Medical Mentions are a group of graphic works. The graphic works reviewed here are books whose primary topics are not medical, and yet they cover a medical topic with some depth at some point in the work. The rest of the work might be fictional or nonfictional, while the medical portion is often technical and five pages or more. The reviewer will usually neither recommend nor discourage reading the work, except when the rest of the work is deemed outstanding or terrible, respectively. Typically, six graphic works will be part of the review with one paragraph for each. Prior Medical Mentions can be found at I, II, III, IV, V, VI , VII, VIII, IX, X – Comic Strip Edition #1, XI, XII, XIII – Comic Strip Edition #2, XIV — Genre Fiction Edition, XVII, XVIII – Anti-stereotypes,   .  With that in mind here’s Medical Mentions XIX  – Comic Strip Edition #3; which contains only reviews of comic strip collections.

Book Reviews by Kevin Wolf

The Close to Home 30^th Anniversary Treasury by John McPherson ISBN: 978-1449489335; paperback, 206 pages; September 2024; Andrews McMeel Publishing; author website: https://www.gocomics.com/blog/2264/john-mcpherson-close-to-home

Now in over 700 newspapers, Close to Home began in 1992, John McPherson’s strip celebrated its 30^th anniversary with this book of about 800 strips. These strips are funny and entertaining. The early strips are in black and white with the recent (most) in color. The daily strips are single panel often with a caption and rarely with word balloons. His drawing style is somewhat like the frenetic New Yorker cartoonist, George Booth. Almost all human characters are white. Don’t read these strips to see the laws of physics in action or for medical accuracy. In the Introduction, McPherson points out that in his comic strips “… one theme clearly tops them all in sheer numbers, and that is healthcare. People often ask me why I do so many cartoons on doctors and hospitals, and the answer is quite simple. Where there is stress, there is humor, and nothing is more stressful than having our health on the line [p. 6].” And he writes further under Ideas at the back of the book, “I’m not trying to make fun of people who are sick, rather, I’m trying to bring some humor into an upsetting predicament [197].” There are about 170 (or ~20%) medical-related comic strips in this collection. He does provide a few complaint letters at the back of this book. The only one from a medical professional came from a chiropractor; and McPherson even points out that he, himself, goes to a chiropractor. I’ll only describe one medical example. A woman is at a pharmacy window handing off a piece of paper to a pharmacist with glasses; and she says, “No, it’s not a script. It’s a letter from my son, who is in med school, and I’m wondering if you can decipher his handwriting.”

Barnaby Volume Two: 1944 – 1945 by Crockett Johnson with Foreword by Jules Feiffer and essays by R. C. Harvey, Philip Nel, and Max Lerner, ISBN: 978-1606997093; hardcover, 377 pages; July 2014; Fantagraphics Books.

Crockett Johnson (October 20, 1906 – July 11, 1975) was the pen name of David Johnson Leisk. Crockett was a childhood nickname and he said, “Leisk was too hard to pronounce—so—I am now Crockett Johnson.” Crockett is most known for his Harold & the Purple Crayon (with other Harold sequels) and with his wife, Ruth Krause, The Carrot Seed book series. In my opinion, his Barnaby (1942 – 1952) comic strip was brilliant and funny. Fantagraphics Books published the entire comic strip series in five volumes between 2013 and 2025. I’m only going to mention Volume 2 here. Crockett had two storylines going at all times with numerous sub-story arcs. The two-story lines were the adults’ world and five-year-old Barnaby Baxter’s world and they were continuously overlapping as Barnaby moved between his parents, other adults, and his real-life cigar—and wand—chomping fairy godfather, Mr. O’Malley.  Mr. O’Malley introduced Barnaby to O’Malley’s family, ghosts and the Elves, Leprechauns, Gnomes, and Little Men’s Chowder and Marching Society. Jane, Barnaby’s friend, moved between those world’s as well. His parents didn’t believe that Mr. O’Malley and his friends were real, but that was really only because it never worked out for them all to be in the same place (panel?) at the same time—though they came close many times. Of course, the Baxter parents are just as real as Barnaby, as his fairy godfather, and as all others inhabiting Barnaby.  On one occasion, Mr. Baxter, Barnaby’s father, felt exhausted, had a fever, and had to stay home mostly in bed about one month (May 9 – June 7, 1944). This led to some of the important (silly) things that move corporations. Barnaby told Mr. O’Malley that his father was worried about productivity while he was home sick. Mr. O’Mally took it upon himself to improve productivity simply by changing an office wall graph to show productivity was rapidly rising. But when Mr. Baxter learned that productivity was going up without him, he felt unneeded, which led Mr. O’Malley to make the productivity graph take a nosedive and Mr. Baxter had to come back to get productivity back on track. There is some pre-comic code criticism of comic books. Jane asks Barnaby’s mom to read her and Bartleby from her Captain Bloodbath comic, but Barnaby’s mom over three panels said, “That horror stuff isn’t good for you, Jane. I’ll read one of these old fairy tales. I remember how I loved these stories at your age … [gets book from her library] … Murderous stepmother! Evil dwarfs! Child-eating witches! Poisoned apples! Monsters! Axe slayings! Ogres! … Goodness! … Let me have your comic book [to read to you], Jane—” (June 26, 1944). There is one story arc about Thanksgiving that appeared to negatively stereotype indigenous people (Crockett used the word “Indian”) as Pidgin-English speakers but actually tried to spoof that stereotype. Crockett makes sure that whenever speaking Howard (“belongs to the traditionally friendly Sigahstaw [for racist “cigar store” carved wood statue] tribe …”) mixed Pidgin with sophisticated language, as in when confronted by Barnaby’s talking dog, Howard said, “Dog SPEAKUM! … How fortunate! Frankly, I saw no way out of our awful contretemps. His apology, of course, is accepted” (October 27, 1945). Whether this language makes up for the Pidgen start is up to the beholder to decide. The number of strips that involved this “Indian” were 19 out of 730 in Barnaby, Volume 2.

Footrot Flats Vols. 7, 8 & 11 by Murray Ball; ISBNs: 0958819092 (7), 0958864802 (8), 0959226397 (11); paperback, 80 pages each; September 1982 (7), September 1983 (8), August 1986 (11); Orin Books; author website: https://footrotflats.com/the-cartoonist

Murray Ball was born in New Zealand in 1939 and his parents (with Murray) moved to Australia in 1947, then on to South Africa in 1948. He won a cartooning prize in 1951. He enjoyed rugby, a brutal sport. He moved around a bunch, got married and eventually settled in New Zealand with Pam (spouse) and three kids. He began Footrot Flats, his humorous comic strip about a farmer and his sheepdog, in 1976 after several other comic strip attempts and books published. There has been a Footrot Flats musical in 1989 and many other events in Murray’s still-lived life. From 1976 – 1994 Footrot Flats ran and there have been 27 volumes of their exploits published. A long time ago when I traveled in the UK, I bought all the volumes (1, 3, 5, 7, 8, 11, 13, 17, 22) I found at a used bookstore. I recently read those volumes and found some of the strips had a medical bent. I’ll highlight some examples. Footrot Flats was very loosely based on Murray’s farming/teaching/family life. All but one of the characters are fictional. Wallace “Wal” Footrot was the protagonist, sheep farmer; Cooch was his neighbor/friend; the thinking, barking sheepdog (“The Dog” or “Dog” for short) was the other protagonist; but the feral cat (“Horse”) was real. Volume 7 opens on a sad note with Murray feeling he had to mercy kill Horse because “Death … gnawed his entrails out” but “Horse would not die” (pg. 2) without help. Much later in this volume, a class of kids was shown around Wal’s farm, and the children—to the teacher’s chagrin—watch a sheep birth a lamb (63 – 64). Wal broke his leg playing rugby (70 – 76) and we watch him use his cast to nail a post to support a sapling and see his muscles “faded” when the cast is finally removed. Dog applies slapstick to keep seagulls away from a weak lamb.

There’re another class and lamb’s birth in Volume 8 (47 – 48). Dog was hiding out to avoid getting the “Hydatids Dosing Strip” (56 – 58)—a New Zealand location where dog owners have their animals treated for Echinococcus granulosis (tapeworms) which could infect sheep and humans (there’s a New Zealand folksong about finding love at a Dosing Strip); and this weblink claims by the early 1960s, the hydatids disease—which could be fatal in humans infected from dogs—has been eliminated in New Zealand by usage of these Strips.

Of these three volumes, Volume 11, with a rugby scrum on the cover, had the most medical mentions. Wal’s eye was smashed by a ball when playing tennis perhaps for revenge for an “ogle at that fat chested Cheeky Hobson” (14). It was actually Cheeky Hobson who hit the ball. Dog gifts a dead carcass for Wal to put on his eye as his way of nursin’ Wal back to health. Cooch rescues a hawk with a damaged wing, demands help from an “orthopaedic surgeon” and makes a giant wooden carved statue as a tribute after the hawk’s death (24 – 26). A ram rams Wal’s testicles, while Dog runs home (Lassie-like) to bring Wal back food … dog biscuits (40 – 43). Dog is rescued from a heavy downpour by Cheeky; making Dog feel conned to like Cheeky (65 – 66). Dog’s spouse, Jess, has normal, initially hairless pups that Dog fears wrongly are rats (67). There’s an allusion to “the rape crisis centre,” not a laughing matter, when bulls escape their enclosure into a lone heifer’s field (73 – 76). Murray Ball’s black and white comic strip gives a somewhat realistic and humorous portrayal of farm and family life in New Zealand.

As I continue reading more Footrot Flats volumes and I find more medical mentions, I’ll update this part of the review; and with that in mind here’s …

Appended 1 & 2 & 4 June 2026: Volume 13 (ISBN: 0958864888, August 1988) early on (14 – 16) shows Dog being tricked to go to the Vet (”The Old Vet’ Club”) to get a distemper vaccine shot—against a very contagious virus that affects a dog’s digestive, nervous and respiratory system. Dog declares in thought, “There’s nothing wrong with my temper Wal’ …” (14) and a three-strip struggle ensues. In typical comic strip exaggeration, Wal feels devastating guilt over killing a Hare for food and sleepless paranoia of the Hare’s spouse and children seeking revenge (28 – 32). An earthquake (39 – 41) terrifies the farm animals (except Dog who’s mildly peeved) into huddled masses. Dog stumbles into storage of nostalgic stuff (baby carriage, tennis racquet, 41) and baby bottle with the latter having Dog regress to babyhood and need of “psychiatric help!” (42)

Funny Things: A Comic Strip Biography by Luca Debus and Francesco Matteuzzi, ISBN: 978- 1603095266; hardcover, 440 pages; August 2023; Top Shelf Productions; author’s websites: https://www.lucadebus.com/ & website

Genius! To write a biography of Charles Schulz—the famed creator and sole producer (no assistants, hand-drawn, hand-lettered) almost fifty-year run of Peanuts strips (over 18,000)—as an over 400-page “collection” of weekly strips (6-daily with two per page followed by Sunday long-form comic strip) for the biography is sheer genius! There have been textual biographies of Schulz (including A Charlie Brown Religion by Stephen Lind (University of Mississippi Press, 2015), Peanuts – Art of Charles Schulz by Chip Kidd (Pantheon, 2001), The Essential Peanuts by Mark Evanier (Abrams ComicsArt, 2025), Charles M. Schulz – The Creator of Snoopy & Peanuts – Manga Biography by Yuzuru Kuki, and translated by Kevin Gifford, Tomoe Spencer, Rikako Maruyama (Udon Entertainment, 2024) and the much maligned Schulz and Peanuts by David Michaelis (HarperCollins, 2007), among many others. But no one, until Funny Things, thought to do the bio as a comic strip with each strip ending with a gag and the whole funny thing representing Schulz’ life! Funny Things opens with the elder Schulz reflecting on his life. This book moves between Schulz’s elder, seasoned self and a chronological biography. I’ll use Peanuts when referring to Schulz’s strip and Funny Things when referring to this medical mention. Many of Schulz’s concerns (golf, Christianity, introspection, anxieties, etc.) were displayed in Peanuts. One shortcoming of Funny Things is that rarely are dates or even years of events in Sparky’s (Schulz’s nickname) life provided. Sparky’s mom is hospitalized with cancer (p. 107 – 109); and there’s a Windsor McCay homage Sunday strip of a walking hospital bed on page 110. While his mom was hospitalized Sparky received his U.S. Army induction papers (his mom responds to his fear “… Homesickness will kill you” (112, top strip). Sparky visits his mom while on leave and she suggests he name the family’s next dog Snoopy (114), and she dies soon after. As an elder he talks about crying in his bunk (116) upon hearing about his mom’s death. Sparky has a stomach virus during basic training at Camp Campbell, his bunkmate says, “[Charles]’ll go on to do great things, if war doesn’t kill him first! (121, bottom strip). On page 124, second daily, we see Schulz unwilling to throw a “granade [sic]”  into a feared “enemy” home when a cute dog goes inside (“… It’s clear to me that anyone living there must be extremely respectable …”). The army allegedly solved “epidemic of athlete’s foot” (125, top strip) be requiring soldier’s to wear different “shoes” daily … though that solution seems unrealistic, very expensive, and shouldn’t it be “boots?;” though Sparky wonders “Couldn’t they solve it by sending us home?” Sparky earned the “Combat Infantryman Badge” though not explained why in Funny Things. It was earned ‘for being under fire.’ We see a daily strip (129 bottom) that might indicate some lingering PTSD with a sleepless night after Sparky returned state-side; and a grieving Sunday strip (130) at his mom’s graveside. Because of his mom’s death and “two-week bereavement leave” upon his return he joined a different army group while his original group stormed the Normandy beach on D-day, Sparky’s new group didn’t. So, her death might’ve saved his life. Page 133 top strip, we learn that Sparky was almost hired to letter tombstones; and he considered writing a war comic strip (139, top). Sparky taught cartooning along with “Charlie Brown” and “Linus Maurer” the sources of some of the Peanuts’ gang’s names. He lacked sleep for a time when he worked two jobs (152). Top strip p. 161 shows Sparky very emotionally sensitive; and we find a “pathologic” love strip bottom p. 168 about that “red-haired girl.” Sparky had “rejection trauma” (bottom, 179) before Peanuts strip was approved. Sparky was anxiety-ridden before his first wedding (194 – 195). Funny Things doesn’t show the progression of sales of Peanuts to newspapers; only that it started in seven papers, and later jumped to 35 papers. Note: It eventually ran in over 2,600 newspapers worldwide with 355 million readers. At one-point Funny Things shows a runaway comic strip that Sparky eventually grabs and cuddles like Linus holding his blanket (top, 211). Meredith, first daughter of Sparky and Joyce, as a child, plays a Schroeder-like piano (top, 212). Fritz von Pelt was an army comrade of Sparky’s in WWII (top, 213); and became the namesake for Lucy and Linus van Pelt. Sparky, for a Funny Things punchline, asks if Joyce got her hair done, when her real change is that she’s pregnant (215, top). Being a cartoon character in Funny Things, elder Sparky needs two hands to count to five on his fingers (218, Sunday; get it? He only has four fingers on each hand). At the back of Funny Things, we learn the author’s sources. There are more medical strips (including his elderly years), but I’m hoping you’ll acquire your own copy of Funny Things to find them on your own.

We are thrilled to be joining the Toronto Comic Arts Festival (TCAF) in Toronto next weekend once again as a community partner and we’ve got a great slate of programs, signings, and chances to talk graphic medicine together to share with you! GMIC’s Matthew Noe and Shelley Wall, along with several of Shelley’s amazing students, will be on site throughout the show to promote all things graphic medicine. Below are some highlights of where to find us:

TCAF Libraries and Education Day

Full Schedule and Registration (Free!)

