We live in turbulent times. Graphic Medicine’s Drawing Together meetups, at first weekly and now monthly, have been a helpful community of practice as we navigate these waters. The following comic started as a rough, raw journal entry and a one-page comic at one of those meetups.
Thank you for creating such a powerful space. Many thanks to critiquers and sensitivity readers. Creating this comic was hard, fulfilling and I wish such vivid examples did not come from too many cruel, personal stories. I hope it adds to the conversation, I hope you share it or use it as ammunition the inevitable next time mental health is used as a scapegoat or diminishing of a person.
We desperately need to have better conversations about mental health.
If you’ve heard of me as a creator before this, there’s a chance it might be for my strange short stories or roleplaying games, but it’s most likely because of my webcomic thingswithout.com and one particular comic, A Sad. https://www.thingswithout.com/comic/311-a-sad/
This comic started in 2012, as part of the Clarion Write-a-Thon and I’ve been creating it ever since. They’ve been a nugget of joy, at times a life raft to hold on to… and at times a crutch.
The Things are an all ages comic, and that is an important principle to maintain and protect. I’ve heard wonderful stories about how it’s helped people learn how to read, challenge gender assumptions, articulate emotional needs, and be there for people. It’s also meant as an artist and creator I had a cosy place to hide in and to only challenge myself in certain ways.
Early this year, just before Covid-19 hit, I knew I needed to create other, more difficult stories, in addition to the Things. I knew I needed to reach out, and stretch out, and then much of the world shut down (or needed to shut down).
Fortunately, Graphic Medicine’s Drawing Together meetups, at first weekly and now monthly, came at just the right time. They have been so helpful as a place to connect, share, and be challenged.
You can find more of my work at: http://lizargall.com/ and https://www.thingswithout.com/
And you can support my work AND get updates, patron exclusive sketches and other fun stuff at https://www.patreon.com/lizargall
Very personal, also very broad and sweeping, Liz. Truly reflective of this historical moment. I think you should not feel guilt as expressed. You have spoken of the importance of knowing broadly what the issues and the need to address them. This we have to do collaboratively. As far as possible. I am as you know, very old. Very conscious of leaving the future for you and others but in a way different from past generations… Needing to recognize that we really don’t know the future. The future perhaps best shaped bit by bit, guided by principles about building a new world, rather than stubbornly clutching for the past.
This opening essay of yours. Maybe others can speak of slices they want to discuss. I hope you can shift from guilty to future responsibility and responsibilities.
Thanks you 🙂
One of the reasons I hold onto the “We are the world” bit is that I think it’s easy for every generation to be wowed by folks younger and think “Oh well, I’m old, they’re more amazing than me, they’ll sort it out.” I think every generation is amazing and needed to push us towards change.
Every generation has value and is needed, and I feel a bit protective of the new amazing youth. We need to be there for them and not just think they’ll sort it out. They’re also the most aggressively marketed to generation in history and the first to grow up with unregulated youtube tv creating frightening pathways to some awful concepts and propaganda.
I think we need a virtual campfire we can all gather round, not a passing of a baton from one particular generation to another.
“I think we need a virtual campfire we can all gather round, not a passing of a baton from one particular generation to another.” OH! I love love love this idea!