Iggy (60)) and encounters screeching brakes on a car with the bumper sticker “Give Nature a Brake.” Followed by two trees discussing a parasite, “The homo-sapien sap sucker” (20) that’s draining them; get it? They’re maple trees with lots of hanging buckets with taps. We see the parenting, birth and education of blue birds (23 – 33); including the death of a frog as a learning experience for the fledglings. We learn about Roc’s “smelly puking habit” of smoking (61). Iggy’s pond is sometimes used as a toxic waste dump by a chemical company, resulting in a mutant frog (i.e., Cabby). We watch the turtle & rabbit reenact the tortoise and hare race from Aesop fables (75 – 79). We see some cross-species love/friendships between Iggy and squirrel. One of the funniest strips occurs “when cricket and human worlds collide.” This is a standout for me, because cricket noise has become my favorite sound, because it’s the only noise that cancels my tinnitus completely. Crickets say hello to a chirping phone; while humans think their phones are chirping when crickets invade their diner (94). Turtles are being captured for animal experiments. A lawsuit is threatened against the comic strip by Parents Against Nature because those parents want to censor animal strips for their blatant nudity. We also learn Taxol comes from a yew plant which is good for you, says a buck to their son. Green Pieces concludes with “The cartoon collection represents the premise that everyone has some connection with nature that is deeply rooted in their culture or in their day-to-day existence … we all can behold the wonder that is nature … [196];” and the reader is able to get a screen saver image. Green Pieces even provides advice to gardeners to humanely keep deer from their gardens without hurting the deer. Raccoons and turtles shouldn’t risk trick or treating because humans might hyperbolically fear rabies and salmonella, respectively and unrealistically. Green Pieces is very enjoyable for its laughs and education.
Former Guy: Doonesbury in the Time of Trumpism by G B Trudeau; ISBN: 978-1524875589; Andrews McMeel Publishing (www.andreswmcmeel.com); September 2022; paperback; 128 pages; author’s website: https://www.washingtonpost.com/doonesbury/
GB Trudeau’s Doonesbury comic strip has been syndicated in newspapers for over 50 years beginning in October 1970, after starting as a college strip at Yale University’s student newspaper, Yale Daily News. Trudeau uses humor and satire in fictional stories to emphasize serious subjects. One of his newest strip collections of Sunday strips, entitled Former Guy: Doonesbury in the Time of Trumpism, emphasizes COVID-19 including 19 single page strips with about half having the characters masked and half including the Mr. Covid anthropomorphic character—a giant COVID-19 virus. Other iconic health-related characters put in cameos. For example, Buttsy (a burning cigarette), Dum Dum (an unspent bullet), Mr. Brewski (a foaming beer can), and Mr. Covid all appear at the “Predators’ Ball [p. 40]” where they try to outdo each other: Buttsy “… smokin’ millions in Asia”, Dum Dum “Got my 40,000 annual [U.S.] gun death quota in the bag!” And they all ask about the new arrival, Mr. Covid, with Mr. Brewski saying, “New guy having a 300k year.” A particularly ironic strip has Mark Slackmeyer in his talk radio announcer’s booth saying, “Five of my broadcast colleagues on the right … Bob Enyart, Mark Bernier, Phil Valentine, Jimmy DeYoung, Dick Farrel … each of them fierce opponent of vaccines, are now all dead of Covid. [91];” and another radio host not mentioned in Doonesbury who also died from COVID-19 was Tod Tucker according to a Vanity Fair article. There’s a strip on teletherapy (51); former President Trump calling injured veterans “losers,” “suckers” and BD removing his leg prosthesis (56 – 57). Doonesbury has also had past story arcs about war trauma. For example, see the www.graphicmedicine.org reviews of The Long Road Home: One Step at a Time about BD’s PTSD and war trauma after his injuries from a roadside bomb during the Iraq war after 9-11; and Signature Wound: Rocking TBI about traumatic brain injury from Afghanistan and Iraq wars.