A full day of programming and professional development dedicated to librarians and educators, this event takes place on Friday June 5th at TMU Special Collections & Archives and while all of the day’s programming is going to be fantastic, we think fans of graphic medicine will really want to make it to:

• Being Human is Hard: Mental Health in YA Comics
  • Growing up human is hard, even in the best of times, and 2026 is by no measure the best of times. But as anyone who survived the process can share, finding out that you are not alone can make things so much better! Join our panel of coming-of-age cartooning masters for a deep dive into how comics can make the invisible visible, the impossible possible, and find out why our young adult students love these books so much.
  • Moderator: Lucia Serantes
  • Panelists: Vivi Partridge, Katie Hicks, Emilia Strilchuk, Georgina Chadderton, Shreya Davies

   

• Graphic Medicine Without Borders
  • Graphic medicine, or the intersection of comics and health, offers insights into the, often contradictory and too-hard-for-words, experiences of embodied life. Moderated by one of the leading scholars in graphic medicine, Dr. Shelley Wall, and spotlighting creators from around the globe, this panel highlights graphic medicine from around the world, encouraging us to think beyond borders and embrace our shared humanity. Attendees will walk away with a greater understanding of what comics can offer medicine and plenty of comics suggestions to bring back to their communities!
  • Moderator: Shelley Wall
  • Panelists: Joana Mosi, Maureen Burdock, Arizona O’Neill, Veronica Post, Moka Onmae, Tsubasa Kosaka

   

• Zines as Graphic Medicine: A Self-care Practice for Librarians
  • Librarians devote immense energy to serving their communities, but it’s equally important that they care for their own well-being. Burnout, compassion fatigue, and workplace stress are common in the profession, and we need space for self-care and healing. “Graphic medicine”—comics that explore health and wellness created by or about people experiencing mental or physical health challenges—may be a helpful concept for librarians to be aware of and practice themselves. This hands-on program will introduce librarians to the field of graphic medicine and provide an opportunity to make a zine as an act of self-care. Participants will receive a zine template but can also choose to make freely. This practice could be useful to bring back to library teams to promote health literacy or to adapt into programs for patrons.
  • Workshop Host: Cassy Lee

TCAF Programming

In addition to the great programming happening on Friday with LED (and for creators, don’t sleep on Word Balloon Academy (WAB)!), there is programming all TCAF weekend as well! Like last year, we’ll be hosting a panel specifically highlighting graphic medicine, as well has hosting a special edition of Drawing Together. While you’ll want to find all the logistics on the TCAF website, some details about those, and other relevant highlights, are below:

Saturday Program Highlights

• Comics & Parenthood
  • Ah, the life cycle of a comics artist; the circle of life at its finest. They are born, at some point in their development they start reading comics, they grow and mature, they start creating comics of their own, and then the arguably just as impressive feat of rearing little comics artists of their own. Join this panel of artists as they discuss exploring families and parenthood in their work, and how they’re raising the next generation of comics artists and fans.
  • Moderator: Amy Noseworthy
  • Panelists: Chad Anderson, Elisabeth Belliveau, Pascal Girard, Alison McCreesh, Rachael Smith

   

• Disability in Comics
  • Everyone’s lives are touched by disability, whether individually, someone you know and love, or both; comic and graphic novel creators are no different. Even the term “disability” covers a range of life experiences too broad to capture in a single piece of media but every story hopefully works towards creating a more safe, caring and accessible world. Join a panel of comics creators as they explore the way visual mediums can offer a unique and empathetic glimpse into the lives of people with disabilities (and the people who love them).
  • Moderator: Mariam Elsawy
  • Panelists: Georgina Chatterton, Veronica Post, Emilia Strilchuk

   

• Spotlight on Joana Mosi x Arizona O’Neill (with moderator, Matthew Noe)
  • Comics have a special way of leaving you quietly devastated as heartbreak, pain and loss unfolds panel after panel. In The Mongoose (Éditions Pow Pow), Portuguese visual artist and cartoonist Joana Mosi crafts the tale of a woman haunted by grief, loss and a garden-destroying pest. Montreal-based author and illustrator Arizona O’Neill’s Opioids and Organs (Drawn & Quarterly) is a heartwrenching graphic novel memoir of a daughter grappling with the loss of her father alongside her family’s story and the macabre history of organ transplantation. Join these two prodigious artists in conversation as they excavate the hardest emotions and why comics offer such a singular way to explore them.

   

• Drawing Together with Maureen Burdock
  • Join cartoonist Maureen Burdock for a special TCAF edition of Graphic Medicine’s Drawing Together, a welcoming, community-centered drawing session open to all ages and experience levels. This workshop invites participants to visually map an existing project or begin mapping a new comic idea rooted in graphic medicine or lived experience—no drawing background required. The session will begin with a brief introduction and a guided prompt, followed by time to draw together. Whether you’re picking up a pencil for the first time or returning to an ongoing project, this is a space for curiosity, presence, and connection through drawing. Materials will be provided.

   

Sunday Program Highlights

• Publishing for the Revolution
  • It’s 2026, and we’re dealing with genocide, war, and a global rise in authoritarianism. Things are very bad out in the world. Can comics help change hearts, minds, lives, and politics? Four publishers whose mandate is to make the world better talk about their radical mission, and the activist power of comics dissidence.
  • Moderator: Lucia Cedeira Serantes
  • Publishers: Gina Gagliano (Street Noise), Archie Sarjeant (Gytha), Dylan Box (Diskette Press), Amanda Meadows (Andrew McMeel Publishing), Felicia Low-Jimenez (Difference Engine)

   

• Exploring Graphic Medicine
  • Aging. Addiction. Mental health. Cancer. Just some of the countless health topics that touch each of our lives, in ways both unique and universal, and when explored through comics, all under the umbrella of graphic medicine. Join this panel to hear from creators working in this genre as they discuss their recent work, the power of comics for sharing nuanced health stories, and the challenges in bringing these difficult topics to light.
  • Moderator: Matthew Noe
  • Panelists: Jeff Lemire, Shreya Davies, Rachel Thomas, Jon Claytor

   

On the Exhibit Floor!

Graphic Medicine International Collective can be found on both Saturday June 6th and Sunday June 7th exhibiting on Mattamy Ice Rink at Table 197!

We’ll have more information about graphic medicine and what we do as GMIC, students selling their own graphic medicine zines, plus a number of author signings throughout the weekend! Book sales for the signings are courtesy of The Beguiling.

Our signing schedule (subject to change) is below:

Saturday Signings

• 10 am: Shreya Davies, author of To the Last Gram, available from Difference Engine
• 11 am: Georgina Chadderton, author of Oh Brother: A Graphic Memoir, available from Random House Graphic
• 12 pm: Elisabeth Belliveau, author of Birth Story, available from Conundrum Press
• 2 pm: Vivi Partridge, author of Quiet Crossings, available from Conundrum Press
• 3 pm: Nathan Fairbairn and Michele Assarasakorn, authors of the PAWS series, available from Penguin Random House
• 4 pm: Veronica Post, author of Let the Good Times Roll, available from Conundrum Press

Sunday Signings

• 10 am: Maureen Burdock, author of Sleepless Planet, available from Graphic Mundi
• 11 am: Arizona O’Neill, author of Opioids & Organs, available from Drawn & Quarterly
• 1 pm: Julie Fiveash, author of The Froggy Library, available from Levine Querido
• 4 pm: Rachel Thomas, author of Shrink, available from Graphic Mundi

Student Volunteer Work

• Ella Eberhardt is a science and medical illustrator specializing in biomedical communication, working to make the complex and difficult to understand more approachable for everyone! Check out their work at Eberhardt Illustrations.

We can’t wait to see you there!

Adam Bessie had an awake brain surgery a few months ago and is now on chemotherapy.  Look up the awake surgery —  as it’s sci-fi. Adam is the author of the graphic memoir Going Remote: A Teacher’s Journey (illustrated by Peter Glanting for The Censored Press and Seven Stories Press), which was honored by American Library Association as a top graphic novel for 2023, earned a starred review in Publisher’s Weekly, and is short-listed for Graphic Medicine International Collective Award.  You can read his latest comic “A Scanner Constantly” (with Josh Neufeld) here. You can find more of his work on Substack along with his Instagram (@adambessie) and adambessie.com

Ryan Montoya is a Family Medicine physician and comic book artist from Boston who lives and works internationally. His upcoming graphic novel “Precipitated Withdrawal” will be published by Boston Congress of Public Health and his work can be found on Instagram at @ryan_montoya_art.

Nida Naeem, MD
https://www.behance.net/nidanaeem4

The shortlists are in three categories of comics: long-form, short-form, and educational. The entries were wide-ranging in form, length, geographical origin, and topic, but they had one thing in common: they revealed deep engagement with highly meaningful subjects. The GMIC Board and Award Committee are grateful for and moved by the care and trust their creators showed in submitting work for these awards, and we honor all of the creators. Deciding on five nominees in each category was not an easy process!

Thank you to our shortlisting readers! Your careful, considered engagement and deliberation is crucial to this process, and GMIC is very grateful for your work.

These awards are made possible by your donations and a generous matching gift in Honor of Nancy and Herbert Wolf. The matching gift is intended to honor and carry on Nancy and Herbert’s legacy of service and care. You can read more about them here.

2026 Shortlisted works in the EDUCATIONAL Category

IT’S A JOURNEY: A Graphic Medicine Exploration of Endometriosis and Gender Diversity

by Asiel (illustration, cover design, script) and Dr. M. Giacomozzi (script) from Treat it Queer and Spaghetti Publishing

The narrator and protagonist of It’s a Journey, is “a gender-diverse person with endometriosis.” Endometriosis is tissue growing outside the uterine cavity and may include extreme pain, heavy menstrual bleeding, and/or later fertility problems. This work is a mix of quotes from real but anonymous people, narrated illustrations, comic form (thought and word balloons of dialogue between characters), and textual and visual medical explanations. The colorful comic is well-researched with a lengthy bibliography for further reading and acknowledgments of several medical experts, gender-diverse people, and those with lived endometriosis experience.  -Kevin Wolf

Pregnancy and Birth: A Graphic Guide

by Laura Godfrey-Isaacs, Lilly Williams. Published by Icon Books

This is an engaging and comprehensive example of graphic medicine. This guide takes us through nearly every aspect of reproduction, from contemplating pregnancy and planning for children, to the process of fertilization, the wonder of gestation, and through to delivery, with an inclusive storytelling that is at once kind, clear, and joyous. The cultural, diversity, and medical aspects are all well integrated, making reading this work easy and accessible. The reader is left wanting to hear even more about the many topics covered. The artwork serves as the centerpiece of the text, anchoring the content and easing the delivery of information. This book supplants others in the reproduction space – I just haven’t seen another that offers such a complete and inspiring approach to the complex, most human process of baby making.  -Joshua D. Feder

Crash Cart

by Ebony Toussaint (writer, creator), Robert Aultman (penciller, inker), Alexandria Batchelor (colorist), Jeremy Darby (letterer), Josh Jones (cover penciller, inker) from Hellcat Comics

Created and written by Dr. Ebony Allen Toussaint, Crash Cart is a story from their first official shift back at work after attending the San Diego Comic Con. In a short series of color images supplemented by educational text, Crash Cart walks the reader through the procedural reality of a Code Stemi, defined as, “a full cardiac arrest following a heart attack.” Clear textual and visual narratives provide a simplified pathway for many to be educated on this topic. Medical definitions provide concise explanations along with modern updates related to technology. While an educational read, there is an added element of suspense or immediacy that comics work their magic to provide. A major hope Dr. Toussaint has is that, “emergency nurses feel seen in this comic and I hope the general public has a better understanding of the Advanced Cardiac Life Support (ACLS) training we must know.” For those that hope to have a large amount of information about Code Stemi condensed in an easy-to-digest, educational format, Crash Cart is a fantastic comic that will leave its reader feeling more confident with their knowledge after just a few short pages. -Gianna Paniagua

“Precipitated Withdrawal”

art and story by Ryan Montoya, an excerpt from a graphic novel-in-progress. See another story from his forthcoming book here.

Dr. Montoya, creator and character, must confirm that there are no illicit drugs in a patient’s urine in order to prescribe opioids. To do this, the doctor must watch the patient produce the sample for testing. This 12-page comic teaches the reader how opioids work on the brain to bypass pain signals and produce a euphoric feeling. He reports  that opioids, “can suppress your respiratory drive and kill you.”  Readers learn about the mechanism and dosing protocol for suboxone and naloxone, which prevent withdrawal and avoid the addicting euphoria of opioids. Dr. Montoya’s story goes on to explain how Big Pharma and doctors’ culpability have led to “opioids being responsible for 54,000 deaths a year” (though another source puts the toll at 80,000 deaths) in the United States. The black and white illustrations are realistic with stark shadowing black, while the narration boxes and text provide the only color in this educational comic. -Kevin Wolf

“Making it to the Registers: A Migrant Healthcare Worker’s Story”

by Hugh Goldring, nicole marie burton, Marie-Andrée Jacob, Priyasha Saksena, Nasreen Ali, Amrita Limbu, Britzer Paul Vincent Paul Raj, and Rukia Saleem from White Rose Libraries; funded by AHRC (Arts & Humanities Research Council), University of Leeds.

In this short comic, the writers and illustrators highlight the various struggles faced by migrant healthcare workers in the United Kingdom. While many of the characters shown are migrants and lack certification in the UK, they were respected nurses, doctors, and other health professionals in their native country. Coming to the UK they are forced to start their careers anew while also learning a new way of life, a new language, in a new country. The comics’s backgrounds are full of British ruins and grey skies, a reminder to our characters that they are not in their native countries. Meanwhile, the golden eagle serves as a metaphor throughout the book of what these workers might be feeling unable to work as they once did. Despite obstacles, the characters learn to rely on each other as they overcome the difficult and confusing process of accreditation, demonstrating the value of community. – Saily Marrero.

2026 Shortlisted works in the LONG FORM Category

Precious Rubbish

by Kayla E., published by Fantagraphics Books

Kayla E. maps a detailed, intricate, and very personal lived experience of gender identity and expression, set into a context of complicated family relationships where caring is limited, and abuse is an ongoing theme. The abuse occurs through many different relationship-mediated mechanisms. The book uses a combination of retro-textual graphics and trauma-informed concepts (such as Adverse Childhood Experiences, ACEs) to organize and make sense of overwhelming events and situations. It does so in a way that allows us to tolerate the confusion, anguish, and the plain wrong-ness of what Kayla endures. Her dogged persistence and intelligent management of the unmanageable circumstances of her life appear as a quest to achieve a stable and enduring sense of self, and a state of detent with a world that thwarts her self-acceptance (“can the world just let Kayla be Kayla?”) All this makes Precious Rubbish immersive, generating an enduring appreciation for the ability of a person to survive, and move beyond survival to thrive, despite chronic adversity.. -Joshua D. Feder.

Toxic Tropics – A Horror Story of Environmental Injustice

by Jessica Oublié (writer); Nicola Gobbi (art); Kathrine Avraam (color); and Vinciane Lebrun (photography) and Publisher from Street Noise Books. (Translated from French by Irene Vázquez)

Graphic journalism, where presentation in comic form from interviews of participants and additional research, can be a key tool in presenting graphic medicine. Jessica Oublié does just that when she writes in her acknowledgements, “Thank you to the 136 people I interviewed during these two years of research and creation: government workers, researchers, citizens, journalists, farm professionals, and civil servants.” In addition, Oublié gathered information from news, business, and political sources to tell the story of Martinique’s and Guadeloupe’s—in the Lesser Antilles of the Caribbean—contamination from the forever chemical pesticide chlordecone (aka, Kepone). We learn about the people affected when we see the illustrations of the author talking to scientists, activists, academics, and those poisoned from the toxins, among others. These illustrations by Nicola Gobbi are in the locations (out in the fields, at food markets, offices, labs) where the interviews occur; and we see how well the illustrations match the locales and people when we’re provided—often at the end of an interview—with a photograph by Vinciane Lebrun. Given that safe alternatives were available, but not profitable, we see the enormity of overcoming those that have an economic interest in not ending this “Horror Story of Environmental Injustice.” -Kevin Wolf

Call Me Emma: One Chinese Girl Finds Her Way in America

by Makee, published by Street Noise Press

This resonant and culturally rich long‑form graphic narrative traces the journey of a Chinese teenager relocating to the United States where she confronts the layered challenges of identity, belonging, and mental health. Through unadorned yet emotionally precise artwork, Makee captures the disorientation of acculturation—the social missteps, loneliness, friendship tensions, and moments of dissociation that accompany trying to “fit” while struggling to hold onto one’s cultural identity. The story moves beyond a simple immigration tale to explore self‑acceptance, adolescent vulnerability, and the psychological strain of navigating two worlds at once. Experiences of social anxiety, confusion, and even delirium are rendered with clarity and authenticity, grounding complex emotional states in accessible visual storytelling. Engaging and deeply human, Call Me Emma exemplifies how graphic medicine can illuminate mental health, cultural transition, and resilience with honesty and nuance.  – Joshua D. Feder

Hello Sunshine 

by Keezy Young, published by LB Ink (an imprint of Little, Brown & Company.)

