by Kristina Bowers Josephine Mark’s graphic novel My Trip with Drip tells the story of a shy, determined bunny and a gruff, lone wolf who embark on a journey through the forest to escape a vengeful hunter and, along the way, discover what it means to care and be cared for. Originally published (2022) in the author’s native German, and later translated to English, My Trip with Drip has been recognized for its excellence in German children’s literature, winning the Max and Moritz Award for Best Comic for Children award in 2022. Mark’s cinematic framing and visual gags add as… Read More
Whistle – A New Gotham City Hero
by Jeff Mason Set in the DC Comics universe, Whistle: A New Gotham City Hero is an easy-to-read 6-chapter story of a teenager’s well-intentioned efforts to help her family make ends meet. The story follows 16-year-old Willow Zimmerman, a non-super-powered, Jewish teenager with a penchant for local activism and a love of stray dogs. Willow is growing up in Down River, an historically Jewish neighbourhood that has seen better days and whose residents are currently troubled by a murderous gangster and the mystery of buildings suddenly being “greened” by lush vegetation. Along the way we meet Willow’s Down River High… Read More
Playing in a Dream
By Yu-Ling Kung Playing in a Dream (2024) is a bilingual Chinese–English comic book written and drawn by SEN (森森) and published independently. The project received publication support from Taiwan’s Ministry of Culture, which allowed the artist greater freedom to invest in its material production. From its physical appearance, the book already feels very different from most comics commonly found in bookstores in Taiwan. The production cost is clearly higher, and both the printing and binding use uncommon methods. The cover is deliberately understated and made of thick, rough paper that feels almost like stone. When the book is… Read More
This Might Surprise You – A Breast Cancer Story
by Janet Chan Hayley Gullen’s This Might Surprise You details her journey being diagnosed with early onset HER2 positive breast cancer. She starts with finding her breast lump and takes us through her experience being diagnosed and enduring multiple treatments. Breast cancer is one of the most diagnosed cancers in women globally with an estimated 2.3 million women diagnosed in 2022 (WHO, 2025). Early onset breast cancer is when breast cancer is diagnosed before age 50 and its incidence is on the rise (Brown, n.d.). HER2 positive breast cancer is a quickly growing cancer that accounts for about 20% of… Read More
I’m a Terminal Cancer Patient, but I’m Fine
by Melanie Anspacher The graphic memoir by manga artist Hilnama is strikingly unique, not only in narrative and artistic content but in the author’s mission to leave a legacy to her readers. The work was initially released as 10 online chapter installments, published on Flex Comix’s Comic Polaris manga site in 20201. From the outset, Hilnama’s goal is to help others while also recounting her experience. As she tells her readers, “If it helps even a little, that’d make me happy [pg. 5].” The published book includes an epilogue, as well as reflections on each online chapter that describe how… Read More
A Story about Cancer (With a Happy Ending)
By Saily Marrero Inspired by the author’s encounter with a 10-year-old girl with leukemia, India Desjardins created A Story About Cancer (With a Happy Ending), a short graphic novel delivering exactly what it promises in the title, a cancer story, and a happy ending. Along with the help of illustrator, Marianne Ferrer, and translator, Solange Ouellet, the story is brought to English speaking audience. Ferrer’s watercolor illustrations use different color schemes to differentiate between healthy and the sick. Healthier people are given more vibrant colors like reds, maroons, and purples. Meanwhile, the protagonist and other sick people are primarily illustrated… Read More
giant
by Saily Marrero Inspired by her own brother’s diagnosis with Hodgkin’s Lymphoma, Mollie Ray’s giant illustrates a story about a family coping with a teenage boy’s life-threatening illness. Because this is a wordless graphic novel, there is no text that tells us what disease is causing his giant size. However, the images Ray provides are commonly seen with people receiving chemotherapy, a treatment used to treat cancer patients. On pages 82 and 74-75, we see the giant connected to an IV bag with medicine and see the contents of the bag slowly being drained across several panels before starting… Read More
The Cancer Plot: Terminal Immortality in Marvel’s Moral Universe
by Matt Peters Mixing text with sequential art has been a proven formula for making medical storytelling more accessible, relatable, and engaging to a lot of readers. The combination of written and visual expression has helped comics and graphic novels capture the emotional substance of a host of health experiences, including chronic pain, diabetes, depression, and neurodiversity. The writers and artists tackling those topics have often been outsiders to the superhero genre, working with smaller presses to publish one-shot graphic memoirs and other non-fiction. Their works are rooted in the real world instead of the sci-fi and fantasy universes… Read More
Probably Nothing: A Diary of Not Your Average Nine Months
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
Don’t Go Where I Can’t Follow
An Intrusion of Illness: A Story of Young Mourning Review by Alycia Best. Don’t Go Where I Can’t Follow takes its readers through the light-hearted joy of a relationship—the comical and touching moments of two young people’s many adventures together—and, eventually, the emotional trauma that accompanies losing a loved one to a crippling illness. The novel manifests itself in varying modes of illustration, through hand-drawn cartoon images and realistic depictions, photographs, scanned copies of actual letters and postcards, and diagrams. This is the record of Anders and Cheryl, a couple who is forced apart by the suffocating grips of cancer,… Read More