James Burns is a retired graphic designer, animator, and professor who turned to drawing autobiographical comics later in life, starting with “Detached,” about the fear of emergency eye surgery after having a detached retina.
Later he drew “Speechless,” about losing his voice after a thyroid cancer biopsy and thyroidectomy. Most recently he drew “The Fall” about a nasty fall that dislocated his shoulder, and later precipitated gallbladder surgery.
Sadly, he was diagnosed with stage 4 prostate cancer last year, and is currently going through EBRT (radiation therapy), and recording the process in his latest comic, tentatively entitled “The Death of Me?”
UPDATE: The project is finished and on Kindle (free on Kindle unlimited), and also being distributed for free on the Advanced Prostate Cancer forum.
You can learn more about his comics (including the fictional ones) he has created over the last 17 years at burnscomics.com.
Amazing!! This is an achievement to be celebrated
Thanks. It keeps me busy, anyway…
Good gravy, James. A beautifully made graphic narrative. One that makes me furious at the state that medicine has come to in our country. It’s criminal that you had to wait all those months for a diagnosis and treatment.
I’ve been down the cancer road, back in the aughts. The wait under the cancer sword of Damocles, not knowing, is unmooring. Hoping the treatments bring you relief and many more years.
Hugs to both you and your wife.
Yeah… American medicine is both amazing in its knowledge and technology and, thanks to the business side of it (insurance), simultaneously awful.
But thanks for your kind words.
Many hugs, hope it you’ll continue to make these for years and years to come. Very thoughtful and beautiful.