Last semester, Alex was in a sweet new relationship with Noah, a new boy at school, but when Noah comes back from summer camp, he finds Alex has been missing and something went terribly wrong. Alex had pushed him away over the summer, not responding to Noah’s texts, which he’d been sad about, but it turns out while Noah was gone, Alex had experienced a severe psychotic episode. Kids at school are saying he was “crazy” and violent and even his twin brother Jamie doesn’t know where he is now. Noah gathers Jamie, friends Sky and Izzy, and the family dog Cass, together to get to the bottom of what happened to Alex. The nightmares [Alex’s] psychosis creates blurs with reality, as he talks to his mother who died when he and Jamie were young. She also struggled with mental illness. An author’s note in the back says “Alex has schizoaffective disorder and he’s a witch. I wanted mental illness to exist in this fantasy story alongside supernatural elements.” Overall, it is an artfully compelling and haunting read. Young says she, “wanted this book to help all of us feel less alone and scared, whether we experience severe mental illness, love someone who does, or simply share the world with those who do.” –Cassy Lee

This Might Surprise You: A Breast Cancer Story

by Hayley Gullen, published by Green Tree (an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing.)

This Might Surprise You details Hayley Gullen’s  journey with early-onset HER2 positive breast cancer. She starts with finding her breast lump and takes us through her experiences being diagnosed and enduring multiple treatments. Gullen has created a graphic novel that is like talking to a good friend. She doesn’t shy away from the topics that might be considered embarrassing or sensitive. Two themes that are interwoven through the novel are the importance of communication and of caring for yourself. Speaking up when you don’t understand and advocating for yourself can be difficult, but the payoff can be worth working through your discomfort. The illustrations are fine black and white drawings. She is refreshingly honest about her illustrations. This Might Surprise You is an honest portrayal of breast cancer and will make an excellent addition to a graphic medicine collection. –Janet Chan 

2026 Shortlisted works in the SHORT FORM Category

BOLD Buddies Stories 

by Federico Muelas Romero, published by Blue Pug Books

In BOLD Buddies Stories (BOLD stands for Bronx Oncology Living Daily) Federico Muelas Romero showcases three different stories of women who have overcome breast cancer or brain tumors. With Ann’s story we see a long history of struggling with various medical issues from rheumatoid fever, narcolepsy, and cancer. Sam’s story is about the importance of being heard by your physician and the financial and physical repercussions if one is not. Lastly, Rita’s story chronicles her breast cancer diagnosis and treatment, but more so the wonderful life she has led after cancer. With colorfully humorous illustrations and thoughtful storytelling, readers will come to admire these women and learn about the different ways cancer can affect individuals. -Saily Marrero

What Have We Lost? Infertility, Miscarriage, and Disenfranchised Grief

by Shawn Forde, published by Graphic Medicine Review (a publication of UMass Medical School)

This fourteen-page comic about the author’s perspective on his family’s infertility difficulties, in vitro fertilization attempts, and miscarriages accompanied his five page article that appeared in Graphic Medicine Review. The author writes in the article’s Abstract: “Rather than focusing on the loss of a particular pregnancy, the grief depicted in this work centers on the endless possibility that a child might still be born. It focuses on the cruel optimism of the always possible child and how mourning is delayed for the next medical procedure.” Placing the words “still” and “born” separated only by “be” couldn’t have been coincidental, and seems to summarize their experience in three words. The black and white comic that follows the article’s text provides two very emotionally fraught stories. The author’s and spouse’s own story is contrasted with that of a pod of orca whales. The sadness of miscarriage appears as ink smudges, loneliness, and nearly empty panels. Forde mourns not only the loss of a “possible child” but the lack of community support.  -Kevin Wolf

The Anatomy of My Spine

by Sydney Heifler, publication forthcoming in an anthology (artist’s website)

Sydney Heifler recounts a deeply personal story of the different faces trauma can wear, and how it inhabits the body.  For Heifler, art serves as a pathway towards healing. She reveals that an assault by her best friend injures her and leaves her disabled, with the event “eating away my autonomy, taking over my body and mind.” The metaphor of the assailant living inside her spine, taking over, is one that leads her to find ways to remove his presence bit by bit. With this is the task of reconnecting to who she is after living with this pain, both mental and physical, for so long which many of us with chronic illness can relate to: “Because of the injuries and the pain, I don’t recognize my body…I dress it anyway. And celebrate it. Photograph it. And draw it. In this way I learn to inhabit it.” Specifically, through comics, there is a revisitation to that dark, traumatic past that helps Heifler learn to understand her own self again. Dark visuals leave faceless bodily forms floating within an almost timeless abyss, but the author’s text lead us across an arc many out there who live with chronic illness and lose the ability to recognize themselves due to long-term pain and/or trauma. At the end of her arc, Heifler leads us through her way back to finding better treatment, continuing to use art as a tether to the bright sides of her physical identity, “I reached a point where my body stopped being proof of my failure and instead revealed my strengths.” -Gianna Paniagua

On Epilepsy: Between Seizure and Silence

Siyu (Anna) Li, self-published (artist’s website)

Siyu Li is a medical student who narrates this story of making rounds with a neurosurgeon. Siyu draws with watercolors in the Chibe style (super cute with large heads and small bodies). Though all characters are Chibe’s, the drawings of Siyu especially fit her role as a young medical student learning doctor/patient communications and unflappability during a crisis. The primary patient seen that day had been diagnosed with a benign brain tumor in her temporal lobe. The doctor talks to the female patient and the patient’s mother during a video call; reviews the patient’s medical history; and explains three possible treatments with their potential side effects. During the call, the patient becomes anxious and has a seizure. This powerful 6-page comic provides an excellent lesson of a medical student learning about real medical life. – Kevin Wolf

Emergency Room

by Faye Harnest, self published

Faye Harnest’s “Emergency Room” captures the disorientation and chaos of the ER from the perspective of a patient who has incurred a traumatic brain injury after being struck by a car. The style is bold and naive, executed in a minimal colour palette. The accident itself is depicted symbolically, with abstract forms representing movement, impact, and blackout. When the protagonist comes to, she is in what appears to be a circus tent: the ER staff are performers—impresario, acrobats, strongmen—and the patient herself is at once spectator and clown. As she is shuttled from space to space in this three-ring circus, we experience her distress at realizing she has lost her ability to read; the welter of tests, procedures, and questions; and her sense of being blasted into the unknown as, at discharge, she is shot out of a cannon with the words: “That’s all, folks! Hope you enjoyed the show!” -Shelley Wall

Congratulations to all who submitted to our awards and to the shortlisted creators!

The work of our team of judges now begins, and the winners of each category will be announced at our 2026 annual conference in Baltimore on Saturday, July 25. The award ceremony will be available virtually as well as in-person.

Soha Bayoumi, PhD, is a political theorist and historian whose work examines the intersection of health and social justice and the medicine-politics nexus, with a regional focus on the Middle East and a particular interest in postcolonial and gender studies. Her research and teaching focus on medicine and authoritarianism; gendered aspects of healthcare; and the visual cultures of medicine, science, and technology (especially in comics and cinema). She is a Teaching Professor in the Medicine, Science, and the Humanities program at the Johns Hopkins University’s Krieger School of Arts and Sciences and an affiliate faculty member of the Department of the History of Medicine at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. She is the editor-in-chief of the Journal of Middle East Women’s Studies (JMEWS) and associate editor of the Journal of Islamic and Muslim Studies (JIMS).

Jen Leach (a.k.a furtivedoodles) is a New York–based artist and writer working at the intersection of healthcare, narrative, and design. By day, she drives student wellbeing communications and initiatives at New York University, where she promotes health literacy and population health. Early in her career, she hid her (bipolar) diagnosis and her creative aspirations, doodling “furtively” in protest. While earning her MS in Narrative Medicine at Columbia, she discovered Graphic Medicine, and presenting at the Brighton conference marked her “coming out” as an artist and mental health advocate. Jen calls the healing power of making things—like plush pills—“crafty medicine,” and her projects include Side Defects, No Agony for Da-Feet, Boobless, and Placebo Plushies.

GMIC looks forward to working with Soha and Jen to advance our mission of promoting the work and community of Graphic Medicine.

Welcome to the Graphic Medicine monthly roundup podcast- new updates in Graphic Medicine, interviews, and more!  Your hosts are Alex Thomas (https://boostershotmedia.com/) and MK Czerwiec (https://comicnurse.com/.) After a fun opening chat,  Alex & MK interview graphic medicine OG Brian Fies to celebrate the 20th Anniversary edition of Mom’s Cancer.

Links to all mentioned in the episode can be found below.

Shownotes

MK blog post on backstory of writing the preface to Mom’s Cancer 20th Anniversary edition

Brian is currently reading A Carnival of Snackery by David Sedaris, The Essential Peanuts, Photographic Memory by Bill Griffith, Pedro & Me by Judd Winick, and Down to the Bone by Catherine Pioli. He also recommends the PBS series Bookish.

MK is currently reading The Charity Shop Detective Agency by Peter Boland and watching How to Get to Heaven from Belfast

Alex is currently excited about Lanterns and reading Green Lantern Chronicles.

The Graphic Medicine 2026 Conference in Baltimore is is now open for registration!

For the 2026 conference, the Graphic Medicine International Collective  is collaborating with  Johns Hopkins University to host the three day event from July 23-25, 2026.

This year’s theme is Drawing Perspectives: Health Graphic Narratives Under Pressure. We’re looking forward to exploring this theme broadly to include the many ways our community of graphic medicine authors, artists, and scholars leverage the medium of comics to propose diverse perspectives on healthcare, illness, disability, or social medicine, often working under various pressures–whether these relate to living with chronic illness, shifting institutional conditions for health and medical research and care practices, or other constraints such as time, healthcare disparities, ableism, and various forms of marginalization and prejudice.

We hope you’ll join us for a fulfilling weekend of panels, workshops, and lightning talks–featuring keynote talks from palliative medicine doctor and cartoonist Nathan Gray and public health communications expert and cartoonist Meredith Li-Vollmer.

Register Now or Learn More About the Conference

LOS ANGELES, CA – March 23, 2026 – In advance of WonderCon 2026, GLAAD Media Award-winning and Eisner and Harvey Awards-nominated publisher and media outlet Fanbase Press is proud to announce Shrub, an 8-issue Graphic Medicine series which will be crowdfunded by the publisher on Kickstarter. In this middle grade adventure, readers will join Shrub who is, well… a shrub… for a cross-country road trip to Hollywood! Join Shrub and a grieving brother and sister as they hit the open road in search of connection. On their journey, pit stops, wacky plant enthusiasts, uprooting, and re-routing abound.

The series was created and written by Emmy Award nominee Shane Portman (Tumble Leaf, Shape Island), illustrated by Andy Alves (Cosmic Cadets), colored by Sophia Du and Celia FitzGerald, lettered by Oceano Ransford (Eisner Award-nominated Rikki), and with consultation from comics librarian Moni Barrette.

“In the footsteps of ET or Wall-E, Shrub and their insatiable awe for everything they come in contact with – people, birds, cows, even vending machines – are the open-hearted catalyst of this story,” said Shane Portman. “Their tender connection to each character is a living example of the empathy that we all need and deserve.”

Shrub explores the various ways that we allow grief to take root, inspired by writer Shane Portman’s experience with the loss of his father. The series features “Letting Grief Take Root” essays written by individuals with a personal and/or professional connection to grief who relate Shrub’s story to their own lived experience. Essayists include Shane Portman and his family, as well as grief doula Kat Primeau and Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist Ariel Landrum (Geek Therapy).

“We were immediately taken by Shrub’s thrilling road trip adventure, but what truly made the story stand out was the compassionate way in which it engaged the reader in an empathetic conversation about how we grieve,” shared Barbra Dillon, co-founder and Editor-in-Chief of Fanbase Press. “Given that so many of our community members of all ages have known great loss, we hope that Shrub’s story will foster a sense of collective support.”

Striving to destigmatize loss and promote understanding of the diverse ways that people of all ages grieve, the expanded print edition will also feature a study guide by literacy advocate Creators, Assemble! Inc., an informational essay by clinical psychologist and media consultant Dr. Drea Letamendi, and more.

“I can’t wait for readers to meet Shrub, to laugh with and feel for these characters, and maybe even find some kinship along the way,” said Portman.

To support the project, visit the Kickstarter campaign here. For updates, follow Fanbase Press on Facebook, Bluesky (@fanbasepress.bsky.social), Instagram (@fanbasepress), and Twitter (@Fanbase_Press). You can subscribe to the Fanbase Press newsletter here.

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About Fanbase Press

As a GLAAD Media Award-winning and an Eisner and Harvey Awards-nominated comic book publisher and geek culture website, Fanbase Press produces new and distinctive works, as well as daily reviews, interviews, and podcasts, that span the pop culture spectrum and give voice to the themes, ideals, and people that make geekdom so exceptional.

Fanbase Press’ previous titles, including the 2024 GLAAD Media Award-winning Four-Color Heroes, the 2023 Eisner and Harvey Award-nominated Ripple Effects, the 2022 International Latino Book Award-winning Nuclear Power, the 2018 Eisner Award-nominated Quince, and the 2020 IPPY Award-winning Quince: The Definitive Bilingual Edition hardcover, are available online at www.fanbasepress.com and on Amazon, as well as digitally through Hoopla Digital, ComicsPlus, and Kindle.

About Shane Portman

Raised in Virginia and Ohio (with a dash of Connecticut), Shane Portman is an LA-based, award-winning writer/developmental producer who cut his teeth on the windy streets of Chicago’s sketch and improv comedy scene.

He’s written for TV shows like Tumble Leaf, Shape Island, Duck & Goose, and Kinderwood, as well as audio series like Hobo Code and Hollowhead Pete and the Wicked Wish. He received an Emmy nomination for writing on Tumble Leaf, won two Signal Awards for writing and producing Hobo Code, and penned an episode of Kinderwood and an interstitial short for HMH Publishing that were official selections of the Annecy International Film Festival.

Since 2018, he’s served as head of development for Bix Pix Entertainment, the Emmy/Annie/BAFTA/Annecy Award-winning stop-motion animation studio, and has developed material for Disney, Warner Brothers, Apple TV+, Nick Jr, Scholastic, the UK’s Spider Eye studio, and the National Wildlife Federation.

About Andy Alves

Andy Alves is a multi-talented illustrator and animator who’s been drawing and creating stories since they were first able to hold a pen. They are the co-creator of the Cosmic Cadets OGN series. They live in Los Angeles with their husband and two dogs. When they aren’t working on a project, they are probably playing a tabletop RPG or boardgame.

We’re excited to announce that Aliceheimer’s: a Chamber Opera will be presented at the 2026 Conference of the Graphic Medicine International Collective in Baltimore (July 23-26).

Balancing the beauty of imagination with the bittersweet truths of aging, Aliceheimer’s illustrates how art and storytelling promote healing: for patients and their carers– as well as audiences experiencing their own relatable journeys in health, connection, and belonging.

This powerful piece, based on Dana Mashoian Walrath’s graphic memoir and featuring music by composer Erik Nielsen, is being produced with support from artistic and research faculty from the Johns Hopkins University Medicine, Science, and Humanities Program at the School of Arts and Sciences, the Program in the Arts, Humanities, & Health at the School of Medicine, and the International Arts + Mind Lab.

Performances will be open to the public, accessible to diverse audiences, and followed by a brief panel discussion.

Graphic Medicine International Collective (GMIC) is thrilled to support this innovative approach and is seeking donor support to make this possible. Please visit this specific donation link to provide financial support. To offer in-kind or other support, please contact GMIC directly.

About the Creators

Margot Morgiève is a sociologist at Inserm (French National Institute for Health and Medical Research, Cermes3). Her transdisciplinary research program aims to analyzes the transformations of knowledge, practices, and social structures in the expanding field of psychiatry and mental health. She studies the epistemic dynamics, social logics, and lived experiences of stakeholders in the fields of suicide prevention, e-mental health, therapeutic hypnosis, and the “psychedelic renaissance.” In this context, she coordinate the ARCHE research project. Restoring the perspective of individuals and their narratives is the common thread that runs through her research, leading her to engage in dialogue with, and even interweave, several disciplines: the humanities and social sciences, psychiatry, public health, technology, and the arts.

