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Quiet

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by Fernando Gabriel Sosa   Quiet (2026), written by former mental health nurse, celebrated baker, and author Kim-Joy, and illustrated by Alti Firmansyah, represents a sophisticated expansion of the narrative and therapeutic concerns introduced in Turtle Bread. Shifting the focus from adult community workshops to the high-pressure environment of a near-future secondary school in Manchester (set in 2060), the graphic novel tackles the complex reality of selective mutism, peer harassment, and the double-edged sword of technological interventions in adolescent mental health care. Through a compelling mix of speculative fiction, coming-of-age drama, and graphic medicine, the authors offer a nuanced examination… Read More

Turtle Bread: A Graphic Novel About Baking, Fitting In, and the Power of Friendship

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by Fernando Gabriel Sosa Turtle Bread: A Graphic Novel About Baking, Fitting In, and the Power of Friendship (2023), written by former mental health nurse and Great British Bake Off finalist Kim-Joy, and illustrated by Alti Firmansyah with colors by Joana Lafuente, offers a poignant, highly empathetic, and visually inventive exploration of social anxiety, self-doubt, and the restorative potential of community. The narrative centers on Yan, a young woman overwhelmed by severe social anxiety, impostor syndrome, and a paralyzing fear of failure. After a job interview goes disastrously wrong due to a panic attack, a chance encounter leads her to… Read More

A Mild Case of Mass Hysteria

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by Laboni Das Some illnesses begin with a virus. Others begin with a rumour. Felix Cheong’s A Mild Case of Mass Hysteria, illustrated by Ritwick Roy and Riddhi Trivedi, opens with an event that sounds too strange to be true. Set in Singapore in October 1967, the graphic novel revisits one of the country’s most unusual episodes of collective fear: suo yang, when hundreds of people believed their genitals were retracting into their bodies and that death would soon follow. For many readers outside Southeast Asia, this episode will be entirely unfamiliar. Yet Cheong wisely refuses to treat it as… Read More

The Nightingales

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by Cassy Lee In a small town in Oregon in 1985, Emil Wilson’s father made a decision to take in a coworker named Jim and his two dogs who had been evicted from their home. The family is told that Jim is dying of cancer, but it soon becomes apparent that he is a gay man dying of AIDS during the early years of the epidemic, when the disease remained poorly understood and was surrounded by fear, stigma, and misinformation. While Wilson’s mother is not pleased about bringing a stranger into their home, his younger sister, seventeen-year-old Lou, approaches Jim… Read More

I’m a Terminal Cancer Patient, but I’m Fine

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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