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Crafting Contention through MadZines: Helen Spandler in conversation with Meg-John Barker

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The MadZines research project is exploring how zines craft contention about mental health knowledge and practice. One of the purposes of the project is to explore the potential of zines to foster dialogue about contested issues in mental health. As part of this, the project team are having a series of dialogues with Mad-Zinesters (people who create and share zines about madness and distress). In the following extract from one of these conversations, Helen Spandler (HS) talks to Meg-John Barker (MJB) about how the comic graphics in their zines ‘craft contention’ about mental health.    HS: Can you remember how… Read More

Spotlight on Theo Phizza – Notes from the Asylum #1

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Guest Post by Theo Phizza Following redundancy from a company at which I had worked for 22 years I was admitted to a mental health facility (“the Facility”) at the beginning of 2020 to be treated for generalised anxiety disorder (“GAD”) partly triggered by the redundancy situation.   I first saw a Psychiatric Consultant in December 2019 who advised me that in-patient treatment would probably be best for me. It later turned out he had been a Psychiatric Advisor on a series of Big Brother. This seemed to me to be a possible cause of confusion as this Cartoon shows…. Read More

Nine Faces of Nothing

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Book Review by Kevin Wolf   Nine Faces of Nothing (Depression Comics) is an intense mini-comic, self- published by Eli Bishop. Open to interpretation is where these nine tales begin and end. That is, all nine stories in this work are layered or not; are abstract or metaphorical; are clear or opaque; it’s up to you to find their meaning. They’re connected as pieces related to depression. Some are emotional, some are lighter, but all are thoughtful. The art/words range from minimal/wordless to detailed, not necessarily in the same story. I recommend this work which is available at the author’s… Read More

Brosh Books

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Guest Review by Jane Burns   This review is for both of Allie Brosh’s books: Hyperbole and a Half and Problems and Other Solutions. Both books are engaging, wild and super funny. Not really adjectives you would associate with books about depression.  Solutions and other Problems has a 7-year gap between publication of her first book Hyperbole and a Half and if you were in any doubt as what Allie Brosh was doing in that period well it appears she was creating more amazing content and perspective.   Hyperbole and a Half The publication of Allie Brosh’s recent book Solutions… Read More

Operation Pokies

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Guest review by Gene Bild   Set in New Zealand, where the author lives and has a psychiatric therapy practice, Operation Pokies opens with adult animal characters bemoaning the malign effects that pokies (the word in New Zealand for slot machines) have on their village and personal lives. Then the story segues into a children’s crusade in which cute animal children and their insect allies, disgusted and angered by the way pokies have warped their lives, take action and dump all their villages’ slot machines into the ocean. The Amazon site for the eBook gives some startling statistics, without citation,… Read More