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Turtle Bread: A Graphic Novel About Baking, Fitting In, and the Power of Friendship

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by Fernando Gabriel Sosa Turtle Bread: A Graphic Novel About Baking, Fitting In, and the Power of Friendship (2023), written by former mental health nurse and Great British Bake Off finalist Kim-Joy, and illustrated by Alti Firmansyah with colors by Joana Lafuente, offers a poignant, highly empathetic, and visually inventive exploration of social anxiety, self-doubt, and the restorative potential of community. The narrative centers on Yan, a young woman overwhelmed by severe social anxiety, impostor syndrome, and a paralyzing fear of failure. After a job interview goes disastrously wrong due to a panic attack, a chance encounter leads her to… Read More

This Beautiful, Ridiculous City – A Graphic Memoir

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by Lilian Nyamongo Content Advisory: This book contains discussion of suicide with some suicidal imagery. The crisis Lifeline number in the U.S. and Canada is 988, in the U.K. it’s 999; and for elsewhere go to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_suicide_crisis_lines.There are occurrences of domestic violence. National Domestic Violence Hotline in the United States is 800-799-7233; text 988; or use this weblink, https://www.thehotline.org/. In Canada use https://www.canada.ca/en/public-health/services/health-promotion/stop-family-violence/services.html. In the UK use https://www.nationaldahelpline.org.uk/. And elsewhere in the world, one could use https://www.nomore.org/the-no-more-global-directory/, https://www.domesticshelters.org/resources/national-global-organizations/international-organizations, or https://www.theamieffect.com/global-directory-of-abuse-helplines/. Part memoir, part love letter to New York City, This Beautiful, Ridiculous City is a thoughtful exploration of what it… Read More

Lights, Planets, People!

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by Melanie Anspacher Lights, Planets, People! is a graphic novel based on the author Molly Naylor’s stage play of the same name and illustrated by Lizzy Stewart.  The story follows an astronomer named Maggie Hill who suffers from bipolar disorder and is experiencing severe anxiety.  Maggie reluctantly seeks counseling from a therapist as she prepares to deliver a guest lecture that is intended to inspire young women, a task she finds quite daunting.  Weaving through the present and past as the conversation with her therapist unfolds, she recalls navigating a romantic relationship while pursuing her life’s work to discover exoplanets,… Read More

Emotional Support Animals: Anonymous Fuzzball Comics + Workbook

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by Cassy Lee Nicole Georges has created a powerful piece of graphic medicine under the guise of a cute little animal self-help gift book. While it does indeed feature adorable animals in cardigans offering nuggets of wisdom Georges herself gleaned over years of therapy (see Fig. 1 p. 10-11 below), it also invites the reader to actively participate in their own healing by engaging in the worksheets and practices she created for herself to get through tough times (see an example in Fig. 2 below). Fig. 1, pages 10 – 11, Emotional Support Animals No stranger to tough times, as… Read More

Precious Rubbish

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by Kevin Wolf Content Advisory: This book contains a fictional suicide, self-injury, alcohol use. The crisis Lifeline number in the U.S. and Canada is 988, in the U.K. it’s 999; and for elsewhere go to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_suicide_crisis_lines. Content Advisory: This book includes domestic violence, rape, incest. National Domestic Violence Hotline in the United States is 800-799-7233; text 988; or use this weblink, https://www.thehotline.org/   Precious Rubbish is full of bad taste, out-of-place cartoony drawings seemingly from old comics, and a real-life horror story. This is a difficult review to write, because I’m not going to leave out (only) some horrors of… Read More