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
Cancer Made Me A Shallower Person: A Memoir in Comics
Miriam Engelberg was diagnosed as having breast cancer at the age of 43. She was a computer programmer working in the non profit sector and loved comics, in fact, influenced by Peter Kuper and Harvey Pekar, she drew strip cartoons about her work and published them on line. Obviously a creative and introspective individual, she had previously written monologues and plays about various interests and aspects of her life. When cancer was diagnosed she started to draw cartoon strips about her experiences. A couple of things set this work apart from Cancer Vixen: unlike Marissa Marchetto, Engelberg was not a trained… Read More
Blue Pills: A Positive Love Story
Blue Pills, by Swiss artist Frederick Peeters, chronicles his relationship with Cati, a wild, vivacious girl he meets at a New Years Party. They connect and become lovers. Before long Cati tells Fred that she and her three-year-old son are both HIV positive. He is filled with a mixture of passion, pity and desire, but he does his best to act cool. Although disconcerted, he wants the relationship to work, and so it does. The book charts Fred’s evolving relationship with Cati’s son, cataloguing his periods of illness, his stays in hospital and the routine of his medication- the blue… 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
Janet and Me: An Illustrated Story of Love and Loss
The title really says it all. This is more an illustrated book with comics elements rather than a graphic novel per se. It is New York cartoonist Stan Mack’s homage to his lover Janet Bode who died of disseminated breast cancer, a touching and engaging account of their experiences in “Cancerland”. Unlike the other books about cancer listed on this site, this one is about dying rather than surviving. Written by the carer rather than the patient, it also covers the grief, lonelyness and legal complications of the immediate bereavement period. It covers similar themes to Cancer Vixen and Mom’s… Read More
Cancer Vixen
Cancer Vixen is the illness story of Marisa Marchetto, a New York Cartoonist. She was drawing a regular magazine strip when she discovered she had breast cancer. Thrust into a confusing world of expensive specialists and confusing treatment options, she had let her medical insurance lapse and would have been faced with crippling bills of about $200,000 to pay had her fiance, restauranteur Silvano, not been able to add her name to his insurance. The story documents the investigations and treatment she went though. The overall style of the book, with clear-line drawings and flat bold colours, is up-tempo and… Read More