How would you feel if you inadvertently caused your son’s cancer, then ignored the lump for a couple of years, resulting in an operation that left him mute? It isn’t really apparent what David Small’s father felt, because his family are not big on communication. Edward Small chose not to tell David that he had cancer at first, then, after a couple of years, took him out for dinner and gave it to him bluntly, before resuming the usual dysfunctional truculence. Davids father was a radiologist, and in those days X rays were heralded as a treatment for all sorts… Read More
My Diary
Beautifully designed, the minimalist structure of this sparsely laid out volume makes it feel more like an art book than a graphic novel. Mio Matsumoto is an artist from Japan, and was studying in London when she was found to have a cancerous growth on her tongue. She travelled back to Japan for treatment and documented her illness in this sketchbook diary. The scratchy, deliberately “inept” biro drawings are very of the moment (think David Shrigley) but convey little in the way of emotional depth, leaving the text to convey the authors thoughts. The the idiomatic narration and romantic preoccupations… Read More
Mom’s Cancer
Brian Fies originally chronicled his family’s struggle to come to terms with their mother’s metastatic cancer in an anonymous serialised web comic. He had no idea how the story would end when he started posting it, but he hoped that others similarly affected would find some comfort in knowing they were not alone. Reader numbers increased by word of mouth (or email) recommendation and the strip was picked up and published as a hardback book in 2006. It has subsequently won several awards, including an Eisner. It is a beautifully produced book, with understated graphics, mostly in black and white… Read More
Our Cancer Year
Our Cancer Year portrays the diagnosis and treatment of Harvey Pekar’s lymphoma against a backdrop of domestic upheaval and the momentous political and social events of the first gulf war. Frank Stack’s scratchy monochrome brush and pen work lend the panels an air of anxiety and disorder. A real-life file clerk in a Cleveland hospital, Pekar has been documenting the day-to-day idiosyncracsies of his life and work since 1976 in the cult comic series American Splendour. One of the first writers to think that everyday life could provide the basis for comic book stories, he hired various cartoonists (most notably… Read More