Riya Gupta is a mental health advocate whose work sits at the intersection of developmental psychology, cultural identity, and narrative medicine. She uses storytelling, visual art, and qualitative inquiry to make complex psychological experiences more accessible, culturally grounded, and emotionally resonant. Through her involvement with ARCHE, Riya explores how narrative forms, especially comics, can illuminate dimensions of distress, healing, and identity that traditional clinical models often overlook. In her recent project on therapeuticintended psychedelic use, she created a digital comic that adapts lived accounts into both digital and hand-drawn vignettes. This work conveys the emotional textures of psychedelic experiences while preserving their complexity, amplifying voices often marginalized in biomedical narratives, and offering a humanistic complement to clinical understandings of altered states and healing.

Mia Kitchener (Cherry Coloured Funk) is a 22-year-old self-taught fine-line pen artist from Australia. “My work focuses on cartoon style hand-drawn characters and scenes. Typically, the themes of my artwork surround girlhood with hints of humor, ensuring that each scene includes minuscule details that a viewer may not even notice from an initial look. This comic expanded my experience in depicting emotions and themes I hadn’t before.”

Relevant Links

Tags: bacteria, COVID-19, foot and mouth disease, fungi, human immunodeficiency virus, human papillomavirus, infectious diseases, influenza, measles, microbes, viruses

About the Work

The World of Viruses/Biology of Human website compiles the work from three science education grants that were awarded to the University of Nebraska-Lincoln (UNL) between 2007 and 2020. Two of the grants, which came from the National Institutes of Health, funded efforts to stimulate public interest in science and youth engagement in science-focused learning. The latter goal was intended to prepare youth to become future health professionals.

With those two grants, project directors collaborated with writers and artists to produce a collection of comics and graphic novels that provide an accessible, story-based way to learn about human health and the many pathogens that threaten it. One example, “The Frozen Horror” tells the story of a pathologist who visits a remote Alaskan village to study a 1918 influenza plague that killed numerous villagers. Other works teach about the human papillomavirus (HPV), human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), foot and mouth disease (FMD), measles, and various bacteria and fungi.

A third grant, which came from the National Science Foundation, was awarded during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic to support the creation of additional comics that could inform youth about the biology of the COVID-19 virus and the impact its spread was having on communities. The comics, along with a collection of related essays, were compiled in an anthology titled C’RONA Pandemic Comics.

Many of the works from the three grants were published in paperback, and the website includes information about where to purchase them when applicable. In most cases digital editions are available to read in their entirety on the website free of charge. Along with the comics and graphic novels, the website hosts audio stories and microbe images as additional learning aids.

About the Creators

The three grant-funded projects were led by Dr. Judy Diamond, now an emeritus professor at UNL, and two or more co-investigators or co-directors for each grant. To ensure scientific accuracy and effective engagement of younger readers, Dr. Diamond and her colleagues worked with a diverse team of advisors and collaborators with expertise in areas such as virology, K-12 education, and library science. Numerous writers and artists were involved in the final production of the comics and graphic novels, among them being Bob Hall (writer and artist), Martin Powell (writer), Peter Angeletti (writer), Anisa Angeletti (writer), and Henry Payer (artist).

Relevant Links

World of Viruses/Biology of Human Website: https://worldofviruses.unl.edu/

C’RONA Comix Panel Discussion (Recording): https://digitalcommons.unmc.edu/mcgoogan_lectures/2/

Articles on Dr. Judy Diamond in the UNL News Archive: https://news.unl.edu/tag/judy-diamond

Carnival of Contagion Review: https://www.graphicmedicine.org/comic-reviews/carnival-of-contagion/

Read more Spotlight posts.

About the Author

Lee Okan is an Assistant Professor in the English Department at Bunker Hill Community College (Boston, MA). Her research focuses on comics and graphic narratives, trauma studies, and visual storytelling, examining how narrative form shapes the violence, memory, and identity.

Okan teaches courses in children’s literature, writing, and visual literacy. Additionally, she is a fiction writer; her novella, The Lives of Atoms (Nixes Mate Books, 2018), explores love through quantum entanglement.

Relevant Links

About Graphic Medicine Europe

Graphic Medicine Europe is an independent research organization dedicated to the study and practice of Graphic Medicine. Founded in 2026, Graphic Medicine Europe works in close collaboration with the Graphic Medicine International Collective and maintains strong connections with our Italian and Spanish counterparts, Graphic Medicine Italia and Sociedad Española de Medicina Gráfica. Working alongside these organizations, we aim to broaden the reach of Graphic Medicine locally, regionally, and internationally.

About the Graphic Medicine Europe Conference

The inaugural conference, IMAGINATION, MEDIATION, & MANIFESTATION, seeks to advance the political potential of Graphic Medicine by focusing on the doing of Graphic Medicine across artistic practice, theoretical development, and healthcare interventions.

Graphic Medicine Europe is partnering with Cross Comix, a pioneering Rotterdam-based comics organization, to organize an exciting program of keynote lectures, workshops, artist talks, and other events at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam and at the 10th annual Cross Comix festival at De Doelen in Rotterdam.

Call For Papers

For the more academically focused part of the conference, from September 9-10 at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Graphic Medicine Europe welcome paper and panel proposals that deal with the themes of IMAGINATION, MEDIATION, & MANIFESTATION, whether within, in-between, or across disciplines, practices, and professions.

To learn more about submitting a proposal, please visit the conference website.

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Your hosts are Alex Thomas (https://boostershotmedia.com/) and MK Czerwiec (https://comicnurse.com/.) 

After a fun opening chat,  Alex & MK interview Lisa Diedrich and Bri Martino about their new edited collection, Keywords/Keyimages in Graphic Medicine, just published by Penn State University Press. This accessible edition is a must read for anyone studying or interested in Graphic Medicine. We talk about the new concept of “keywords/keyimages” coined by the editors to as a new way to interpret works of graphic medicine. We close with an enthusiastic  discussion of what we are all currently reading to teach and cope.  

Links to all mentioned in the episode can be found below. 

Shownotes:

Bri is currently teaching with The Cartoonist’s Club by Raina Telgemeier & Scott McCloud. She is reading Shrink by Rachel Thomas and LB&Me by MK Czerwiec and friends. She is also, against her better judgement, watching Yellowjackets.

Lisa is currently re-reading and teaching with Ordinary Notes by Christina Sharpe and The Best We Could Do by Thi Bui.

MK is re-reading Kid Gloves by Lucy Knisley and the epistolary mysteries of  Janice Hallett, starting with The Appeal.

Alex is reading The Crow Special Edition, James O’Barr

An audio-only feed of this episode is available wherever you get your podcasts. Please subscribe and review!

About the Artist

Relevant Links

“Shared Decisions” is a comic based on an animated film I created in collaboration with an animator; we follow a conversation between a son and his mother that portrays how decision-making can emerge in everyday life.

The comic is based on interviews I conducted with young men who have a muscle-wasting condition (Duchenne muscular dystrophy), and it aims to depict how, despite severe disability, young people can be actively involved in their lives.

About the Artists

Relevant Links

About GMIC

• This is a working board; board members meet monthly and are expected to be actively involved in both the planning and execution of our initiatives
• This is an unpaid position
• GMIC is a volunteer organization without a substantial funding stream
• Board members will serve for 3 years with the possibility of a second 3-year term.

Applying for the Board

• • In a few sentences, please indicate why you would like to join the GMIC Board.
  • Briefly describe your experiences and areas of interest that you think would be most relevant to serving on the GMIC Board.
  • In a few sentences, what does Graphic Medicine mean to you?
  • What priorities and/or issues should GMIC focus on over the next couple of years?

Please send a CV along with your responses to the above questions to GMIC at thegmicboard@gmail.com by February 27, 2026

If you have questions, please feel free to reach out to GMIC co-chairs Ebru Ustundag and Benjamin Schwartz at thegmicboard@gmail.com. 

Medical Mentions are a group of graphic works. The graphic works reviewed here are books whose primary topics are not medical, and yet they cover a medical topic with some depth at some point in the work. The rest of the work might be fictional or nonfictional, while the medical portion is often technical and five pages or more. The reviewer will usually neither recommend nor discourage reading the work, except when the rest of the work is deemed outstanding or terrible, respectively. Typically, six graphic works will be part of the review with one paragraph for each. Prior Medical Mentions can be found at I, II, III, IV, V, VI , VII, VIII, IX, X – Comic Strip Edition #1, XI, XII, XIII – Comic Strip Edition #2, XIV — Genre Fiction Edition, XV, XVI, and XVII. With that in mind here’s Medical Mentions XVIII.

Book Reviews by Kevin Wolf

 2016 reissue cover:

The Colossal Computer Cartoon Book edited by David H. Ahl; ISBN–10 (original): 0916688062 (Enhanced edition ISBN-13: 978-1365234880); Creative Computing Press (EE: Lulu.com); 1977 (EE: July 2016); paperback; 128 pages; Wikipedia’s link for the author (Downloadable copy with reissued cover).

David Ahl is the founder of Creative Computing (October 1974 – December 1985) magazine. I’m not familiar with that magazine, but it was meant to increase understanding of this new-fangled machine called a “computer.” If you’re of a certain age, you might know that computers once took up entire rooms, required controlled environmental conditions to operate, computer memories were small, and recording devices were big. Well, the comic strips that appear in The CCC Book cover those early days. The original book cover is pretty dull and uninspired, while the more recent cover has nothing—other than its title and a few titillating strips—to do with its contents and is intended to sell the book to those enticed by sexploitation. But even then, computers taking over one’s job or having feelings were part of the milieu and often came out in comics. The CCC Book includes strips from 36 cartoonists (David Ahl, Martin Bucella (not secure), George Crenshaw (Belvedere creator), Shary Flenniken (underground cartoonist of Trots and Bonnie), Cor Hoekstra (Dutch), Bertha Kogut, Virgil Partch, Marcelo Rodriguez, Paul Swan, and Tony Zaro, among them with informational weblinks, if I could find them). The CCC Book has several medical-related strips. There’s Trots and Bonnie strip for “spreading the word about the nasty fluorocarbons in these [hairspray and deodorant] cans … and eating the brave little ozone layer that protects us from the ultraviolet meanies [emphasis in original, pg. 9]!” Randy Hall provides the standard bearded doomsayer carries a sign that reads, “Computer projections predict 83% chance the world will end tomorrow [12].” There’s a two-pager (13 – 14) by Craig Johnson that discusses Spanovision, fictional (?) future where computer-generated-holographics “overload” society with an “informational glut,” but we’re rescued by a “Val-U-Graph Generator that measures “psychological stress” and lies in politicians’ speeches, and the people will act accordingly (“Once again the world is safe for democracy.”).  The phrase “debugging” is misunderstood in a couple strips, including by Sandy Dean (41, when an exterminator is called) and Paul Swan (82, with a spray pesticide). An animatronic dog, that hates humans, might replace real ones in another Trots and Bonnie strip (47). A fallen cyborg is inebriated on oil (57). A computer upchucks paper tape when “programmed … to select the most honest political candidate [103, Michael Kim]. If you’re interested the back cover has an advertisement—for the defunct Creative Computing magazine—that was at least illustrated and maybe written by R. Crumb.

Vern – Custodian of the Universe by Tyrell Walters; ISBN: 978-1838742744; Flying Eye Books; August 5, 2025; paperback; 168 pages; author’s website: https://www.tartwurk.com/

Originally published in 2023 by Nobrow, Vern – Custodian of the Universe by Tyrell Walters was recently republished again by Flying Eye Books, previously an imprint of Nobrow. This book turns the stereotype of a black man as a behind-the-scenes custodian into a front-and-center critically important custodian. Vern was having trouble finding a job. After struggling to find work in San Francisco, Vern returns to his childhood home in Florida to live with his “Mom” and Granny” (grandmother). With no rest for the weary, Granny already has a job lined up for him at Quasar Industries, where she and Vern’s grandfather had met. The family (or maybe the reader) might think Granny has dementia when she keeps saying things like, “Your Grandpa will be glad you’re home [10]” though Vern tells her “Grandpa’s still dead [11].” But Granny shows no other confusion about seemingly real things. Quasar’s building with tubes coming out and going back into its structure and a large radar dish on its roof is strange, indeed. Their staff believe earth is dying because of climate change and, according to Jess, Vern’s new boss, “We’ve discovered parts of the universe you could only dream of. And now, our most important mission is to find a new home for humans to thrive in [23].” Vern wasn’t very excited to work, let alone as a custodian, but Jess tells him, “Custodian! The most vital member of the team [22]!” His grandparents had been custodians, cleaning up the scientists’ messes, when they had worked at Quasar. Quasar has developed a “jump pill” that Jess, again, “allows us to instantly teleport to other universes (the multi-verse).” Vern is given a slew of pills with the objective of finding a planet where humankind can be safely teleported. The rest of the book is a psychedelic Dali-like time-bending romp around universes (including alligator-run, AI-run and desert and other despoiled planets). Vern is trying to avoid the Void … a huge being that’s displeased with this space-time distorting travels. The story gives Walters’ freedom to play with the colorful imagery. Are the scientists making things worse; what about Granny and Grandpa; can earth be fixed; will Vern save humanity; and is a mop involved? And it’s often funny. Get Vern to find out.

Igaguri – Young Judo Master by Fukui Eiichi (translated from Japanese by Ryan Holmberg); 105 – 122, and other spots for  medical mention; ISBN: 978-1737826422; Bubbles Zine Publications; 2024; paperback; 352 pages; author’s website: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eiichi_Fukui

Eiichi Fukui was a manga artist who died in 1954 at age 33. Igaguri (“a chestnut in its burr,” i.e., its spiny outer layer casing, which is a metaphor for crew cut) is the nickname of Igaya Kurisuke, a fictional prodigy and ethical middle school judo fighter. There’s a lengthy essay by the translator, Ryan Holmberg. Though this manga was one long story it was initially serialized with each fairly short chapter progressing the story from Igaguri’s initial appearance as a transfer student to East Middle School. Other students soon learn Iaguri earned trophies for his judo prowess at his prior school. The school judo captain, Kongu, a bully initially, loses to Igaguri and become fast friends with Igaguri humbly becoming the team captain. The battle for martial arts superiority occurs in sanctioned school meets and tournaments and unacceptable ways outside school in fields, back alleys, and elsewhere after threats and even kidnappings. Igaguri was taught to only show his prowess in acceptable ways, but is sometimes forced to fight to stop bullying or to save his friends. The two biggest medical events occur fairly early on. His mother had died before the story had begun and his father brought him up to honor his mother. Igaguri refuses to fight on the anniversary of his mother’s death; and another fighter readily accepts that as an honorable excuse and cancels a prior chit (i.e., money owed) on behalf of a peer student’s (Yama-Arashi’s) loan that supported that student’s father. Igaguri even accepts being humiliated in order to avoid physically fighting. Yama-Arashi, at one point, is injured and can’t use his right arm. Igaguri fights Yama-Arashi at a sanctioned event and wins, but his peer students notice that Igaguri beat Yama-Arashi and didn’t use his right arm. So, we watch Igaguri stand up for his friends, follow the rules, stop bullying, and do it all with a moral grounding. All represent righteousness.

The Snips – A Bad Buzz Day by Raúl the Third González; ISBN: 978-0316528689; LB Ink (imprint of Little, Brown and Company); January 2025; hardcover; 128 pages; author’s website: https://www.raulthethird.com/

The Snips (Nubes Cloudhead, Casco Hardhat, Letty Lentes, Patty Pomada and their pet dog, Flealix) are a haircutting (“dazzling dos and wacky hair” inventors, from back cover) crew and new superheroes. They appear for the first time in The Snips – A Bad Buzz Day. Their arch enemy are the Bad Buzz Boys (Biff and Boffo Buzzington, brothers), who egotistically put their initials (BBB) in bad haircuts all over Scissors City, where The Snips live. The BBB’s goal is to take back the world record of the greatest number of haircuts in a day, which their grandfather (G. Paw Buzzington) once had with 524 haircuts by using his just-invented Buzzitron 2000. Their grandfather’s record was surpassed by Nubes Cloudhead with 527 haircuts. The Snips provides some Spanish words and phrases (e,g., “¡A ver qué está pasando por allá!”) with their English translations (“Let’s see what’s happening out there [41]”). We learn roosters say Ki-Ki-Ri Kí!!! (The same in German!) What’s medical about all this? There are several medical aspects. First, Nube uses cybernetic prosthesis, since his wrists were damaged. Though the cause of that damage is never explained, the prosthesis looks like small barber poles connected to his lower arms below the elbow and include prosthetic white-gloved hands. Second, a local factory released a toxic sludge into a pit which caused a hair ball to grow into the gigantic Unruly Hairthing which torments the citizenry of Scissors City until The Snips wonderfully cut it down to cute little hairball (bolo de pelo) And finally, after The Snips come to the rescue—at the close of the book—we learn some real medical history about barbershops, including “barbers not only cut hair, but they also picked out lice, removed rotten teeth, and were bloodletters … [which] was often done when patients were sick with a cough or bubonic plague, so it’s thought that the blue on the [barber] poles signified veins, the red signified blood, and the white signified bandages used on wounds . The poles themselves symbolized the sticks used by patients … to grip on to so the barbers could find a vein to slice into [123]!” Dating back to medieval times in Europe, barbers were the early surgeons. This book is funny and primarily meant for middle schoolers or younger. It might become a series with further adventures to follow. By the way, we learn that the Guinness world record for most haircuts with 571 in 24 hours which were done on December 11, 2016 by Sheetal Kalpesh Shah, a beautician in India. Her record will likely be very difficult to exceed.

