Graphic Medicine doesn’t always take the form of a book: sometimes it can be a collaboration. This is the case for the Visualizing End of Life Issues group (VEOLI). This international group of graphic recorders, artists, facilitators, death doulas, grief specialists, and authors have practiced listening to people describe their end-of-life thinking and, in real-time, capture these thoughts by making drawings and using words. Members of VEOLI have devoted over a year to creating and fine-tuning a process for leading people through a journey to capture their thoughts and feelings about their dying and death. Undertaking the very personal experience… Read More
The Keeper
awaiting review
Taking Turns: Stories from HIV/AIDS Care Unit 371
Guest review by Dr. Devlyn McCreight MK Czerwiec’s graphic memoir Taking Turns is one of the latest entries in the Graphic Medicine series published by Penn State University Press. The book chronicles Czerwiec’s seven years serving as a nurse on the dedicated HIV/AIDS Care Unit at Illinois Masonic Hospital. While it could be reasonably assumed that Czerwiec serves as the de facto “main character” of the story due to the autobiographical threads woven into the narrative, this does not actually seem to be the case. The care that Czerwiec takes in gathering and sharing the stories of the doctors, nurses,… 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