Guest Book Review by Basia Jedruszczak Perfect World by Aruga Rie is a josei (women’s/older teen) manga, complete in 12 volumes as of January 2021. At a work function, designer Kawana Tsugumi runs into her high school crush, Ayukawa Itsuki, and is surprised to see him using a wheelchair due to a spinal cord injury (SCI) he sustained during college. As her high-school feelings return all at once, she and Ayukawa navigate entering a romantic relationship. This review is for the first three volumes of the series. In the opening chapter (titled Acts throughout the series) of the first… Read More
Don’t Worry, He Won’t Get Far on Foot: The Autobiography of a Dangerous Man
John Callahan was perhaps combining comics & medicine before just about anyone. This book, published in 1989, is mostly text, but includes many of Callahan’s health-related single panel gags. It also includes his story of alchoholism, traumatic injury, rehab, and life as a paraplegic who made comics. Callahan died in 2010. There’s a theoretical asterisk to his work in all of his obituaries, and might also be found when discussing it in terms of Graphic Medicine (which I have never seen done) and I’m curious to explore it. Callahan’s work generally remained on the periphery of mainstream acceptance due to its… Read More