My Boyfriend Is a Bear by Pamela Ribon (writer),  Cat Farris (illustrator & color), Saida Temofonte (lettering); ISBN: 978-1620104873; Oni Press; April 2018; paperback; 176 pages; author’s website: https://pamie.com/ (Ribon), https://cattifer.com/ (Farris)

My Boyfriend Is a Bear (MBIaB) is a strange fictional tale about exactly what the cover shows; a woman (Nora) has a black bear boyfriend (BBB). We learn Nora had lots of prior frustrating relationships with male humans (pages 20 – 21 shows “Douchebags I’ve dated* … *not a complete list!”) just before we see how Nora and BBB met on a nature hike with her very last human boyfriend attempt. BBB remains nameless and does act like a bear, except he doesn’t try to kill Nora or other humans or even Nora’s cat (Nutso, and terms of endearment, including Sweet Kitty), and he doesn’t talk except with grunting emotional sounds that Nora learned to interpret (grah = hungry (favorite phrase), frah = nervous, rrahr = being grumpy, rrrr = found spot that needed scratching, Eeerh! EERH! Eeeeeerh! Click! Click! = “We are out of jelly,” among others (54)). Bear destroyed fifteen mugs, sunglasses, a cat toy, cell phone, Nora’s toothbrush … twice, the zipper to her favorite dress, among other stuff (10). Initially, Nora’s friends and parents weren’t very accepting of Nora’s boyfriend, because he met her desires: being a good listener, nice, strong, cute, and loves her (33). He’s handy around the house … building stairway shelves to Nutso’s food perch that Bear created. So, what’s medical? Bear has claws causing physical injury (74). Nora narrates “Sometimes we spend our nights in separate rooms because it’s safer that way. I don’t think that’s all that different from any other couple and I’m very defensive about it, so there [75].” Nora enjoys alone time. Carly, Nora’s friend, enjoys watching da Bears (football) with Bear with beers (85). After relationship struggles, there are very tender moments (e.g., Bear snuggling with Nutso in the cat’s final hours and comforting grieving Nora, 118 – 123).  And Bear overeats, gaining lots of weight, in preparation for winter hibernation of 3 – 5 months. I enjoyed seeing the pseudo-split screen of seeing the days passing with hibernation at the bottom of the pages and Nora’s life above (130 – 141). Who might Bear be hibernating with? Will Nora be jealous? Will Bear even remember Nora? Can their love survive the separation?

The Worst Ronin by Maggie Tokuda-Hall (writer) & Faith Schaffer (art); ISBN: 978-0358464938; HarperAlley (imprint of HarperCollins); May 2024; paperback; 336 pages; author’s website: https://www.prettyokmaggie.com/ (Tokuda-Hall) & https://www.faithschaffer.com/ (Schaeffer)

There’s a mix of medieval and modern in The Worst Ronin. Medieval are the samurai, their academy’s training to kill, linkages to communities, regions or royal houses, and ronin (unlinked or masterless samurai of feudal Japan; and abolished since 1868 by Emperor Meiji). Modern are martial arts, cell phones, movies, and guns. This is the fictional story of Chihiro (age 16) who’s father was a samurai and she wants to be a samurai herself. Her hero is Tatsuo Nakano (“first woman to be accepted into the Keisi Academy, a prestigious school,” from the back cover). In reality the Keisi Academy (now Kaisei Academy) was founded in 1871 and closed in 1878 and reopened as a private boarding school and renamed; and there have been female samurai dating back to Empress Jingū (169 – 269 C.E.). The weapon used by Tatsuo in The Worst Ronin is a traditional one, called a naginata, and is a pole with a curved blade on the tip. And, according to the same website, females were common among samurai from the 12^th to 19^th centuries. Enough of a history lesson (which isn’t provided in this book). Instead, we see a stubborn sixteen-year-old (Chihiro) making her way to Tatsuo and struggling to win her over to be taught about sword fighting. Back home Chihiro’s parents are killed by a seemingly unethical band of samurai that overwhelm her family’s community. Chihiro learns very late in The Worst Ronin about the death of her parents; and her grief translates into the desire for vengeance but she doesn’t seem to have enough fighting skills as shown with her earlier skirmishes with Tatsuo, her tiredness in training, and early battles with hooligans. The drawings are action-filled, including flashbacks to Chihiro’s childhood with plenty of parental support. Here and there we see ancestors’ ghostly images standing behind the protagonists listening to their doubts and trying to provide comfort. Tatsuo has to fight Yamauba (“mountain hag”) who “… were once human but became corrupted and transformed into monsters … [and like her appearance in The Worst Ronin] look just like ordinary old ladies with no sign of their evil nature—until they attack.” According to The Worst Ronin, “Yamaubas are grief made flesh [147].” Tatsuo ends Chihiro’s romanticization of samurai through a blunt conversation about Chihiro’s favorite movie. Tatsuo tells Chihiro, “We tell all these lies about bravery and sacrifice and skill, and then we wonder why all our sons are dead … all our friends [261].” There is still some romanticism, but this time in favor of female fighters.  I recommend The Worst Ronin for its entertaining story, modernizing samurai, providing self-affirmation, creating a new family for Chihiro in working through her grief, realistic portrayal of violence and death, and showing one positive outcome of social media (did I mention a cell phone appears?).

Your podcast hosts are Alex Thomas (https://boostershotmedia.com/) and MK Czerwiec (https://comicnurse.com/.) 

After a fun opening chat,  Alex & MK interview Georgia Webber about her new podcast, Drawing Health.

Links to all mentioned in the episode below. An audio-only feed of this episode is available wherever you get your podcasts. Please subscribe and review!

Show notes:

The Drawing Together Archive

Playing in a Dream

2026 GMIC Awards Submissions Now Open

2026 Graphic Medicine Conference

Frontline comics project: https://www.frontlinecomicsproject.org/

Georgia Webber’s website: https://www.drawingtheinsideout.ca/

Drawing Health podcast page: https://www.sequentialartistsworkshop.org/drawing-health

Drawing Health Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drawinghealth_/

SAW Graphic Medicine site: https://www.sequentialartistsworkshop.org/graphic-medicine

Dumb

Drawing After TEN

Stephen King writing tips.

Graphic Medicine Murmuration 

Reading Reccs: 

MK – The Correspondent, The Life Impossible, Actress of a Certain Age, Bread of Angels

Georgia – And Then She Fell, Heated Rivalry

Alex – The Complete Eightball, MacGyver reruns!

As Dr. Shelley Wall completes her term on the board of the Graphic Medicine International Collective, GMIC would like to thank her for her extraordinary contributions. As a founding member of the GMIC board, her vision, commitment, and care have helped shape the organization from its earliest moments and have sustained it through years of growth and change.

Shelley’s six years of dedicated service as Secretary provided a steady, thoughtful backbone to the board’s work. Her attention to detail, institutional memory, and generosity with her time ensured that GMIC functioned not only effectively, but with integrity and care. Beyond governance, her leadership in hosting the Graphic Medicine Conference in Toronto—twice—created welcoming, vibrant spaces for community, collaboration, and connection that many of us continue to draw inspiration from.

Her contributions have been foundational, and her impact will continue to be felt in the culture, values, and relationships that define GMIC, especially through her work on Drawing Together and the GMIC Awards. While we will miss Shelley’s presence on the board, we are deeply grateful for all she has given and for the legacy she leaves.

Thank you, Shelley, for your leadership, generosity, and unwavering commitment to graphic medicine and to this collective.

Welcome to the Graphic Medicine monthly roundup podcast- new updates in Graphic Medicine, interviews, and more!

Your podcast hosts are Alex Thomas (https://boostershotmedia.com/) and MK Czerwiec (https://comicnurse.com/.) 

After an extended fun opening chat, recorded this past fall, Alex & MK interview Shay Mirk – co-author of Making Nonfiction Comics, a terrific new resource for graphic medicine and beyond. 

Shownotes: 

Segment 1: Alex & MK catchup:

Iggy & the Inhalers

Gelli printing 

Segment 2: News from the website

Drawing Together – scroll down for latest episodes and news

GMIC award nominations now open

Graphic Medicine Reviews 

Nonfiction Comics Festival: Update, I could not go to the conference.

Segment 3: News from the GMIC board

2026 GMIC conference will be July 23-25 in Baltimore.

The theme is Drawing Perspectives: Health Narratives Under Pressure

Submissions open until January 11th.

Segment 4: Interview: Shay Mirk 

Making Nonfiction Comics: A Guide for Graphic Narrative

Guantanamo Voices

The Nib (archive)

Crucial Comics – classes, community, comics

their Patreon

Science Comics Initiative, University of Oregon 

Segment 5: What are you reading? 

Shay:

Lee Lai, Cannon

Ben Passmore, Black Arms to Hold You Up

Kim Stanley Robinson, Red Mars 

MK:

Louise Penny, Still Life (first in the 20 book series)

Carol Tyler, The Ephemerata: Shaping the Exquisite Shape of Grief

Aubrey Hirsch, Graphic Rage

Alex: 

George Herriman, Crazy Cat Compilation 1916-1918

The Graphic Medicine International Collective (GMIC), a not-for-profit organization with the mission to guide and support the uses of comics in health, has now closed the submission period. The shortlists for three categories of comics, long-form, short-form, and educational will be announced May 1.

These awards are meant to recognize and honor outstanding health-related comic projects published in 2025. They are made possible by your donations and a generous matching gift in Honor of Nancy and Herbert Wolf. 

Graphic Medicine Award FAQ 

Please read all below before submitting.

Q: What qualifies as a work of graphic medicine for this award?

Comics of any length that emphasize one or more health-related topics and were completed or published in 2025 are eligible for this award. Graphic medicine comics take as their theme (or meaningfully include) topics that impact health. We define the term “health” here broadly, based on the World Health Organization definition: a state of physical, mental, and social well-being, not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.  Comics can be fiction or nonfiction, memoir or biography, educational and/or entertaining. Both print and web-based comics are eligible for this award.

Q: How many awards are there? 

There will be three awards in 2026. There will be one award for short-form comics (28 pages or less) and one award for long-form comics (greater than 28 pages) and one award for educational comics. Educational comics have an instructional aim (teaching or learning): comics and emphasize one or more medical topics, treatments, diseases, devices, and biological functions to teach medical professionals, medical students, patients, caregivers, or the general public. Submissions in the educational category can be of any length. Each graphic medicine work can be submitted in one and only one category. It is up to the submitter to decide which of the three categories they want their work to be judged in.

Q: How will educational comics be evaluated? 

Submitted educational comics will be evaluated on:

• Innovation and creativity

• Potential for impact on learning outcomes

• Community engagement and collaboration

• Medical accuracy (required, but conventional medical illustrations are not)

• Accessibility and ease of understanding

• Effective use of the comics medium

Q: Must eligible comics be published in English?

Yes, but translated work is acceptable. In the case of translated work published or completed in 2025, the original language version must have been published in the preceding five years (i.e., 2020 or later).

Q: I used AI to help generate my comic. Can I submit it for a GMIC Award?

No. Comics generated in whole or in part using artificial intelligence (AI) will not be considered for any of the three GMIC Awards.

Q: Who can submit a work for consideration?

Each comic for consideration must be submitted by the creator of the comic or their publisher. Due to the nature of the award process, we will not be able to accept anonymous submissions, but we will respect pseudonyms. If submitted by the publisher, we will require contact information for the comic’s creator.

Q: How should works be submitted?

The submission period for 2026 is now closed.

Q: May I submit more than one comic for the award?

Yes, but you must do a separate entry form for each.

Q: May I submit a webcomic? 

Yes, but the comic you want judged must have been completed in 2025 and be submitted as a PDF. You may also provide a link to the online comic to demonstrate interactivity if necessary. Each title may only be submitted once.

Q: May I submit a webcomic or self-published comic in multiple years? 

No. If your webcomic or self-published work had been submitted in any form in a prior year, it will not be eligible for an award in any future years.

Q: Is there a deadline for making submissions for the 2026 GMIC award?

Yes. It was Saturday, January 31st, 2026.

Q: How will the award winners be selected?

Three shortlists of awards (long form, short form, and educational) will be generated from all submitted works. These lists will be announced to the public by April 30, 2026. The GMIC Award Judges will then meet to choose the winners. Both shortlisting and final judges are a diverse group consisting of at least five persons, each representing one or more of these categories: cartoonist, academic, clinician, librarian, person with lived experience of illness, caregiving, and/or disability, and comics critic/reviewer. Conflicts of interest by the judges are avoided.

Q: When will the award be presented?

The winners of the 2026 GMIC Awards will be announced at the graphic medicine conference in July 2026, details to come.

Q: What will the award winner receive?

The winning comics will be awarded $600 (U.S. dollars) and a keepsake suitable for display. Please note that the monetary award may be subject to taxes for which the winner will be responsible.

Q: You said this was a matching grant – how can we contribute?

EXCELLENT QUESTION! Receipt of this generous gift is contingent on raising matching funds! To help make this award possible, you can make a tax-deductible donation here. Your support is essential to ensure the future of this award! We thank you for your generosity in advance. Please note: donations are not expected or required from applicants for the award.

Please note, donations are not expected or required from applicants for the award.

THANK YOU FOR SUPPORTING THIS AWARD! 

Q: What if I have any questions about the awards?

Feel free to reach out to us with any questions.

• posters featuring historical or archival imagery,
• infographics,
• comic art,
• digital renderings,
• visual art, and
• short poetry or prose that incorporates a visual narrative.

Each submission should be accompanied by a brief narrative that explains the visual content, underlying methods, and its relevance to health information professionals. To find out more visit: https://journals.indianapolis.iu.edu/index.php/hypothesis/viscon.

This award celebrates conferences that made a significant impact by bringing international delegates to Ireland in 2023 and 2024. The recognition highlights the commitment and leadership of those who championed Ireland as a destination for global events.

On behalf of the conference committee and TUS, Dr. Seán Lyons proudly accepted the award—a stunning Copperfish Design lamp—at the ceremony held at the Royal Dublin Society (RDS), Dublin, on 27 November 2025.

Fáilte Ireland has honoured the outstanding contributions of 109 sector leaders at the biennial Conference Ambassador Recognition Awards held at The Royal Dublin Society.  These leading academics and industry experts, known as conference ambassadors, were celebrated for hosting international conferences in Ireland between 2023 and 2024, and collectively generating almost €117 million for the Irish economy.

We are honoured to have contributed to Ireland’s reputation as a hub for international collaboration and innovation. Thank you to everyone who helped make this achievement possible!

More info about – and terrific photos & podcasts from – the 2024 GMIC Conference is here.

About the Work

This is a project about the toxic drug crisis and its effects on the small towns of the Maritimes. Artist Jon Claytor and Ashley Legere, a Sackville, New Brunswick resident and Harm Reduction advocate, are talking to people who have experienced overdose and lived, and with the families of those who didn’t and making short comics about those conversations. The sole purpose is to try and raise awareness and encourage compassion for a problem that affects people in all walks of life and in all communities. Stigma kills.

This work is about being there, without judgment, for people that society has often overlooked or misunderstood. It’s in our nature to offer support, fight stigma, and show up even in the hardest moments, because harm reduction is built on the belief that everyone deserves compassion and respect. It’s more than a practice; it’s a reflection of our values and why we’re here.

About the Creators

Ashley Legere is the Executive Director of the Cumberland Homelessness & Housing Support Association in Amherst, Nova Scotia. She has helped start harm reduction initiatives in pharmacies in New Brunswick as well as Needle Distribution efforts, Naloxone distribution, and harm reduction education in Sackville, New Brunswick.  During her career in Sackville, it became very apparent to her that small towns were not immune and perhaps felt the impact more heavily because we know them. We know their families, grandparents, favorite teachers, what they ordered at Mel’s, and what they took in their coffees. When we connect with others, when we are surrounded by people who accept us as we are, where we are, that’s where real healing begins, not in meeting some arbitrary standard of sobriety, but in building meaningful relationships and supportive communities.