Birds of Maine by Michael DeForge; ISBN: 978-1770465664; Drawn & Quarterly (www.drawnandquarterly.com); August 2022; hardcover; 464 pages; author’s website: http://www.michael-deforge.com/
This (Birds of Maine by Michael DeForge) hard-to-explain graphic compendium of single page 2 x 3 panels comic strips often without any punchlines and very colorful sharp-cornered illustrations is filled with philosophical takes on planet earth from the bird’s perspective on their “moon.” I like to think their moon is our Earth but as they see and live on the Earth. But it could be truly off planet earth. Anyway, what can these birds tell us about ourselves while they talk amongst themselves and connect to earthly pen pals through their fungal internet? Plenty! For example, on page 151 there’s one strip with two birds discussing nature on Earth; and here’s their back-and-forth dialogue (“My pen pal on earth keeps talking about ‘nature preserves’ … I don’t get it.” “Earth has lots of them.” “What’s outside the nature preserve? ‘Not-nature’?” “They use those words differently than we do.” “Earth is very specific about its zoning regulations … they usually cordon off specific areas for their compost, for instance.” “You are now entering nature.” “Goodbye! You are now exiting nature. I hope you enjoyed your time in nature.”) Birds do a good job of conveying sarcasm. They also keen (mourn) for their dead peers. The uncountable mourners fill the entire space with their mourning songs except for an outline around their dead friend; and that outline is in the shape of their friend taking flight … a wonderful tribute. This is only the tip of potentially medically graphical tales in this allegorical and real tome. Warning: comic strip (below) includes suicide discussion. From a bird’s perspective, “… humans [are] all just … one thing [270].” Perhaps we could learn the same lesson and stop treating different people differently and stick with respect and understanding. And the time, if anyone cares, is always 9:45; and (an aside) 945 is the first abundant odd number.
Page 162 – Birds of Maine
Finn and Charlie Are Hitched – Volume 4: Everyone Is Someone’s Fetish by Tony Breed; Medical Mention pages 23, 45 – 47, 54 – 55; ISBN: 978-0996020534; Mega hugs Press (https://megahugspress.storenvy.com/); May 2014; paperback; 60 pages; author’s website: www.hitchedcomic.com
Finn and Charlie are a gay couple closely connected to their friends and siblings. Their stories are about their homelife, their jobs, and enjoying each other. Some friends are promiscuous, while Finn and Charlie remain monogamous. In Everyone Is Someone’s Fetish the main medical issues revolve around a friend’s (Nina’s) three-year-old toddler (Bennie). At a picnic, F & C learn that “Little Bennie” is in speech therapy because he’s not speaking and Charlie says, “Speech therapy! He’s only two! Einstein didn’t speak till he was three.” And Nina responds, “…I don’t know that that’s really true …” Charlie: “I just think people worry too much.” Nina: “Charlie, recall, please that I’m intelligent … assume … that I’ve done lots of research on this. And then shut up [pg. 23, emphasis in original].” According to Walter Isaacson’s Einstein: His Life and Universe, he started speaking after age two, and would whisper the words to himself before saying them aloud (pg. 8, Simon & Schuster, 2007). We later learn that Bennie has “… apraxia and dyspraxia [difficulty with movement and coordination motor skills] with underlying hypotonia [decreased muscle tone] caused by a neural abnormality, which … was not caused by anything [46] …” with an uncertain future whether physical or occupational therapy will help. I’m speculating as the saga of Finn and Charlie Are Hitched continues, we’ll learn more about Bennie and his treatments. And toward the end of Volume 4 Finn’s brother, Gus, asks Finn if he’ll be a sperm donor because he’s “… shooting blanks …” and Finn is left to think about it and later tells Charlie “That I’d enjoy being an uncle [54 – 55].”
