By Paul Flippen Graphic Medicine is presently established well enough as a field to enjoy an avant garde. We have exemplary works of personal narrative offering glimpses into direct experience with the medical community. We have important nonfiction contributions that educate, explain, or elucidate. With The Tumor in the Clay by Nick Francis, we now also have a poetic work that communicates an intersection of health and humanity through metaphor (and dazzling visuals). Lacking text narration, the graphic novel retains legibility through a flexible four panel layout of stacked horizontal frames whose aspect ratio comfortably alludes to cinematic storytelling…. Read More
The Pass
awaiting review
Playing in a Dream
By Yu-Ling Kung Playing in a Dream (2024) is a bilingual Chinese–English comic book written and drawn by SEN (森森) and published independently. The project received publication support from Taiwan’s Ministry of Culture, which allowed the artist greater freedom to invest in its material production. From its physical appearance, the book already feels very different from most comics commonly found in bookstores in Taiwan. The production cost is clearly higher, and both the printing and binding use uncommon methods. The cover is deliberately understated and made of thick, rough paper that feels almost like stone. When the book is… Read More
City Surgeon #1
by Matt Peters For Gold Key Comics, licensed content was a mainstay. An imprint of Western Publishing, Gold Key operated from 1962 to 1984, churning out an extensive catalog of comic adaptations of popular TV and movie properties from Hanna-Barbera, Looney Tunes, Walt Disney Productions, and other entertainment companies. Aside from those comics, Gold Key had a smaller slate of original content, a less iconic lineup of science fiction, fantasy, adventure, suspense, and other genre fiction. A nearly forgotten comic from that slate was a medical drama titled City Surgeon (sometimes referred to as Blake Harper, City Surgeon, based… Read More
A Fine Withering
by Gladys Ochoa Julie Maggi’s A Fine Withering explores the grief, the challenges and the recovery that come with a hysterectomy. While researching the procedure, she concludes that although a common surgery, hysterectomies are not discussed publicly. The lack of personal stories available lead the author to write about her experience. The story begins with the diagnosis of a large myoma that requires a hysterectomy to remove the myoma. The author, although recently coming to terms with not having children, finds herself conflicted on the news. A part of her had foreseen this with the way her body had… Read More
I’m a Terminal Cancer Patient, but I’m Fine
by Melanie Anspacher The graphic memoir by manga artist Hilnama is strikingly unique, not only in narrative and artistic content but in the author’s mission to leave a legacy to her readers. The work was initially released as 10 online chapter installments, published on Flex Comix’s Comic Polaris manga site in 20201. From the outset, Hilnama’s goal is to help others while also recounting her experience. As she tells her readers, “If it helps even a little, that’d make me happy [pg. 5].” The published book includes an epilogue, as well as reflections on each online chapter that describe how… Read More
Checkups Shots and Robots – True Stories Behind How Doctors Treat Us
by Kevin Wolf Checkups Shots and Robots – True Stories Behind How Doctors Treat Us by David Rickert is an excellent book for middle schoolers with health care topics and stories fitting the age group with a few caveats. Checkups provides interesting historically significant medical discoveries, biographies of important characters, explanations of disease causes, treatments (e.g., vaccines), technological advances from ancient times into the future with the latter under the heading “What’s Next.” The book is broken into five medical overarching topics (“The Well Visit,” “Diseases and Infections,” “Vaccines,” “Pain Relief,” and “Surgery”) of two to four chapters each. And… Read More
Frida: The Story of Her Life
By Aaradhana Natarajan Vanna Vinci does justice to the fantastic imagery and vibrant earthiness of Frida Kahlo’s art in both the text and the visuals of her 2017 graphic novel Frida: The Story of Her Life. The pages hold a blend of recollections, history and conjecture that form a syncretic portrait of an artist most known for her heavily symbolic self-portraiture. The text is both biography and exposition for the lush art. Vinci imbues her subject with the rich, often mordant and morbid sensibility Kahlo* is known for. I thought it was refreshing how, even as a child, Vinci’s… Read More
In the News, Again – A SAW Non-fiction Comics Anthology
awaiting review