Jon Claytor is a graphic novelist and artist based in Sackville, New Brunswick. His memoir “Take the Long Way Home” was published by Conundrum Press in 2022. He has illustrated several interviews for the CBC, and has led multiple workshops on storytelling and comics.

Relevant Links

Read more Spotlight posts.

The Graphic Medicine International Collective (GMIC), a not-for-profit organization with the mission to guide and support the uses of comics in health, will open the 2026 award submissions on January 2, 2026. 

These awards recognize and honor outstanding health-related comic projects published or completed in 2025. They are made possible by your donations with a generous matching gift in Honor of Nancy and Herbert Wolf. 

Details about previous GMIC Awards can be found here.

To ensure you have the latest news about the award process, be sure to subscribe to our weekly e-newsletter.

Medical Mentions are a group of graphic works. The graphic works reviewed here are books whose primary topics are not medical, and yet they cover a medical topic with some depth at some point in the work. The rest of the work might be fictional or nonfictional, while the medical portion is often technical and five pages or more. The reviewer will usually neither recommend nor discourage reading the work, except when the rest of the work is deemed outstanding or terrible, respectively. Typically, six graphic works will be part of the review with one paragraph for each. Prior Medical Mentions can be found at I, II, III, IV, V, VI , VII, VIII, IX, X – Comic Strip Edition #1, XI, XII, XIII – Comic Strip Edition #2, XIV — Genre Fiction Edition, XV, and XVI. With that in mind here’s Medical Mentions XVII, focusing on disaster narratives in comics and graphic novels. For this installment, two works are included that do have a prominent medical theme but lack sufficient exploration of any single medical topic to warrant a full-length, standalone review.

Medical and other important themes: addiction, air transportation accidents, asthma, breathing techniques, disaster relief, disasters, earthquakes, emergency medical services, emergency medical technicians, emergency medicine, epidemics, firefighters, first responders, forest fires, homelessness, humanitarianism, Hurricane Maria, infectious diseases, law enforcement, leptospirosis, medical aid, natural disasters, nursing, paramedics, political unrest, post-traumatic stress disorder, psychiatry, sanitation, sexism, Silver Age comics, survival skills, tapeworms, terrorism, traumatic injuries, tsunamis, war

Reviews by Matt Peters

After Maria: Everyday Recovery from Disaster by Dr. Gemma Sou (writer) and John Cei Douglas (artist); The University of Manchester; 2019; digital; 33 pages; authors’ websites: https://gemmasou.com/ for Sou and https://www.johnceidouglas.com/ for Douglas.

Gemma Sou is a researcher at the University of Manchester’s Humanitarian and Conflict Response Institute who conducted a year-long ethnographic study of families in Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria. In her study, Sou sought to understand how low-income households recovered from the 2017 hurricane that devastated much of Puerto Rico and the Caribbean. Her goal was to go beyond the usual reporting on “direct and quantifiable impacts” (page 22) like deaths and property losses to explore qualitative impacts like people’s sense of home, community, and belonging. Committed to publishing her research in an accessible and relatable format, she worked with artist John Cei Douglas to produce the comic book After Maria: Everyday Recovery from Disaster. In their comic, Sou and Douglas follow the fictional Aponte González family, who serve as a composite of the many families Sou interviewed post-Maria. The Aponte Gonzálezes have to rebuild parts of their house and replace personal belongings like furniture, but some lost belongings like family photos are irreplaceable. With both their domestic life and local economy disrupted by the hurricane, they struggle to resume a home-based cake business. Lacking that source of income, the Aponte Gonzálezes rely on the help of neighbors, a local church, and the Red Cross for many of their household needs. Throughout their story, the Aponte Gonzálezes witness the health challenges that post-hurricane conditions can introduce. Basic medical supplies such as asthma inhalers become difficult to obtain. Residential running water is only available sporadically, making sanitation difficult. The gasoline-powered generators used during power outages adversely affect air quality. Refuse removal is disrupted, leading to cockroach infestations and related diseases like leptospirosis. In addition to its 19 pages of illustrated comic storytelling, After Maria includes several pages of supplementary text that summarize the limitations of government relief programs and various ways disasters can exacerbate inequalities based on gender, ethnicity, social class, and other demographic markers. The supplementary text includes discussion prompts for instructors who want to use the comic in their classrooms. Clearly written and deftly illustrated, After Maria is an excellent resource that’s available for free on the author’s website in both English and Spanish.

The Call of Duty Vol. 1: The Brotherhood and the Wagon by Chuck Austen (writer), Bruce Jones (writer), David Finch (artist), Art Thibert (artist), Daniel Žeželj (artist), and Avalon Studios (colorist); ISBN: 978-0785109716; Marvel; January 1, 2003; paperback; 160 pages; authors’ websites: https://www.chucklesausten.com/ for Austen, https://brucejoneswriter.wordpress.com/ for Jones, https://davidfinchart.com/ for Finch, https://www.artbythibert.com/ for Thibert, https://www.dzezelj.com/ for Žeželj, and https://www.avalonstudios.org/ for Avalon Studios; The Call of Duty Vol. 2: The Precinct by Bruce Jones (writer), Tom Mandrake (artist), David Finch (artist), Art Thibert (artist), Transparency Digital (colorist), and Avalon Studios (colorist); ISBN: 978-0785109747; Marvel; March 1, 2003; paperback; 224 pages; authors’ websites: https://www.tommandrake.com/ for Mandrake, unknown for Transparency Digital, and above for others.

Content advisory: Gun violence, mass-trauma events, and occasional dialogue featuring ethnic stereotypes and sexist language

When the U.S. was rocked by the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, emergency personnel were there in the aftermath, meeting unprecedented tragedy with immense dedication. Inspired by their heroism, Marvel developed a trio of limited comic book series to pay tribute to the daily work of first responders. Set in the Marvel Universe’s version of post-9/11 New York City, each series was titled The Call of Duty and was differentiated by its subtitle: The Brotherhood was about firefighters, The Wagon was about emergency medical services (EMS) workers, and The Precinct was about police officers. In a cross-series story arc, characters from those three professions respond to a string of unexplained fires. At each fire, a mysterious girl named Savannah appears out of nowhere, gives a cryptic warning about a coming war and mass-casualty event, and then disappears without a trace. With each appearance, first responders are left wondering if they’ve witnessed something supernatural. One of them sees a psychiatrist, who suggests that the girl is a hallucination triggered by post-traumatic stress disorder. As the mystery of Savannah and the fires unfolds, readers get occasional glimpses (albeit fictionalized ones) into the work of first responders, seeing how they manage the stress and hazards of their jobs, the medical needs of those they rescue, and various public safety protocols during disasters. Later collected into two trade paperback volumes, the project was well conceived but not well executed. It suffered from a disjointed tone and confusing narrative threads, possibly due to the rush to publish something while it felt timely (the three series and two collected editions were all published within a year and a half of 9/11). Oddly, though, for such a rushed response to 9/11, the project only makes passing mention of the tragedy—and makes no meaningful attempt to acknowledge the collective trauma or shared grief that followed. Equally odd are the sometimes unflattering portrayals of first responders—the very people the project was meant to honor. When it depicts banter and small talk among first responders, the dialogue occasionally contains casual sexism or remarks that essentialize or stereotype ethnic groups (mostly Jewish and Italian New Yorkers). What was likely an attempt to evoke authenticity and social realism ultimately feels unnecessary and off-putting. Lastly, the minor changes in creative teams from series to series were enough to give the collected editions an inconsistent visual style that distracts from the storytelling.

Code Blue #1 by Jimmie Robinson (writer and artist); barcode: 709853060512 00111 (no ISSN in indicia); Image Comics; April 15, 1998; comic book; 32 pages; author’s website: https://jimmykitty.artstation.com/.

Code Blue was a short-lived and largely forgotten medical drama from Image Comics that debuted in 1998. Originally intended as a four-issue series, the title was discontinued after its first issue. However, that lone issue works well enough as a standalone story, even if some of what it sets up was clearly meant to be explored in more depth in future issues. The comic’s main character is Jayeen Michaels, an unshakable, tough-minded supervising physician at Highland Hospital. The medical consequences of crime and urban decay are regularly evident at Highland, especially in its emergency ward, which frequently sees patients who are unhoused, belligerent, struggling with addiction, or suffering traumatic injuries. Code Blue turns into a story of culture shock when Richard Mead, a physician who works in a wealthier part of the city, is rushed to Highland after a terrorist bombing of a nearby bridge—one that Mead was using for his commute to work. Mead is caught in the chaos as the terrorist attack sends more than just patients to Highland. One of its operatives has picked Highland as a place to hide from the police. Later, as Michaels prepares to discharge Mead, there are hints of a growing romantic interest between the two physicians. As it progresses through its various narrative threads, Code Blue doesn’t linger very long on any one medical topic, largely due to its tight pacing. Code Blue often departs from the relatively grounded storytelling common to medical dramas to appeal to readers of action-packed genres like superhero and crime fiction (genres that Code Blue writer-artist Jimmie Robinson had more experience writing and illustrating). The result is a unique variation on a theme—but one that ultimately failed to garner enough readers.

The Complete Flying Nurses by unknown (uncredited in text but see https://www.comics.org/issue/171454/#944242 and https://www.comics.org/series/11470/details/creator_names/ for reported credits in the Grand Comics Database for My Secret Life issue 47 and Sue and Sally Smith, Flying Nurses issues 48-54); Lulu product no. 849575g; Gwandanaland Comics / Lulu; December 21, 2024; paperback; 202 pages.

Gwandanaland Comics belongs to a handful of micropublishers that specialize in reprinting public-domain comics. The Complete Flying Nurses is a typical example of the company’s books, a collected edition of several issues from a comic book series, available for purchase through the print-on-demand service Lulu. The Complete Flying Nurses collects issues 48 through 54 of Sue and Sally Smith, Flying Nurses, a Charlton Comics title from the early 1960s, as well as the title characters’ first appearance in issue 47 of My Secret Life. Both of those titles were to some extent the same series. In the Silver Age of comics, it was not unusual for publishers to cancel a title but repurpose its vacated numbering sequence for a new title, often as a way to piggyback on an existing postal permit. Another common practice of the Silver Age was publishing anthology comics, and Sue and Sally Smith, Flying Nurses was one of them. In spite of a title implying that each issue would focus on the same two characters from cover to cover, the comic also hosted various drama and romance stories that didn’t involve the Smith sisters. But the sisters did get the highest page count in each issue. They’re a pair of daring and quick-thinking nurses who work for the Emergency Corps at Morse Memorial Hospital. They’re the nurses Morse flies to the scene of plane crashes, disease outbreaks, natural disasters, war zones, political unrest, and other rescue and aid assignments. When time is of the essence, the two often parachute in. They do so in their first appearance, responding to a forest fire, and many times thereafter. Their stories tend to be light on details when they broach medical topics, since they focus more on the adventurous aspects (sometimes paired with a romantic subplot) of the sisters’ far-flung assignments. Written for young adolescent readers, another reason to breeze past specifics was to keep medical terminology to a minimum. Except for one instance in which Sally explains that a patient “had an adventitious cyst in the sternomastoid caused by Taenia echinococcus” (page 96, panel 1), the dialogue is usually kept at a basic reading level. Despite a premise that highlighted the sisters’ heroics, some of their adventures still feel dated in their gender representations, especially in the juxtaposition of career-focused male physicians and romance-focused female nurses (the sisters). Similarly, the stories sometimes feature clumsy and insensitive depictions of other cultures when the sisters are on international assignments. In this collected edition, the comics show their age in a more manifest way as well: The reprints aren’t digitally restored, so they’re presented with all of the page yellowing and print deterioration that a simple scan captures. However, the book still provides a convenient and legible way to read some otherwise hard-to-find vintage comics—hard, that is, for people trying to find them in print. For people who don’t mind reading them in an internet browser or on a CBZ reader, those same comics can be found on Comic Book Plus, a site devoted to hosting and sharing digitally archived, public-domain comics. Although comics there are free to access, optional donations are welcomed to support the site’s maintenance costs.

I Survived the Japanese Tsunami, 2011 by Lauren Tarshis (writer), Georgia Ball (writer), Chris Chalik (artist), and Juanma Aguilera (artist); ISBN: 978-1546110804; Graphix (Scholastic); August 5, 2025; paperback; 160 pages; authors’ websites: https://www.laurentarshis.com/ for Tarshis, https://www.facebook.com/askmaridee/ for Ball, https://www.linkedin.com/in/chris-chalik-14864637/ for Chalik, and https://www.juanmaaguilera.com/ for Aguilera.

Written for middle-grade (preteen) readers, I Survived is a book series by Lauren Tarshis that features fictionalized accounts of catastrophic events from world history. The series includes events from the distant to recent past, from the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 CE to events in the current century like Hurricane Katrina. Originally a series of conventional prose books, it was adapted into a graphic novel series by Scholastic’s imprint Graphix. In I Survived the Japanese Tsunami, 2011, writer Georgia Ball and artists Chris Chalik and Juanma Aguilera adapt the original (and identically titled) text by Tarshis, retelling Tarshis’ story about a family caught in the chaos of the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and resulting tsunami. The story follows a preteen boy named Ben who lives in California with his mother and younger brother. The three visit Japan to see Ben’s uncle in the village of Shogahama, but what starts as a quiet vacation turns into a harrowing experience for Ben and his family. First an earthquake rocks Shogahama, and then a massive tsunami brings even more chaos. Ben and his mother, younger brother, and uncle survive the earthquake without incident, but his uncle’s house is left severely damaged. As a siren warns of a coming tsunami, the four try to escape in their uncle’s car, but they can’t outrace the massive waves that crash into the village. The car is pulled into the ocean, and the four manage to escape before drowning. However, Ben is separated from the other three as violent, unpredictable currents fill the coastal waters. In an unfamiliar place and unable to speak the local language, Ben has to think and act fast to find his way to safety—and find his way back to his family. The story is both poignant and instructive as Ben recollects survival skills he learned from his father, a pilot who died while serving in the U.S. Air Force. What Ben learned included breathing techniques to stay calm in the face of danger, as well as mindsets to remain determined in desperate situations. After Ben’s story comes to a close, the book includes some supplementary non-fiction text (partially in comic book format) that provides more information about the 2011 earthquake and tsunami, including their catastrophic impact on the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant, which resulted in a major nuclear accident and widespread release of radioactive contaminants. Overall, the graphic novel is expertly researched and absorbing in its writing—and worth recommending to readers nine years of age and older. [Editor’s note: Several other books in the I Survived book series are awaiting review here.]

Matt Peters is a program manager at Health Sciences Design, an interdisciplinary health innovation program at the University of Arizona Mel & Enid Zuckerman College of Public Health. He is also a longtime comic book reader and collector who can be found from time to time at his local comic book shops. Views expressed are his own.

About the Artist

Charles Hackbarth is a Toronto-based artist, writer, podcaster, meditation teacher, and creator of experimental sounds. In 1976, at the age of fourteen, Hackbarth began an intensive study of visual art that lasted eight years. His first exhibition, Peek-a-boo, featured large figurative paintings and was presented at the Ottawa School of Art gallery in the summer of 1985. From 1986 to 1991, Hackbarth exhibited a number of mixed media installations based around drawings and paintings but also including sculpture, found objects, sound, and fragrances. From 1986 to 1989, Hackbarth pursued independent studies at OCAD in performance art, electronics, plastics, and new media. Throughout the 1990s he continued to produce work but didn’t exhibit again until 1998. Since then, he has shown at various galleries in Toronto including Gallery 1313 and Loop Gallery.

About Charles’ Work

I am currently working on a graphic novel about trauma, healing, spirituality, art, music, sex, death, the whole shebang. It is somewhat autobiographical, but heavily fictionalized. The core of the story was written in 1979 when I was 17. I had left home a year earlier, moved with my girlfriend and her family to another city. Suddenly I began to experience serious mind-body dissociation. (We know now that this is called Depersonalization or Derealization Disorder). At that time the doctors simply called it a “nervous breakdown.” Or agoraphobia, or that I was just a lazy bum and that I should get out there and get a job.

At that time I wrote a prose-poem (influenced by Jack Kerouac and Patti Smith) called “The Fabulous Rain Runner.”

