guest post by Brian Fies
Liz Argall is a cartoonist, writer, playwright and public speaker based in Seattle. I met her at the 2022 Graphic Medicine Conference in Chicago, where she participated in a panel presentation on making zines. Full disclosure: as a result of our conversations at that conference, I began supporting her work via Patreon.
Argall’s comics have an openness and clarity that reflects her experience as “a neurodiverse human,” as she refers to herself, with hypermobility spectrum disorder (HSD) and first-hand familiarity with mental healthcare. In fact, she survived three psychotic episodes between 2017 and 2020, and creates comics that convey that experience as well as inform and comfort readers who may be facing the same.
“Drawing comics gave me a mission and purpose,” Argall writes in one autobiographical panel. “It provided an alchemical space for healing. It helped me feel less alone. Psychosis isn’t something we talk about very much, outside of jokes, cliches and horror movies. We need to have better conversations about mental health.”
Argall’s comics make an authentic, insightful contribution to that conversation. Reminiscent of Allie Brosh’s comics on depression, Argall’s work captures what ADHD, autism, HSD and psychosis feel like from the inside, as well as the everyday challenges we all face. It advocates for the self-care and mutual care everyone needs, in a way that is not codependent. To live in this world takes a village. More broadly, it fulfills one of graphic medicine’s core functions: letting others know they’re not alone.
Begin exploring Argall’s comics at https://www.thingswithout.com/mental-health/.
