awaiting review
Being Here: Caring for Dad 101
by Andy Smith Sherri Gallowitz’ Being Here: Caring for Dad 101 is a delightful read. Although its title verbiage partly reflects presenting techniques new parental caregivers might want to consider, it is more simply a pun on her Dad’s rich life finally ending at age 101. Sherri’s engaging narrative style shares how she was able to keep care giving challenges from ever becoming care giving bitterness. Sherri avoids bitterness, not so much from drawing on her own high personal character, but rather from concentrating on celebrating her father’s life, and on the spirit, she is still able to see in his… Read More
John Carpenter Presents George A. Romero’s The Amusement Park
by Annemarie Jutel “John Carpenter Presents George A. Romero’s The Amusement Park” is an adaptation of a 1973 George A. Romero film by the same name. Romero is perhaps best known for his horror films and the Night of the Living Dead series, but also produced a number of documentary television series. The film upon which the graphic book is based is “The Amusement Park,” commissioned by the Lutheran Society and directed by Romero. The film was a social commentary, highlighting the plight of senior citizen, and their social devaluation. Under supported, marginalised, impoverished and mocked, the film came… Read More
NAVIGATING THE POLAR VORTEX, IN AND OUT
by Annesha Palit “I’m always chasing deadlines, but I call mom every day. There’s nothing new to say but at least I know she’s alive. She’s not answering today.” (8) – thus begins Polar Vortex, a memoir that recounts Denise Dorrance’s tumultuous journey of encountering the perils of dementia and the confounding US healthcare industry. Short-listed for the Myriad First Graphic Novel Competition (2020), and the winner of the 2020 LD Comics Rosalind B. Penfold Prize, the memoir is Dorrance’s first full-length graphic novel. A polar vortex refers to strong, cyclonic winds in the middle or upper atmosphere over… Read More
Offshore Lightning
by Christine Castigliano, HeartsQuest.com This collection by manga-ka (manga artist) Nazuna Saito offers a poetic, humorous glimpse into everyday life – and death – in Japan. Most of the stories were originally published in 1991-92 as the artist entered her late 40s. After a 20-year hiatus to care for ailing family members, she published several longer pieces, until a stroke in 2018 slowed her manga production. As an elder, the artist offers her unique perspectives on memory, aging, and the transience of life. As a Japanese artist, Saito draws on a cultural lineage that relies on symbolic nature images… Read More
Dying for Attention
by Ameena Batada Susan MacLeod’s Dying for Attention: A Graphic Memoir of Nursing Home Care takes readers on a personal-professional odyssey that only someone with MacLeod’s combination of experience and expertise could know and share in this way. MacLeod, an artist since she was young, intertwines her personal family journey with professional knowledge about institutional public health and communication in this playful and comic memoir. MacLeod focuses on her challenges as the primary caregiver obtaining quality nursing home care for her mother in Canada, an increasingly common scenario for adults in the “sandwich” (between parents and children) generation. According… Read More
Der Sommer ihres Lebens (eng: The Summer of her Life)
Contemporary German writers and comic artists are tackling some of the most challenging issues humanity faces today. Many of these problems are not to be found on the front pages of the newspapers, but nonetheless play direct and crucial roles in the lives of us and our loved ones. In Barbara Yelin’s 2017 graphic novel Der Sommer ihres Lebens (eng: The Summer of her Life) the illustrator, along with writer Thomas von Steinaecker, takes on themes of ageing and care for the elderly, as well as the consequences of outdated gender roles in daily life and work. At the beginning… Read More
Wrinkles
Guest review by Martha Cornog, Graphic Novel Columnist, Library Journal (this review has no connection with Library Journal and is solely the opinion of the reviewer) As the comics industry has been maturing in recent decades, so has its content. It’s been both sobering and fascinating to see excellent graphic novels coming out on aging, elder care, and the end of life. I’m thinking particularly of Joyce Farmer’s Special Exits, Roz Chast’s Why Can’t We Talk about Something More Pleasant, Aneurin Wright’s Things to Do in a Retirement Home Trailer Park…When You’re 29 and Unemployed, Lucy Knisley’s Displacement: A Travelogue, and… Read More
“Mom’s Flock” by Sharon Rosenzweig
Through Riva Lehrer and Laydeez do Comics, we’ve learned of a project by Chicago artist Sharon Rosenzweig called “Mom’s Flock.” The comic panels can be seen here: http://annals.org/article.aspx?articleid=2411852. As Sharon introduces the project, “This is my mother. I brought her the chicks. And then I listened and took notes of what happened.”
You’ll Never Know
This series of three gorgeous memoirs shares Carol Tyler’s effort to investigate and retell her father’s traumatic experiences in World War II. Along the way we are also witness to struggles with her marriage, raising her daughter, her efforts to be a good daughter herself, and much more. Carol, a painter, has a stunning visual style, and she uses the landscape format of the book, meant to resemble a photo album, to her (and our) great advantage. Paul Gravett chose You’ll Never Know as the best autobiography/biography of 2012. In his blog post he wrote, …in the end what floored… Read More