The main feature of my condition was that I felt numb and stoned all the time. In the story, my character meets a (shaman) guide who is part bird and part human. This character (The Fabulous Rain Runner) leads my character on night time runs in the rain (which brought feeling and presence back to my body). The night time journeys lead to altered realities that always involve healers, therapists, shaman, spiritual teachers.

Mixed into the fiction and fantastical journeying is scientific or medical information about trauma.

Relevant Links

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Medical Mentions are a group of graphic works. The graphic works reviewed here are books whose primary topics are not medical, and yet they cover a medical topic with some depth at some point in the work. The rest of the work might be fictional or nonfictional, while the medical portion is often technical and five pages or more. The reviewer will usually neither recommend nor discourage reading the work, except when the rest of the work is deemed outstanding or terrible, respectively. Typically, six graphic works will be part of the review with one paragraph for each. Prior Medical Mentions can be found at I, II, III, IV, V, VI , VII, VIII, IX, X – Comic Strip Edition #1, XI, XII, XIII – Comic Strip Edition #2, XIV — Genre Fiction Edition, XV. With that in mind here’s Medical Mentions XVI.

Book Reviews by Kevin Wolf (except Pastimes review by Andrew Templeton)

Photographic: The Life of Graciela Iturbide by Graciela Iturbide (photographs), Isabel Quintero (text) & Zeke Peña (illustrations); pp of medical mention; ISBN: 978-1234567890; Getty Publications; March 2018; hardcover; 96 pages; author’s websites: Graciela’s website isn’t secure, https://www.isabelinpieces.com/ for Isabel, https://www.zpvisual.com/info for Zeke.

I recently joined a long-running graphic novel discussion group at my local library and the first book that I joined them for is entitled Photographic: The Life of Graciela Iturbide. Graciela Iturbide (1942 –, currently age 83) is an award-winning black and white Mexican photographer. Iturbide’s photographs reminds me of those by Diane Arbus in that the images are often close-ups of people in their work, play or home environment, and she often stays in their environment for a while to get to know who she’s photographing, being accepted by those pictured and capturing their spontaneous activity. When questioned about her images being black and white, Photographic quoted Iturbide saying “Well, for me, color is fantasy. I see reality in black and white [pg. 4].” Her father was an amateur photographer, and as a youngster Iturbide didn’t like having her photo taken (15 – 16). She enrolled in film school after she married and had three children (two sons (Manuel and Mauricio) and a daughter (Claudia)). “Claudia’s death [at age six] is something I will not speak of publicly … but it is one of the reasons I pick up the camera—to find understanding [20].” Death plays a significant role in her artistic search. In Guanajuato (central Mexico), “I catch Death’s grin on the faces of angelitos; infants turned angels before their first step … A cemetery in Hidalgo is the last time I photograph Death without permission. … Vultures appear in my path, eating what’s left of what was once a man. It is Death saying, ‘If you want to photograph me here I am. But no more suffering, Graciela. No more [25].” She photographs Mexican American hearing-impaired people in East Los Angelos (“I want to show what America looks like for people twice invisible [30]”). We see the slaughter of goats for food among indigenous Mixtecos for mole dish. In Juchitán (SE of Oaxaca), Iturbide photographs “muxes, who are both men and women at the same time. Muxes have been celebrated and accepted here for centuries.” When Iturbide travels to India she photographs some prosthetic legs which reminds her, upon the fiftieth anniversary of Frida Kahlo’s death being permitted to enter Kahlo’s sealed off bathroom—it had been sealed by Diego Rivera, Frida’s husband—to photograph its contents (drawn version below). As expected, the illustrations in Photographic are photo-realistic. One caveat to Photographic is that some of the photographs shown are likely poorer quality than Iturbide’s originals.

Photographic, page 72

Review by Andrew Templeton

 Pastimes by Pascal Girard; ISBN: 978-2925114543; Pow Pow Press; Publication November 4, 2025; paperback; 144 pages; author’s website: https://www.facebook.com/Pascal-Girard-193005637407162/

Based in Montreal, Pascal Girard is a social worker and a cartoonist. In Pastimes, a collection of personal diary comics, he draws inspiration from his day job at a hospital as well as his home life with his wife, daughter, and dog. The collection considers whether Pascal is a magnet for awkward encounters or whether he’s the agent of them. By the end, one’s left thinking maybe a bit of both, but there’s also a lot here that’s about the very common absurdity of modern city life. Translated from the French by Aleshia Jensen, the highlight for me is the series of conversations Pacal has with his daughter, Lucie, who asks pointed questions about death and the grieving process which manage to be profound and laugh-out-loud funny. This is my first time reading Girard’s work and there is a lovely sense of the familiar. With its regular rhythm and simple character designs, Pastimes has the feel of a classic, daily newspaper strip. Each entry is made up of four illustrations done in Girard’s loose, expressive style. Other medical issues include references to his work at the hospital, interactions with clients, Pascal wearing a walking boot (from a broken toe), and taking Lucie, his daughter, for COVID testing. There is a mention of Canada’s Medical Assistance in Dying program (MAID). Pascal’s graphic novel, Rebecca & Lucie in the Case of the Missing Neighbor was reviewed here.

Under the Banner of King Death – Pirates of the Atlantic by David Lester and Marcus Rediker with Paul Buhle Afterword; pp of medical mention; ISBN: 978-0807023983; Beacon Press; February 2023; paperback; 136 pages; author’s website: https://davidlesterartmusicdesign.wordpress.com/, https://www.marcusrediker.com/.

At the start of Under the Banner of King Death, the reader gets a Time Line for “The Golden Age of Piracy: 1660 – 1730 [pg. x].” This graphic novel avoids romanticizing the life of a pirate, which was often a short, deadly one; but it does portray the worldly reversal where those who previously had no power or freedom have taken just that from the literal “bigwigs” (i.e., the British aristocracy in the colonies). This is the story of John Gwin, who fled his enslavement in South Carolina, to only be kidnapped, chained, and whipped to work on a cargo ship (named The African Prince) bound for Sierra Leone under the authority of the Royal African Company and Captain James Skinner (“They don’t call him ‘Skinner’ for nothing,” 13 – 15). We learn about John’s earlier life (“Shackl’d together … crammed into the dark bowels of … [a ship] … confusion. Terror. The screams of those branded … whipped … limbs amputated … raped. The dead thrown overboard … Most of us sold at auction in Jamaica … in South Carolina. Hell was a merrier place [17].” After seven weeks on the trip to Sierra Leone, the crew stopped at Port Royal in Jamaica and had time to talk in a tavern. John surreptitiously told his shipmates (abbreviated dialogue) of his dream,

I have worked on merchant ships. On those ships, me and me [sic] brother tars were all treated equally … just like dogs. But we all had tales of fighting back …

Many a time we wish’d an enemy would over-power our ship …

One day on the horizon we saw the black flag with its grinning skull and crossbones. What had we to lose? Not a hard choice after … we threw our captain overboard … no more tyranny of the lash.

But the adventure didn’t stop there … We also chose all the officers of the ship … we divided all the plunder in fair shares … a wooden world turned upside down … [emphasis in original, 23 – 26]

And this past, seemingly wild dream, became reality upon the next beating by Skinner, who’s defeated and tossed overboard to an egalitarian result, including a later just trial on board among the shipmates. There are some medical tool images (81), a disease (the French pox—venereal disease) mentioned, and even a bit of a romance. The latter occurs when John learns one of his seemingly men shipmates is actually a woman. The piracy ends after a battle with a more powerful ship. There’s a second trial at a British court. John Gwin is saved from the gallows to “honor the request of your master, to whom you will be returned in South Carolina.” This will lead to Revolution by Fire, its sequel and next reviewed. I’ll close with something Ruban Dekker, another shipmate and leader, said after capture, “Snelgrave [Royal African Company ship captain and pirate hunter], you vilify us, as scoundrels do, but the only difference is, you rob the poor under the cover of laws and we plunder the rich under the protection of our own courage. We will not be governed by laws rich men have made for their own protection [101].”  Prophet Against Slavery: Benjamin Lay—by the same creative team—was previously reviewed.

Revolution by Fire – New York’s Afro-Irish Uprising of 1741 by David Lester and Marcus Rediker with Paul Buhle Afterword; ISBN: 978-0807012550; Beacon Press; November 2024; paperback; 176 pages; author’s website: https://davidlesterartmusicdesign.wordpress.com/, https://www.marcusrediker.com/.

Revolution by Fire provides a graphic reenactment of the multi-racial, pre-American Revolution attempted revolt against enslavement. It’s almost tame calling slavery and the exploitation of the enslaved a public health issue, but there it is nonetheless.  The black and white drawings grab the emotions with detailed shading, putting the readers in close quarters of the taverns, houses and courtrooms where most events occurred. This book is a sequel to Under the Banner of King Death – Pirates of the Atlantic, written and drawn by the same creative team: David Lester and Marcus Rediker with Afterwords by Paul Buhle. Revolution by Fire continues John Gwin’s story from escaping enslavement to piracy to death by hanging after a trial under the British colonial system. As Rediker’s Foreword states, “Many of the lines spoken by the rebels in the pages that follow are direct quotations from the trial record [perhaps not with the same timing; vii].” Gwin, shown on the gallows, said (at length),

Some of ye hope for a confession. I’ll not disappoint. I CONFESS! To a lifetime of fightin’ for a new world. I confess t’ turnin’ pirate, to throwin’ a brutal captain overboard … to givin’ poor sailors, black ‘n’ white, the choice in themselves for a better life. We all became free men, ‘n’ some women, if only for a short time. I’ve tried to do the same here in New York, no more, no less. These are my crimes. … You can scuttle our bodies, but you cannot scuttle our ideas. When the next rebellion comes, ‘n’ all the ones that follow, I’ll be with ye every time. … Long live the outcasts o’ all nations! [emphasis in original, 145 – 147]

Like many revolts that are almost lost to history, it was quashed soon after it started, because a fire signal was set too early, that fire turned into multi-building conflagration, and it was all too small to bring out hoped for reinforcements among the enslaved and indentured. This book explains its sources on page viii with a Glossary of Speech on ix.

The Genius Under the Table: Growing Up Behind the Iron Curtain by Eugene Yelchin; ISBN: 978-1536236248; Candlewick Press; Publication May 2024 (hard cover October 2021); paperback; 208 pages; author’s website: https://www.eugeneyelchin.com/

The Genius Under the Table is Eugene Yelchin’s author-illustrated humor-filled (and serious) memoir of his childhood in the Soviet Union. Early on Yelchin declares “Because Leningrad is not far from the Arctic Circle, our winters were perfect for sore throats, nasty colds, and pneumonia. Before I was allowed outside in the winter, Mom swaddled me in layers of itchy wool … I could hardly move [15].” In the Soviet Union resources were scarce. For example, an old X-ray image was used to illegally make a rock and roll record (19). Each room of an apartment (except bathroom and kitchen) was occupied by a family and each communal apartment had a (often paid) spy. The author’s mom was an ex-ballerina and now worked for the Vaganova Ballet Academy. Her hero was the then young, now famed, Mikhail Baryshnikov with the Kirov Ballet Theater. The author was “the genius under the table” who used to make his childish pencil illustrations under and on the underside of their dining room table—where the draped table cloth gave him privacy. Yelchin’s brother became a skilled figure skater, earning his own private apartment, but when young would dangerously use an ice hook attached to the back of a truck to skate at breakneck speeds along the ice-covered streets. They visited Lenin’s Tomb where his body is visible through a glass coffin; and Yelchin found “Lenin had a bandage under his beard … How could a mummy cut itself [64]?” “Talents” (i.e., people with a talent) would sometimes defect. Yelchin wrote, “Each time I overheard that someone had defected, I had imagined one of our talents stuck in the airport bathroom taking a poop [defecating] and missing his plane back home [71].” This pun doesn’t seem to be lost in translation. Anti-Semitism was overt. Yelchin’s family was Jewish and one day came home to his collapsed grandmother at their apartment door where a swastika was drawn with the words [in Russian] “Beat yids—save Mother Russia [85]!” This was wrongly blamed on a neighbor’s kid who Victor, Yelchin’s brother, now beat up with both ending up bruised and bloodied. The words and image were quickly removed. We learn that Yelchin’s father loves Russian poets and will read their poetry from books he acquires at great cost (e.g., requiring many pounds of paper to drop off for recycling to get a coupon for one book). We learn Russian poets are often killed; for example, Alexander Pushkin at age 37 died in an 1837 pistol duel. Another Russian poet died at age 26 in another duel. Yelchin’s father would say, “You can never be a great poet, …. if you’re afraid to tell the truth [95].” Family members are erased from photo albums after their arrest by the USSR authorities. These events (extreme cold, pneumonia, scarce resources, erasure, and truth-telling) forbode Yelchin’s father’s death. Yelchin ends The Genius under the Table jarringly optimistic (“Our past lay hidden in darkness, but my future seemed dazzlingly bright [201].”).

This book received many honors, including American Library Association Notable Book of 2022,  Kirkus Reviews Best Books of 2021 and Association of Jewish Libraries 2022 Sydney Taylor Book Award Honor.

Photographic Memory: William Henry Jackson and the American West by Bill Griffith; ISBN: 978-1419784149; Abrams ComicArts; October 21, 2025; hardcover; 288 pages; author’s website: https://www.zippythepinhead.com/.

Coincidentally, just as I opened this Medical Mentions with a photographer’s biography, I will close with another photographer. Though this book has the least direct medical content of all the books reviewed herein, I hope it has some of the longest lasting. The President of the United States can pick National Monuments; while the U.S. Congress selects U.S. National Parks. The first U.S. National Park (and first in the world) is Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming and designated on March 1, 1872. On June 29, 1906, the 7^th National Park at Mesa Verde in Colorado was designated. I believe National Parks fall into public health, not only for the human visitors but for the environment and ecology of all other life.  Both of these Parks’ designations are because of photographer William Henry Jackson (WHJ, 1843 – 1942). National Parks are defined as “a nature park designated for conservation purposes because of unparalleled national natural, historic, or cultural significance.” There are several characteristics of National Parks by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), including “not materially altered by human exploitation …visitors [can] enter … for inspirational, educative, cultural, and recreative purposes.” Bill Griffith’s, the author of Photographic Memory, full name is William Henry Jackson Griffith and is the great-grandson of the photographer. Griffith was very proud of having four names and often checked, while in school, if anyone else had four names and found none. As Photographic Memory progresses with the author and great-grandfather aging both look more and more alike. WHJ was hired by railroad lines and following his own and others’ commercial desires to photograph the western U.S. Griffith’s mom says her grandfather’s “pictures of … Yellowstone were collected in albums and presented to congress to show them it was a real place worth preserving [6].” I found some of the history of the American West and early photography fascinating (traveling with his mule-drawn darkroom/box/tent and making his own negatives from wet glass plates with equipment weighing 300 pounds in total). Medical references include Griffith attending the Jonas Salk Junior High School (named after the creator of an early polio vaccine); WHJ was allergic to tulips; WHJ believed in the bogus science of phrenology (health and mental predictions from head shapes); he had vitamin deficiencies during wagon train excursions; visited an optometrist and had hearing loss with age; the trans-continental railroad, in part, led to the slaughter of bison or buffaloes from 30 – 60 million down to less than 1,000; his first wife (Mollie) died in childbirth and that child died soon after while WHJ was photographing in the west; excursions in the U.S. and abroad led to strains in his two marriages (the second marriage lasted 45 years, until Emilie’s death at age 75); he witnessed forced labor in far eastern (now) Russia at 20 – 40 degrees below zero; and his only severe injury occurred when he fell into an open cellar from the sidewalk at age 94. As a frustration to many artists, WHJ lost most of his control of the photographs he’d shot outside the U.S. and was cheated out of pay during that three-year excursion. Griffith inserts himself into the story at various points. As a child and providing a connection to his great-grandfather, Griffith enjoyed the cartoon The Yogi Bear Show about Yogi’s exploits in Jellystone Park—an obvious name spoof. There are some iconic scenes (e.g., see illustration at end of this review). Griffith includes a few scenes from his own artistic life, including restaurant automats, Zippy the Pinhead, a roadside diner, an odd “western cowboy figure” holding a golf club, and an imaginary scene of Griffith and WHJ taking he same New Jersey ferry boat 30 years apart but somehow together. In the chapter entitled “The First People,” 76 – 107, Griffith found “at least twenty-five published books on Jackson and his photographs [77].” And to his credit Griffith—among other commentary—states “Only one [book] deals with Jackson’s impact on the indigenous people he encountered, and that one only slightly. The others credit his adventurous life with helping ‘open the west’ to settlement and tourism, without any critical perspective or sensitivity to the people who were there long before Jackson arrived [77].” Griffith provides lengthy quotes from indigenous men and women. WHJ over his life used different artistic media (oil painting, watercolors, map sketches of enemy lines in the Civil War, and pen and ink line art illustrations into his 90s (borders of all chapter headings). Late in life WHJ photographed in color with a Leica 35-millimeter camera, but Griffith says none of those photographs have been found. WHJ was a Union Army veteran of the Civil War (receiving a $75/month pension) and survived through almost the end of WWII. At the end of Photographic Memory Griffith provides his sources, endnotes, and fifteen photographs that WHJ made between 1871 and 1910.

