Comics and Healthcare: Recommendations, resources, and credits

This webpage provides links to material referenced in my talk Comics and Healthcare. They are listed in the order that they were mentioned/displayed, and they are grouped into the six sections of the talk.

This talk was first presented as Cartooning in Healthcare, a keynote speech at the 2012 Health and Science Communications Association conference. Some resources below may have been left out of later presentations due to time limits.

If you have questions or comments, please drop me a line using my contact form. Thanks!

- Cathy Leamy (@metrokitty), June 2013

Introduction

Epileptic by David B
"Hemmed In: A Tale of OCD" by bonbon
Heavy Flow by Jen Vaughn

Part 1: Types of comics

The Far Side, The Family Circus, Dilbert
Archie #636
Amazing Spider-Man #50
Footnotes in Gaza by Joe Sacco
Fun Home by Alison Bechdel
Naruto
The Drops of God by Tadashi Agi and Shu Okimoto
Awesome Hospital by Chad Bowers, Chris Sims, Matt Digges, Josh Krach
The New Yorker May 11, 2009 cover by Daniel Clowes
Political cartoon about Mayor Bloomberg by Taylor Jones

Part 2: Why comics are a useful communications tool

Peanuts by Charles Schulz
"Rosalind Frankin" from Dignifying Science written by Jim Ottaviani; selected page art by Stephanie Gladden
The Oatmeal: How to Pet a Kitty by Matthew Inman
Multiple Intelligences: The Theory in Practice by Howard Gardner
"Multiple Intelligences in Comics Education" by Marek Bennett
Wong-Baker FACES Pain Rating Scale ("the pain scale")
Thumbs Up! Living Well with Diabetes by Health Productions
PubMed Health: Crohn's Disease
Everything You Never Wanted to Know About Crohn's Disease by Tom Humberstone
"On the Beach" from Where's Wally (Where's Waldo? in US and Canada) by Martin Handford
Examples of human expression in comics:
- Strangers in Paradise: I Dream of You by Terry Moore
- "The Voodoo You Do - So Well!" by Tim Fish from The Book of Boy Trouble
- Kyle Baker, Cartoonist by Kyle Baker
Pietá by Michelangelo
"Next issue" text from Daredevil, volume 3 #1, #2, #5 by Mark Waid, Paulo Rivera, Joe Rivera, Marcos Martin, Javier Rodriguez
Panel of dancing girl - Gwen Stacy from Amazing Spider-Man, art by John Romita, Sr
Panel of shouting girl from The Tale of One Bad Rat by Bryan Talbot

Part 3: Examples of comics with health, wellness, medical, and educational themes

"About Sleep Apnea" booklet by Channing-Bete Company
The Docs graphic novel for Navy Corpsmen (scroll down to "Additional Publications"); Navy article with more info
Larry Gonick: The Cartoon Guide to Statistics (with Woollcott Smith), The Cartoon Guide to Chemistry (with Craig Criddle), and The Cartoon Guide to Genetics (with Mark Wheelis)
Google Chrome webcomic
Better, Drawn
A Mixed Cursing by Peter Dunlap-Shohl
Raised on Ritalin by Tyler Page
That Deaf Guy by Matt and Kay Daigle
Doonesbury - Signature Wound: Rocking TBI by G.B. Trudeau (also good: Doonesbury - The Long Road Home)

Busty Girl Comics by Rampaige (Paige Halsey Warren)

Part 4: The state of comics creation and distribution

Just the First Frame, webcomic sampler site
Diesel Sweeties by R. Stevens
Hark! A Vagrant by Kate Beaton
Kickstarter
The Order of the Stick by Rich Burlew
Womanthology: Heroic
Neil deGrasse Tyson and the Inconvenient Truth and Lunar Erratum by Maki Naro
Boggle! by Aria Heller (Comics Alliance interview)
xkcd by Randall Munroe
"Adventures in Depression" from Hyperbole and a Half by Allie
Dinosaur Comics by Ryan North
Rage Comics: Know Your Meme writeup and The Internet Anthropologist's Field Guide to Rage Faces

Part 5: Graphic Medicine and ways that comics are being used in the medical field

Medical Humanities journal
Physical exam sequence from Mom's Cancer by Brian Fies
"Medical Student: A Tragic Comedy" by Michael Pitzer from Penn State College of Medicine course "Graphic Storytelling and Medical Narratives" - Article describing this course
Hope Beyond Hype and Malaria: The Battle Against a Microscopic Killer - writeup on Graphic Medicine blog
Something Different About Dad by Kirsti Evans and John Swogger
Graphic Medicine book series from Penn State University Press
Graphic Medicine website
Conference - Ethics Under Cover: Comics, Medicine, and Society - July 5-7, 2013

Part 6: Next steps you can take (reading comics and making your own comics)

Cancer Made Me a Shallower Person by Miriam Engelberg
Monsters by Ken Dahl
Epileptic by David B
Psychiatric Tales: Eleven Graphic Stories About Mental Illness by Darryl Cunningham
Comics by Thom Ferrier
PS Magazine: The Best of the Preventive Maintenance Monthly, contents by Will Eisner, edited by Eddie Campbell
Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud
Drawing Words and Writing Pictures by Jessica Abel and Matt Madden
MICE: Massachusetts Independent Comics Expo - Sept. 28-29, 2013; Cambridge, MA
Comicons.org, list of comics festivals and conventions, maintained by Franklin Einspruch