AAA Poster Session

Identity, Graphic Narrative and the Past – my poster for the American Anthropological Association session on graphic medicine. Click for larger version (warning: it’s a big file)

Thanks to everyone who came by the AAA Graphic Medicine poster session this morning. Some really interesting discussion and comments on all the posters. Nice to hear from some people that the session has inspired them to think of applications for comics in their own areas of expertise! There’s more on the One of Those People project here, and more blog posts on comics and archaeology generally here.

There were a number of times during the conference that the subject of comics came up. First, they came up in conversations about accessibility of information; second, they came up in conversations about representations of anthropology (and anthropologists) in the media and the public arena more generally; and third, they came up in specific conversations about ways to capture and present narratives of experience to a peer audience.

I couldn’t help thinking that the same arguments I have been making over the past four years about the use of comics in archaeology are entirely applicable to anthropology. Indeed, one of the points I have made consistently is that my arguments for using comics in archaeology are derived from the same arguments being made in medicine and, indeed, in science communication as a whole.

As graphic communication – including comics and graphic novels – becomes more mainstream, scientists and researchers who embrace the medium now will find themselves at the leading edge of a what could be described as a paradigm shift in communication habits. The written word alone – as beautiful as that might be – is not going to be the dominant information medium of the rest of the 21st century. Science – in all its aspects – needs to understand that and make graphic formats part of its core communication toolset.

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Excavation & Explanation

Looking for something…? (Le Ormasse! – 2012)

How should comics work in archaeology? What exactly is it that they should be doing? Educating? Explaining? Interpreting? What about justifying? Rationalising? Excusing? What about revealing? Exposing? Clarifying?

The professional and practical milleau of archaeology has its own language, it’s own focus, its own controversies and its own standards of excellence. Those of us who operate in that world understand how those things work. But there exists a broad audience who have an interest in the subject but do not operate within this closed world. These people, however, are often the bedrock of support (and funding) on which archaeology is built. How do we effectively communicate with that audience? And how do we do it in such a way that their understanding of archaeology meaningfully coincides with our own? After all, it must surely be the case that a better understanding of the reality of archaeology would lead to more sympathy for the demands archaeology makes on public and private time, money and resources – leading to better archaeological opportunities, research and results?

I’m not sure exactly what role comics will play in the recording or communication of archaeology. But I look to the way in which the graphic novel has allowed a new kind of discourse in other subjects as a model. I am specifically thinking of comics in the field of medicine: graphic medicine. Before Nicola Streeten wrote Billy, Me & You, or Katie Green Lighter Than My Shadow, or Ian Williams The Bad Doctor, or before Andrew Godfrey started to post his comics on Sicker Than Thou, I’m not sure stories like theirs were articulated outside a fairly restricted circle of people with a certain kind of interest or knowledge. Indeed, I’m not certain that many within that circle would have understood there to be a need for those stories to even be articulated in the first place – not out of a desire to keep control over them, necessarily, but through simply not understanding the virtue of making them visible.

This, I think, is the model I have in mind for comics and archaeology. I don’t know what role comics might play in archaeology because that role hasn’t been discovered yet. Yes, we have comics in archaeology that explain, educate and interpret – but there might well exist other kinds of comics that tell other kinds of stories; comics we don’t even know we need: comics which excavate and explain our profession, our practice… perhaps even ourselves.

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A New Kind of Mirror

I have been listening again to the Reith Lectures given by Dr. Atul Gawande on Radio Four. The whole lecture series has been fascinating, but I was particularly struck by something that came up in the questions following his first lecture: Why Do Doctors Fail? He describes this first lecture as being about “what we’re learning from opening the door, from seeing behind the curtains of medicine and health”; the second was to focus on “the reality of our necessary fallibility and how we cope effectively with the fact that our knowledge is always limited”; the series as a whole would be asking the question of what implications that honest look at medical fallibility had for “the global future of medicine.”

