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Wink

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Book review by Kevin Wolf     First person fictional memoirs written in present tense have made me wonder. Am I, the reader, supposed to think that the protagonist is writing this memoir after the fact and recalling the events? Or that the character never writes this stuff down but lives the events and I’m virtually watching them as they happen? Or am “I” vicariously the memoirist living out this life? Or should I treat it like a non-fictional memoir in the present tense and I’m being given the gift of entry into the memoirist’s mind and life? And is… Read More

For Real, Issue One: The Oven

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Review of For Real (Issue One): The Oven by James Romberger By Kevin Wolf Though I grew up reading comic books, I rarely read stand-alone comics today. I usually wait for a graphic novel to come out, which might be a multi-comic story arc. Comics are often sold as twenty or so page “pamphlets,” often with regular frequency. Some single stories in a single comic have achieved acclaim (e.g. The 8-page story Master Race by Al Feldstein writer and B. Krigstein artist in Impact issue 1, March 1955 EC Publications; about a holocaust survivor encountering a Nazi war criminal on… Read More

Living with Cancer: Our Stories – Kickstarter project.

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From Catriona Laird: CHIP Collective’s first kickstarter project Living With Cancer: Our Stories is a comic anthology featuring 6 real stories from people affected by cancer in some way, whether that connection is a diagnosis of themselves or a loved one or being a medical expert in the field researching or treating the disease itself. Featured in the book also are 6 illustrations relating to either quotes from the stories or relating to CHIP Collective’s ideals. CHIP stands for Comics Help Inform People (highly inspired from the co-founders having burgers and chips at the time of creating the name) which… Read More

The Story Of My Tits

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Review by Raghavi Ravi Kasthuri Originally published in the Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics. Published online: 03 Oct 2016. To cite this article: Raghavi Ravi Kasthuri (2016): The story of my tits, by Jennifer Hayden  Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics, DOI: 10.1080/21504857.2016.1233900 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/21504857.2016.1233900   Published in the year 2015 following the critical acclaim of graphic onco-narratives such as Cancer Vixen: A True Story  (2006) by Marisa Acocella Marchetto and David Small’ s  Stitches: A Memoir  (2009), Jennifer Hayden’ s The Story of My Tits  which is located in the discourse of graphic medicine, is not just a… Read More

New Podcast: Elizabeth Hewitt & Ann Fox

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In this week’s podcast, Elizabeth Hewitt from the Ohio State University presents “Incurable Time: The Graphic Temporalities of Autoimmune Disease.” Her talk was recorded at our 2015 Riverside Comics & Medicine conference. Also, I talk with Ann Fox of Davidson College about what she’s reading, as well as her new Graphic Medicine course. Keep your eyes on your screens as images will accompany the episode. This podcast is also available via iTunes. Support for this podcast comes from Penn State College of Medicine, Department of Humanities, the nation’s oldest Humanities Department within a medical school, pioneers of innovations in medical education… Read More

Carol Tyler: Bringing It All Back Home

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In this week’s Graphic Medicine Podcast, Carol Tyler’s keynote address from the Graphic Medicine 2015 conference in Riverside, California. The talk is titled, “Bringing It All Back Home.” With this being the Thanksgiving holiday in the U.S., I thought it would be a great tie-in to post Carol’s talk in conjunction with the Great Thanksgiving Listen. Here’s a video about that project from StoryCorps: Carol Tyler’s monumental book, Soldier’s Heart: The Campaign to Understand My WWII Veteran Father was released this week. The process which led to the creation of this book was a monumental act of intense listening, intense caregiving,… Read More

Cancer Vixen

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Cancer Vixen-The figure of Doctor guest review by Nathan Sethu Representation of humans in comics are minimal to create intimacy between the reader and the narrator,which broadens the scope of graphic novels, the responsibility being shifted to the audience in understanding the imagination of storyteller through combination of visual effects. Panels are sequenced at the will of the author, who makes herculean task of unfolding ties between different characters including creativity usurped through sub – human beings, thereby shifting focus on complexity, irony and genre description. The writers of graphic novels present experience of protagonist, suddenly jumping into a specific role… Read More

Probably Nothing: A Diary of Not Your Average Nine Months

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guest review and response illustration by Northwestern medical student Runjhun Bhatia Probably Nothing is, when you initially read the summary, a depressing concept. Nine months of pregnancy compounded by bowel cancer, you think. Or perhaps vice versa. How awful. The graphic novel is a simplistically drawn diary-like account of having cancer and being pregnant. Matilda’s experience could probably be a good insight for anyone with cancer or for a woman who is pregnant. The graphic novel is exhaustive — though the drawings are not detailed, the detail Matilda goes into about her life throughout these circumstances is extensive. It becomes… Read More