by Felix Cheong What if the voice in your head isn’t yours? Or worse, what if it is? The first graphic novel by JH Low, a Singapore author/illustrator well known for his children’s picture books, is an unnerving read. I would even go so far as to call it nightmarish. With its empty streets, long shadows and looming architecture, Mr Goodchild is as much a gallery of Giorgio de Chirico-inspired paintings as a graphic novel. It is divided into five sections: “The Voice”, “The Beast”, “Same Old, Same Old”, “Through the Peephole” and an untitled coda. Each section takes… Read More
Traces of Madness – A Graphic Memoir
by Karol Kovalovich Weaver Content Advisory: this review and book contains self-harm. The crisis Lifeline number in the U.S. and Canada is 988, in the U.K. it’s 999; and for elsewhere go to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_suicide_crisis_lines. Traces of Madness: A Graphic Memoir, written by Fernando Balius, illustrated by Mario Pellejer, and translated from Spanish by Richard Beevor and Mailén Sganga, depicts the experiences of the author, who hears voices and undergoes other physical, sensory, psychological, and personal issues associated with psychotic episodes. The author describes how life circumstances and the world in which people live impact voice hearing (understood medically as… Read More