There was a question that lead Dr. Gawande to talk about visibility – or rather, the lack of it. The questioner was asking about how he makes to people outside the profession understand the conflicting criteria (from patients, insurers, peers, etc.) by which he’s being judged as a GP. He finishes by asking, “ . . .I’m curious about how we guard against unintended consequences of the measurable displacing the important.” Dr. Gawande replies: “To me, this is a cost of our invisibility…” He suggests that making practice more visible, making clear some of the complexities and the conflicts – rather than affecting a public facade of infallibility, perhaps – “would increase sympathy rather than decrease it for what happens in our jobs.” His language, however, suggests a certain ambivalence – his answer seems to want to reassure practitioners that being honest about what really goes on in the operating theatre and the GP’s office would actually increase public sympathy for the pressures and demands faced by medical practitioners, not further alienate them.

This subject comes up very often in discussions about graphic medicine: the desire on the part of the creators to make unseen aspects of medical practice visible. Dr. Gawande seems to be suggesting in his reply that there are problems in every profession that it doesn’t even known it has – but until someone holds a mirror up to them and makes them visible, it’s impossible to recognise or address them. The comic becomes a form of mirror, the specific experience of a surgeon, consultant, medical student or patient acting as a more general reflection of aspects of professional practice.

I feel like this is one of the things that comics can – and should – do in archaeology: hold up a mirror to our practice, to our assumptions, to our relationship with the past (and our relationship to the relationships with the past that others have, too). Perhaps, in looking at ourselves reflected in a new kind of mirror, we might begin to see and then address, problems which we don’t even realise archaeology has.

The practice of medicine, Dr. Gawande suggested, can be made better “…by removing the veil… Only by making what has been invisible visible. This is why I write, this is why we do the science we do – because this is how we understand – and that to me is the key to the future of medicine.”

Perhaps it’s the key to the future of archaeology, too.

 [All quotes from the BBC programme transcript]

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A Graphic Manifesto

Some of you will already know about this (because you’re involved in the writing of it!), but there’s a new “Graphic Medicine Manifesto” being published by graphicmedicine.org in collaboration with Penn State University Press. The manifesto will be the first in a planned series –

inspired by a growing awareness of the value of comics as an important resource for communicating about a range of issues broadly termed “medical.”

(quote from graphicmedicine.org)

One of the interesting elements in the manifesto is an acknowledgement of the diverse community of comics creators who have helped shaped the nascent genre so far. This is being done in a collection of one-panel “avatars” submitted by the graphic medicine community. I was invited to submit one myself – a genuine privilege. At a time when medicine can come across as increasingly remote, statistics-based, science-first, bureaucratic and de-humanising, the use of comics in medicine can be a very visible way of trying to – as I say here – foreground the human context of medical experience.

I’m looking forward to seeing this manifesto hit the shelves sometime this spring, and I hope it encourages even more people to create these kinds of comics.

 

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The Cage

The Cage – Rinko Endo, 2012

I’ve been reading another treat from one of the people I met at the Comics and Medicine conferences – Rinko Endo’s The Cage. One of the really interesting things about the whole genre of graphic medicine is the huge variety of texts being created. We might expect to find works on the experience of living with Cystic Fibrosis (Andrew Godfrey – Sicker Than Thou), miscarriage (Paula Knight – The Facts of Life), eating disorders (Katie Green – Lighter Than My Shadow), caring for a parent with Alzheimer’s (Sarah Leavitt –Tangles), or the experience of being a GP or a nurse (Ian Williams – Disrepute; MK Czerwiec – Comic Nurse). These are difficult topics, and these works deal with “big” themes and “serious” medical situations. Comics like these are surely what graphic medicine is all about. Comics gives these complex and difficult narratives a voice. But comics as a medium can give voice to other kinds of narratives as well, less “big”, perhaps, less “serious” – but no less significant or meaningful to their author: works about blushing, body odour, gallstones or, indeed, orthodontics.