Secret Asian Man: The Daily Days by Tak Toyoshima; medical mention pages: various strips; ISBN: 978-1616582807; Publisher: self (www.secretasianman.com website no longer works); December 20029; paperback; 232 pages; author’s website: (https://secretasianmancomics.blogspot.com/ (last entry February 2025)
Secret Asian Man: The Daily Days by Tak Toyoshima is the complete collection of his syndicated daily strip (Secret Asian Man) which ran from July 16, 2007 – September 19, 2009. The strip starred “SAM” (Osamu Takahashi) and his family (spouse Marie “Marie is to SAM what gravity is to all of us” and their son Shin, age five); along with cousin, Simon, and friends Charlie (black) and Richie (white). Before it was syndicated and after the syndication ended, the strip had an online presence; however, according to Secret Asian Man’s Wikipedia page, the strip went on hiatus May 12, 2013. I bought Secret Asian Man at a used bookstore. SAM stands for “Secret Asian Man” and his “real name” is an homage to Osamu Tezuka (“The God of Manga”) and possibly Kazuo Takahashi (known as Kazuki Takahashi, creator of Yu-Gi-Oh!). The strip falls into the gag-a-day genre, including political, social, and racial biting humor and loosely falls into public health. The first occurrence (July 22, 2007, page 8) has SAM asking Marie, “Honey? Do you think they’re teaching civil rights and racial politics at the pre-school? [emphasis in original]” then we see crayoned signs before Shin’s stuffed animals: Bunny Rabbit’s “No Justice No Peace,” Teddy Bear’s “I am a man,” and Zebra’s raised gloved fist. The strip’s premise is that SAM was the director of an art department who writes a web strip about Secret Asian Man and wants to be syndicated, so there’s lots of fourth wall meta breaks; such as July 26, 2007 (9) when SAM writes a strip about Marie getting “stress pimples” because he keeps writing strips about her. SAM gets stressed when being confronted with the possibility he’ll get syndicated and have “Millions of readers,” Charlie tells him (August 28, 2007, 18). Racism in SAM’s life is transparent, such as two days later (19) his conversation with Cierra, a woman of color, who’s always designated the “Indian” when she played “Cowboys and Indians” as a kid, while SAM says he was always the “laundry guy.” A white child says his mom is awesome because she sewed him a costume, while an Asian American child says, “That must make my mom even more awesome … she sewed 500 costumes for other kids in her boss’ sweatshop. [37].” Another fourth wall break occurs when SAM says a smoker can’t smoke, even though he’s outside not in a non-smoking area; and SAM says, “Dude, this is a comics section! Think of the … kids! [39]” SAM is menaced by some multi-racial street hooligans who believe him knowing Kung Fu is a false stereotype, and SAM fends them off with “oriental inscrutability [the strips’ words]” when he tells them, “You’re right. I definitely don’t know the spinning backfist of death. [80]” There are strips about lactose intolerance (June 8, 2008), Columbus vs. Indigenous people’s day (October 12, 2008), liver disease research fundraising (November 6, 2008), green technology (March 9, 2009), morality of cigarette ads (April 14, 2009), and several story arcs including the ending arc about camping and surviving in nature (most strips July 19 – September 19, 2009). It would be nice if there was more diversity in comic strip representation, such as Secret Asian Man.
Bad Machinery: Volume 2 – The Case of the Good Boy by John Allison; ISBN: 978-1620101148; Oni Press; March 2014; paperback; 144 pages; author’s website: https://badmachinery.com/
Bad Machinery is a UK comic strip “reminiscent of Nancy Drew and The Hardy Boys” as its back cover states. It’s occupied by students and teachers from the Griswalds Grammar School – established 1701. Tongue-firmly-in-cheek dry humor abounds. The Case of the Good Boy covers a mystery around missing toddlers, bizarre animals, and a collector of exotic creatures. The medical issues that lightly arise include students sneaking smokes (34, 123), the search for the toddlers that might be being eaten by the animals, learning that one can’t have an exotic beast as a pet no matter how loved (62), bullying among the students, a near drowning (with rescue by a “dog” that’s obviously not a dog, 76 – 79), discussion about animal extinction (an animal hunter tells students that the reason to save animals is, “If an animal goes extinct, you can’t shoot at it … the continued existence of exotic species underpins the knife industry, the crossbow industry … [99],” and we watch the capture and freeing of an exotic animal collection (106 – 120). The Case of the Good Boy concludes with a Rare Animal Encyclopedia (142 – 143) of fantabulous creatures. I’ll be keeping an eye out for additional volumes.
Leave a Comment