by Katya Robin Paul Flippen’s 36days records the final phase of his father’s life, a disabled veteran undergoing medical care. The title 36days omits the usual space between words, compressing the period into a single unit. Thirty-six image panels are interspersed throughout the spare sequential text. All the image panels are grey, daubed and abraded with a variety of textures. They remind me of miasma, the obsolete medical theory that disease was caused by bad air. Firm ink line drawings hold their space over these foggy backgrounds. Engineering diagrams, partial maps, medical equipment and ornamental swirls ooze from a telephone… Read More
Of Tigers and Time Bandits – An Odyssey into Dementia
by Annemarie Jutel There is a strong graphic tradition of writing about other people’s illnesses. Tangles (Sarah Leavitt), Mom’s Cancer (Brian Fies), Last Things (Marisa Moss) and even the magnificent fictional Mad with Joy (Joris Vermassen), all address the important question of how we experience and cope with the illness experienced by our loved ones. Like the first-person illness narrative, they take a creative exploration of experiences of illness, even while one step removed: not the patient themselves, rather the people who surround them. There’s a parallel tradition of talking about one’s mom. Roz Chast, Alison Bechdel and Teresa Wong… Read More