Rinko Endo is a psychiatric nurse whom I first met in Chicago at the second Comics and Medicine conference. There she gave a paper on her comic Aggression Management Manga – a graphic guide for interns and trainees on how to manage difficult and aggressive patients. Her approach was innovative and cleverly culturally-specific. The end result was a not only a great comic, but a great teaching tool.

The Cage is her second complete comic work, and shares the same innovative approach as her Aggression Management Manga. Sub-titled “My Orthodontic Memoir”, it recounts her childhood diagnosis of malocclusion and the subsequent trials and tribulations of living with an orthodontic chin cap. I had a number of friends when I was a kid with various orthodontic retainers, braces and headgear. Beyond these, there’s a whole grim panoply of orthodontic appliances – power chains, coil springs, twin blocks, plates or retainers, facemasks, cervical headgear, headgear helmets, lip bumpers, palate expanders, elastics, bionaters, Herbst appliances, Wilson appliances, hybrid twinblocks, positioner retainers, face frames, face bows and jasper jumpers (thank you, Wikipedia for that exhaustive list) – none of which I’d ever heard of. A chin cap is another one of these devices that I’d never come across – having read The Cage, I’m glad.

How can being clamped into a naugahyde, rubber and steel cage not feel like being captured by the Inquisition? Rinko’s story brings out all the physical discomfort, the skin irritation and the claustrophobia of her chin cap – but also the terrible confusion, humiliation and uncertainty that clouded all around her as she tried to figure out what it was all about. Was her chin cap some kind of obscure punishment? Even the inevitable name-calling and bullying at school was nothing compared to the ambivalence of the adult world. Rinko recounts her Mother’s disappointment, her Aunt’s judgement, her sister’s betrayal and her dentist’s disapproval to illustrate the immediacy of her own frustration and helplessness – and the gulf between that experience and the wider, more long-term concerns of her Mother. It’s a clever juxtaposition, and one that recalls some of the scenes in Aggression Management Manga.

I love Rinko’s visual style. It’s the same cross-cultural mix – shōjo meets Family Circus, perhaps – that worked so well in Aggression Management Manga. She uses this mixture once again to excellent effect, effortlessly slipping in fantasy intercuts, snatches of dream-sequences and manga iconography that push the linear narrative. Her carefully-controlled line style and panel arrangements give her lively characterisations space to bounce around and come to life. Despite all the detail, there’s a certain openness to her panels that recalls colouring-books (I couldn’t resist with the cover – above) – adding a further stylistic reference to the mixture that again, works in the story’s favour.

The Cage ends with a message, one that draws on Rinko’s experience as a psychiatric nurse. It’s an interesting conclusion to the story, wrapped up with a couple of distinctive panels that make excellent use of Rinko’s unique visual style. The cage of the visual simile becomes a personal and professional metaphor. Having to wear a chin cap is not like having cancer or dealing with depression – but Rinko makes it very clear that it’s no less a transformative experience. The Cage is a thoughtful comic that brings out an unexpectedly serious lesson from an apparently trivial childhood experience.

Rinko heads to Japan later this year, and it will be interesting to see how this affects whatever comic project she undertakes next. I’d love to see her work with some of her experiences in psychiatric nursing – there are some fascinating glimpses of this towards the end of The Cage. On the other hand, it would also be interesting to see her turn her attention to subjects outside of medicine – perhaps even this move to Japan.

The Cage is, like Aggression Management Manga, a great example of someone using graphic medicine to bring together personal and professional experience – and a great example of the diversity and distinctiveness of the voices emerging within the genre.

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Ivy

I’ve been invited to contribute a two or four page comic to the lovely collaborative comics zine Ivy, put together by the wonderful Mita Mahato (theseframesarehidingplaces.com) and MK Czerwiec (comicnurse.com). Mita and MK are part of that excellent crowd of people I met two years ago at the Graphic Medicine conference in Chicago – that enthusiastic gang of comics creators and thinkers that included talents like Sarah Leavitt and Ian Williams.

