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
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