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Charisma Check: A Review of Just Roll with It by Veronica Agarwal and Lee Durfey-Lavoie

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Guest Review by A. David Lewis   Like obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) itself, Just Roll with It by Veronica Agarwal and Lee Durfey-Lavoie does not reveal itself immediately. The YA graphic novel betrays nothing on its cover, with its summary blurb, or for the first sixty-plus pages of the story. With no overt initial comment, the narrative follows sixth-grader Maggie as she navigates the new challenges of middle school. Her two older sisters had been exemplary students in their time, so Maggie feels the additional burden to excel in addition to her anxiety with friends, classes, and after-school clubs. She is… Read More

The Hospital Suite

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Book Review by Kevin Wolf     John Porcellino, in his memoir The Hospital Suite, is medically troubled. His difficulties are primarily physical, though when the physical problems ease mental health comes to the fore. And I’m sure many argue that mental health often has physical roots, especially when treated with medications. The Hospital Suite is a non-standard case study of the ailments and treatments of one person. Why do I use the word “non-standard?” Unlike The Hospital Suite, standard case studies are not written by the person under treatment, but usually written by the treating professional. John provides amazing… Read More

The Bad Doctor – The Troubled Life and Times of Dr Iwan James

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Review first published in the Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics, 2016 The Bad Doctor: The Troubled Life and Times of Dr. Iwan James is a riveting, debut graphic novel by Ian Williams, a celebrated medical humanist and founder of the Graphic Medicine website. He previously published using the nom de plume Thom Ferrier and contributed a series of comic strips for the Guardian. In The Bad Doctor, inspired by Justin Green’s Binky Brown Meets the Holy Virgin Mary and by his own experience of the continuing secondary effects of obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD), Ian Williams deftly evokes the world of country GP Dr Iwan James’s deep… Read More

The Bad Doctor

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  Reviewed by Dr Ian Fussell, first published 25 Nov, 14 BMJ Medical Humanities Blog. http://blogs.bmj.com/medical-humanities/2014/11/25/the-reading-room/   The Bad Doctor is the debut graphic novel by Ian Williams, himself a pretty good doctor, I reckon, by the insight and humanity shown throughout this book. It was published in June 2014 by Myriad Editions and is a beautifully presented book. Ian is a physician working in General Practice and GU Medicine in Brighton. He is also the founder of the website graphicmedicine.org for which he coined the term “Graphic Medicine.” Following his training in medicine he studied fine art and achieved a… Read More

New Podcast: Ian Williams “Medical Examinations” Keynote

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Juliette McMullin at the University of California, Riverside recently organized a conference titled, “Medical Examinations: Art, Story, Theory.” It was sponsored by the Center for Ideas and Society as well as Department of Anthropology. We are honored to share two of the conference keynotes as Graphic Medicine podcasts. First up is Graphic Medicine site co-director, Ian Williams. Use the Quicktime player above to view images along with the audio. If you don’t have Quicktime, you can listen to the audio-only version below.

You’ll Never Know

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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

The Nao of Brown

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Publisher’s Blurb: ‘“A young woman’s struggle with love, life and murderous thoughts ” Nao Brown suffers from OCD, but not the handwashing, overly tidy type that people often refer to jokingly. Nao suffers from violent morbid obsessions, while her compulsions take the form of unseen mental rituals. Working part-time in a “designer” vinyl toy shop, while struggling to get her own illustration career off the ground, she’s still searching for that elusive love – the perfect love. And in meeting the man of her dreams, she realizes… dreams can be quite weird. Nao’s meditation practice is an attempt to quieten… Read More