The theme for Ivy 2 is “place“, and so I’ve been thinking about all sorts of things to do with places I’ve been and places I’ve worked in over the years. I’ve got a head full of ideas at the moment, so I’ve been scribbling away in my sketchbook this morning. I love the theme – seems both cosy and remote at the same time. I’ve promised to send Mita and MK sketches and ideas as they emerge for the Ivy blog, so head on over there to check progress.

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What is Graphic Medicine?

“Something Different About Dad” is part of an emerging and growing genre within comics – graphic medicine. Ian Williams, a medical practitioner and comics artists in North Wales has written an excellent article on the subject for Hektoen International Journal of Medical Humanities.

His article talks about what exactly graphic medicine is, why it’s important and how it’s different from other forms of medical literature. It’s an excellent summary of the genre and a great explanation of what it has to offer patients, practitioners and medicine in general.

Ian writes sharp, insightful and often painfully honest medical comics under the name Thom Ferrier. 

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Comics Forum and Thoughtbubble

Thoughtbubble 2011 - art by Becky Cloonan

Just come back from a fantastic five days at the Comics Forum 2011 conference and Thoughtbubble convention. I went to the forum primarily for the comics and medicine day on the Thursday, but thoroughly enjoyed the other two days as well.

Met up with all the fantastic graphic medicine crowd I met at the June conference in Chicago: MK Czerwiec, Mita Mahato, Ian Williams, Linda Raphael and Sarah Leavitt. Also met Andrew Godfrey of Sicker Than Thou for the first time, as well as Katie Green, Paula Knight, Nick Soucek, Simon Moreton (Better, Drawn) and Karrie Fransman.

Also good to meet Ian Hague, the Comics Forum director, and talk about the possibility of doing something with comics and archaeology next year – possibly with Hannah Wadle and include social anthropology as well. All inspiring in the truest sense of the word. Came back yesterday with a head buzzing full of ideas and a determination to get cracking on new projects as quickly as possible. Now to try and fit 28 hours in a day…

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Character Development

Kirsti and I are starting work seriously on “Something Different About Her”, now. We’ll be putting together a sample chapter over the next month or so, pulling together Kirsti’s thoughts and notes about content and storyline, and bringing into some sort of clarity my ideas about how everything should look. Been working off and on this week on various characters that may (or may not) feature in the book – picking out ideas from Kirsti’s storyboards and notes and working them up through a progression of sketches to try and fix the look and feel of the artwork.

I wanted to do (pardon the obvious pun) something different with the artwork this time round. In Something Different About Dad, the target audience was slightly younger than “Her”, so I tried to keep the artwork fairly open, consistent and clear. You can’t help but give a feel to anything, no matter how straight-forward you make it, but I wanted to avoid laying too much over visual characterisation on top of the drawings, so most of the characters in the story are fairly similar in appearance.

But this time around I wanted to do a bit more with the characters. Not only are we hoping to do the book in colour, but I’d like to do the drawings in ink rather than pencil – partly because the coloured-in ink drawings feel more solid and natural to me, but also because inking the drawings in allows me to play more with the pen and ink and get a wider variety of line-weight, etc.

So, to the left is one of the first character portraits I’ve worked up to anything like a finished state. I’ve no idea who this girl is, or what role she’ll play in the story, but this gives some indication of the direction the current look the artwork is taking.

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Better, Drawn

"A Birthday to Remember", p1 - Andrew Godfrey, at Better, Drawn (click to link)

Just got a link from Ian Williams about a great new blog: Better, Drawn – a site for comics about people and chronic illness.

The site’s only just started up, so there’s a limited amount of material on it at the moment, but it’s well worth checking out. This could be a really useful resource for so many different kinds of people – not just those with chronic illnesses, but those with trauma, injury, their families, carers and physicians. This is obviously a core part of “graphic medicine” so it’ll be interesting to see how the site develops.

Thanks again to Ian and Graphic Medicine for the link.

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