Book Review by Kevin Wolf Fights: One Boy’s Triumph over Violence by Joel Christian Gill is a book of lessons provided in a memoir. The lessons are there for the reader to find, because they’re the lessons Joel learns along his very difficult youthful path. I use Joel’s first name throughout this review, because the story mainly covers his childhood and supports familiarity and empathy. Joel’s honesty and very hard life bleeds through. Though fighting is a major theme, there are also tales of bullying, racism, domestic violence, overcoming sexual abuse, exploring the outdoors, fresh starts with a new persona… Read More
Lighter Than My Shadow
Guest review by Crystal Yin Lie added 20/3/18 “Pictures mark an increase in the symbolic tenor of the discourse of anorexia,” writes Erin O’Connor in her study of how late-19th century medical photography came to frame anorexia nervosa as a discrete pathology. Wresting the representation of anorexia (and eating disorders more generally) from the realms of medical science, contemporary writers and artists have turned to a different pictorial form—the graphic form—creating a profusion of narratives including British artist Katie Green’s debut memoir, Lighter Than My Shadow (2013). In My Shadow, Green depicts Katie’s experience with eating disorders—beginning with childhood anorexia—anxiety,… Read More
Something Terrible by Dean Trippe
Book Review by Kevin Wolf Everything about this graphic memoir is brief, but it packs a wallop. It’s only fourteen pages plus a four page epilogue, a foreword by Kate Beaton (Hark, a Vagrant), and afterword and closing thoughts by the author. Something Terrible is about surviving childhood sexual abuse and its continued torment into adulthood. The book is stark, in black and white with a gray wash and one color page and a just preceding color panel. The book is often wordless, allowing the images to carry the weight. This was a very courageous memoir for the author… Read More
The Courage To Be Me
Nina Burrowes’ illustrated book is, primarily, a self-help tool for people living with the psychological consequences of sexual violence. The work was originally conceived and produced to be viewed, free, on Burrowes’ website, and it can still be found there. It has also been published using Amazon’s print-on-demand platform and, although this means the finished printed object lacks the finesse of graphic narratives produced by publishing houses, this format serves to emphasise that The Courage To Be Me is a determinedly practical document, with utility for its intended readership at its core. Burrowes has styled herself as ‘The Cartooning Psychologist’… Read More