Page 17 shows a Griffith drawing of WHJ photographed by his son, Clarence, while WHJ with camera equipment was on a rock outcropping at Glacier Point in Yosemite Valley, date unknown

Our Drawing Together topic was acoustic geographies. Per Ebru,

“Acoustic geographies refer to the study of sound and listening as spatial, social, and political phenomena — how sound shapes our experiences of place, and how places, in turn, shape what and how we hear. Acoustic epistemologies can also facilitate our understanding of how sound can be a site of resistance, but also control and domination. This month’s acoustic landscapes exercise encourages us to listen to the world as a way of understanding and representing it—expanding our sense of geography beyond what we see, towards what we hear, feel, and sense with ourselves and other beings, including non-human animals.”

Introduction and warmup exercise:

Main exercise:

If you would like to share any work you do or have done with the graphic medicine community, be sure to tag #DrawingTogetherGM on social media.

See you next month – last Sunday of the month at 1pm ET. If you are not on the Drawing Together mailing list, sign up here.

If you are not on the email invitation list, and want to participate, sign up here.

Last week, I had the opportunity to speak at the National Advocates on Mental Illness (NAMI) California Conference in Sacramento.  As the Graphic Medicine and Mental Health Liaison, my goal was to introduce attendees to the world of graphic medicine and invite them to “draw their own stories”—the title of my presentation—by creating personal zines about their mental health journeys.

I began by sharing my own story of childhood trauma, growing up with an abusive father who was also diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia. From there, I introduced the concept of graphic medicine—the intersection between comics and the discourse of healthcare, where personal narratives and visual storytelling combine to explore experiences of illness, caregiving, and healing.

Some attendees were familiar with graphic novels but had not encountered the term graphic medicine before. I showed them several examples of graphic memoirs and works featured here on the Graphic Medicine website. While a few nodded in recognition, most were encountering these ideas for the first time. It was hard to tell at first whether they were connecting with the material on a personal level—but I could see curiosity building.

Next, I shared a few zines—some of my own and those made by others—and then demonstrated how to fold an eight-page zine from a single sheet of paper. On a nearby table, I had set out a ream of paper, hundreds of crayons, colored pens, and a handful of scissors. Then, I offered them a creative prompt inspired by Marc Maron:“The monster I created to protect me as a child is hard to control.”

I invited everyone to create their own zine in response. I expected only a few to take up the challenge—but to my happy surprise, the entire group stayed to draw their stories. Many came up afterward to share their creations and reflections with me.

That moment reaffirmed why graphic medicine matters. Communicating our stories visually—through drawn stories, comics, and zines—can help us process experiences, de-stigmatize mental illness, and reclaim our voices. We are all artists at heart. We all once knew it, until our parents stopped putting our drawings on the refrigerator. But we can rediscover that creative part of ourselves, and in doing so, find healing.

This spotlight features an original research article sparked by  a desire to justify the creation of a graphic medicine collection at an academic health sciences library. Faced with a format that was new to our library and a noticeable gap in the literature, we rolled up our sleeves and dug into the data to explore how academic health sciences libraries were curating graphic medicine. Armed with online catalogs, data collection tools, and a shared love of comics in healthcare, we became the Librarian League! 

Our article, Graphic Medicine in Academic Health Science Library Collections, is the result of that collaboration. It’s the first study to take a large-scale look at 125 academic health sciences library catalogs to offer a large-scale overview of the prevalence and accessibility of graphic medicine materials, establishing a foundation for future collection development research. We discovered that librarians are supporting the growing interest in the comic art format by incorporating graphic medicine into their collections and providing educational uses and examples through LibGuides. 

This research helped us make the case to establish a graphic medicine collection in our library and we hope that it will inspire more libraries to do the same.

LINK to article: https://jmla.pitt.edu/ojs/jmla/article/view/1962 

Contact Information: 

• Janet Chan (janetchan@usf.edu) 
• Melinda H. Berg (mberg4@usf.edu)
• Krystal Bullers (krystalb@usf.edu)
• Tsu Yin Lue (tlue2@usf.edu)

USF Health Libraries, University of South Florida, Tampa, Florida, United States

We’re launching the first issue of the Baturu Human Rights Comics Anthology, a project that will be printed in multiple languages, bringing together short comics exploring themes of diversity, equity, and inclusion, with a focus on feminist and LGBTQ+ experiences.

For this first issue, we invite you to contribute new or existing works that address gender-based violence against women — as well as women’s strength, resistance, and solidarity in the face of such violence. Themes may include reproductive rights and abortion access, online gender-based harassment, or digital sexual exploitation (e.g., South Korea’s Nth Room scandal or the U.S. GirlsDoPorn case) — along with stories that celebrate women’s resilience, empowerment, and collective action.

Inspired by the EVAW (Ending Violence Against Women) campaign — also known as the 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence (Nov 25–Dec 10) — this anthology aims to highlight real experiences and amplify voices that spark empathy and dialogue across borders.

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Format & Submission
• Book size: B5 (approx. 7″w x 10″h)
• Length: 1–20 pages per artist (black & white)
• Resolution: at least 600 dpi
• File format: PDF or high-resolution JPG/TIFF
• Deadline: November 15, 2025
• Submit to: eric@baturufoundation.org or via shared Dropbox (link to come)

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Publication Plan

Starting in November 2025, selected works will be featured on our social media platforms.
All pieces will then be compiled into a printed anthology by the end of 2025, published in English, Traditional Chinese, and Thai, and distributed internationally through our festival network.

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Honorarium & Contributor Copies

Each participating artist will receive a symbolic honorarium of USD $20, plus 20 complimentary copies of the English edition and one copy each of the Chinese and Thai editions as a token of appreciation.
All contributors retain full rights to their work.

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If this project resonates with you, we would be honored to include your voice in this first issue of the Baturu Human Rights Comics Anthology.

All panelists are introduced, then each give updates on their lives and careers (and projects) since the original Graphic Medicine Manifesto was released.  A.David Lewis’s asks insightful questions and the panel members address them.

Shownotes:

Conversation transcript

The Sick Doctor, Ian Williams forthcoming book

Drawing Together signup

Mom’s Cancer 20th anniversary edition

Graphic Public Health 

Spotlight FAQ

Lost opening to the Graphic Medicine Manifesto!

The conference theme is Drawing Perspectives: Health Graphic Narratives Under Pressure.  We will explore this theme broadly to include the many ways our community of graphic medicine authors, artists, and scholars leverage the medium of comics to propose diverse perspectives on healthcare, illness, disability, or social medicine, often working under various pressures, whether these relate to living with chronic illness, shifting institutional conditions for health and medical research and care practices, or other constraints such as time, healthcare disparities, ableism, and various forms of marginalization and prejudice.

Conference Topics

We will include presentations of a wide variety focusing on health, illness, caregiving, and disability, as well as the structural determinants of health as they intersect with comics in any form (e.g., graphic novels and memoirs, comic strips, manga, mini comics, web comics, etc.). We anticipate submissions will explore the following questions and topics, among others:

• How are you working with comics to draw perspectives on health, well-being, caregiving, illness, disability, and social medicine in your work?
• How are comics combining science and storytelling? How are comics doing the work of drawing underrepresented perspectives, or raising awareness about the pitfalls of  “a single story”? How are comics shining a light on the impersonality of numeric data, or addressing gaps in mainstream knowledge? What is the role of comics in trust, translation, and accessibility of scientific knowledge?
• How are you using graphic medicine to address current pressures and shifts in health science practice, care infrastructures and mandates, or public perceptions of medicine and health?
• How are you offering Graphic Medicine as a resource to draw underrepresented or innovative perspectives in or about educational settings in healthcare?
• How can Graphic Medicine serve as a resource to draw perspectives that combine health knowledge and personal story in ways that transcend the anecdotal?
• How does Graphic Medicine draw on interdisciplinary or underrepresented perspectives and address important topics, including, but not limited to, reproductive and disability rights, trans healthcare, health disparities and equity, death and dying, and social justice?
• What is the history of Graphic Medicine? What can graphic medicine offer from its history to meet the present moment?
• What is the future of Graphic Medicine? Or how is graphic medicine a medium to reimagine futures?

Presentation Formats

• Lightning talks: These 5-minute presentations should provide an engaging and concentrated synopsis of new, ongoing, or completed scholarly, creative, or professional work in Graphic Medicine.
• Oral presentations: These 15-minute presentations are largely for collaborative, interdisciplinary, or other work that requires and engages a longer presentation format.
• Panel discussions: These 90-minute dialogues or presentations involving a panel of speakers are meant to address a single topic from a variety of perspectives.
• Workshops: These 90-minute, hands-on, activity-driven sessions are designed for participants to gain skills with regard to comics. Suggested skills and topics for workshop submissions include, but are not limited to, visual storytelling tools, different art mediums and their techniques, illness narrative development, graphic health science, and graphic storytelling for specific purposes or audiences.

Hybridity plan: We recognize that not everyone may be able to join us in person, whether for health, accessibility, environmental, or political reasons. Your presence matters to us, and we are committed to creating space for you. The keynote address will be livestreamed to conference registrants. However, due to technological and logistical issues, we will not be able to organize a fully hybrid conference. Please keep an eye on the Graphic Medicine website and newsletter for future online and in-person gatherings and opportunities to connect with our community.

Submission and Selection Process

Abstracts will be peer-reviewed by an interdisciplinary selection committee.

Notification of acceptance or rejection will be completed by the week of February 23, 2026.

While we cannot guarantee that selected presenters will receive their first choice of presentation format, we will do our best to honor preferences.

Please note: Presenters are responsible for costs associated with their session (e.g., handouts and supplies) and personal expenses (travel, hotel, and registration fees). All presenters must register for the conference. Registration fee levels (to be determined) will be posted on the conference registration page in early 2026. Our intention is to make this conference logistically and financially accessible. Discounted rates and some limited scholarships will be available for students, artists, and others in need. Disability accommodations will be made available by request, and all venues will comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act.

Please direct all questions about the conference to GMConference2026@gmail.com.

One of many wonderful aspects about being involved in the Graphic Medicine community is the level of generosity, openness, and inclusivity. For many years now, I have been interested and involved in Graphic Medicine and it has been an overriding ambition to bring awareness about it to Ireland. In the summer of July 2024, I was the Conference Ambassador for the 15^th International Conference at the Technological University of the Shannon in Athlone, Ireland.  Awareness about Graphic Medicine here in Ireland has really grown. So much so that we recently launched one of the first Irish Graphic Medicine publications entitled Porter Loves Cleo by Matthew Kelly. You can read my review of Porter Loves Cleo on the Graphic Medicine website here. If you would like to purchase a copy of Porter Loves Cleo, go here.

The book launch was held at the Royal Irish Academy on Sept. 17^th in the evening. 

Matthew had been recently interviewed in the Irish Times Newspaper and then one of most popular national radio presenters (Ray D’Arcy)  saw the article and invited Matthew to be interviewed on his show. This, as well as a dynamic social media campaign, meant that the demand to tickets to attend the book launch far exceeded what was available! 

The attendees were from a range of backgrounds and interests and all ages. We kicked off with an introduction by me, describing how I was introduced to Matthew through one of his lecturers, Dr. Andy Wall (who was a committee member at GM 2024). Matthew followed by talking about the genesis and then development of the book. Mathew is a beautiful speaker, and at the heart of all this a gifted storyteller. His insights into life and loss are inspirational. His ability to connect emotions to illustrations is simply marvelous.

See here some pictures from the event!  The cupcakes with the book covers were beautiful and delicious!

For anyone interested in purchasing a copy of Porter Loves Cleo,

Connecting with Matthew, and reading his many works, has given me and many other Graphic Medicine enthusiasts in Ireland the incentive to establish the Irish Chapter of Graphic Medicine Spring of 2026! Here is our new logo. Stay tuned for more details in the coming year. 

After an extended fun opening chat, this month we interview Ellen Forney – cartoonist, mental health coach, and therapist-in-training – about her new book The Adventures of You! How to Write, Draw, and Star in Your Own Comics.

It is a great chat in which we discuss the new book, her “comics origin story,” embracing a “multihyphenate” life and the newspaper comic strips we loved reading as children. 

Shownotes:

• Drawing Together session discussed
• MK’s new book
• 10th Anniversary edition of the Graphic Medicine Manifesto (stay tuned for the launch event as its own podcast episode)
• New England Graphic Medicine Summit 10/24
• Nonfiction Comics Fest, Burlington, VT 11/15
• Ellen Forney’s website
• The Mind Reels
• Ellen’s University of Michigan lecture 10/22
• Peanuts!
• Feeding Ghosts
• The Cartoonists’ Club
• Spent
• Calvin & Hobbes 

Join us as AD Lewis moderates a discussion with the authors, editors, and publisher of the Graphic Medicine Manifesto 10th Anniversary edition!

To register, go to: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/graphic-medicine-manifesto-10th-anniversary-edition-launch-tickets-1748614526119?aff=oddtdtcreator

The Drawing Together community returned from summer break September 28. The session was hosted by MK Czerwiec, aka Comic Nurse. The goal for the session was to bring to mind influences and inspirations in our creative work so they are at the forefront of our minds during challenging times.

MK introduced her new book, LB & Me, created to celebrate the impact of legendary cartoonist Lynda Barry and the 15th anniversary of both Laydeez do Comics (LDComics) and Graphic Medicine.

For anyone not be familiar with Lynda Barry, a bit of an introduction. Lynda has been making comics since 1979. After a long career as an “underground” cartoonist, with many books, she pivoted to also being an educator. She now teaches at the University of Wisconsin Madison. Lynda was named a MacArthur genius in 2019. This short video is a great way to let Lynda introduce herself and to briefly experience firsthand her amazingness.

These three panels from MK’s new book served to introduce our warmup exercise.

Warmup exercise: Where did you first find yourself in Comics?

Respond to this question by creating a drawing and/or comic in 10 minutes.

And that’s as far as we got! The discussion of finding ourselves in comics took up the entire hour of our time together – and it was amazing! If you would like to see some work created during the session, search #DrawingTogetherGM on social media.

Two more exercises were planned, and here they are. The first is called “Filter Comics”

and the second is the “Four Panel Emergency Comic.”

If you care to share work you create on social media with these prompts, use #DrawingTogetherGM so we can find them and share the joy.

Finally, MK’s new book LB & Me includes tributes to Lynda Barry by fifteen other artists. If you would like to read them, or perhaps contribute a page to this collection yourself, contact MK via her website.

About the Artist

I am a poet, cartoonist, and librarian, who finds joy and meaning in creating comics and cartoons about my experience living with schizoaffective disorder. I draw these comics and cartoons because I find it difficult to capture my experiences with psychosis in words alone. When I combine words with drawings in a comic, I feel that I am able to express better what the experience of living with schizoaffective disorder is like.

About Andrew’s Work

I started drawing comics and cartoons about my illness after a prolonged psychotic episode that lasted from about 2020-2022. During this time, I was hospitalized five times. When I returned from my last stay in the hospital, I was desperate to capture what my experiences had been like during my episode, and I felt a sense of purpose drawing the cartoons, which I had lacked in a very stark way during my hospitalizations and, in some sense, my illness.

I think it is important to tell stories about psychosis, to put a human face on the illness, and convey what it is like to live with it. This can raise awareness about the illness, make it less scary-seeming to the public, and in doing so, make unfamiliar people more familiar.

I currently post cartoons on Instagram, as well as on my website. I am working on a longer comic about my illness, which can be found on my website under the “Recent Work” tab. I hope to continue working on this comic. There aren’t a lot of comics and cartoons out there about schizophrenia-spectrum illnesses, and I want to help fill in this lacuna.

Relevant Links

Read more Spotlight posts.