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8th out of 63 books
—
43 voters
Marbles: Mania, Depression, Michelangelo, and Me
by
Ellen Forney
Cartoonist Ellen Forney explores the relationship between “crazy” and “creative” in this graphic memoir of her bipolar disorder, woven with stories of famous bipolar artists and writers.
Shortly before her thirtieth birthday, Forney was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. Flagrantly manic and terrified that medications would cause her to lose creativity, she began a years-lon...more
Shortly before her thirtieth birthday, Forney was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. Flagrantly manic and terrified that medications would cause her to lose creativity, she began a years-lon...more
Paperback, 256 pages
Published
November 6th 2012
by Gotham
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This graphic memoir about a young artist struggling with manic depression is like the chatty little sister to the works of Alison Bechdel. While Forney's work is less dense than Bechdel's, it is just as interesting and forthright. I initially picked this one up because Forney is the artist/illustrator of The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian. But I was quickly drawn into her tale of twenty-something angst where she tried to use her bipolar diagnosis to her creative advantage, exploring...more
this is so good. so so so good. i'm going to say, first of all, that the quality of the artwork is amazing. great drawing, sometimes really simple, sometimes really complex, with great utilization of über cool graphic devices (notably, a spiral notebook that seems like the real thing, ellen's real notebook, photographed, and may or may not be).
when i first got the book i quickly scanned it and saw that it dealt with bipolar disorder solely in medical terms, i.e. as something the only effective...more
when i first got the book i quickly scanned it and saw that it dealt with bipolar disorder solely in medical terms, i.e. as something the only effective...more
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Read a two-page excerpt here: http://graphicnovelreporter.com/conte... - this looks awesome.
http://andalittlewine.blogspot.com/20...
All of us who have suffered from, or who have loved someone who suffered from a mood disorder can related to Ellen Forney's struggle to cope with bipolar disorder. With brutal honesty and just as much humor and grace, Marbles documents Forney's entire two steps forward, one step back history.
Forney's pages have a rich variety. When framed, her pages are regularly three row, usually two column but occasionally mixing in a page-width row. When unframed, her...more
All of us who have suffered from, or who have loved someone who suffered from a mood disorder can related to Ellen Forney's struggle to cope with bipolar disorder. With brutal honesty and just as much humor and grace, Marbles documents Forney's entire two steps forward, one step back history.
Forney's pages have a rich variety. When framed, her pages are regularly three row, usually two column but occasionally mixing in a page-width row. When unframed, her...more
I found this book really engrossing. Forney addresses a lot of issues that come up when considering creative people and mental illness--and what it means to be a person ("creative" or not) dealing with mental illness. I think what's most....satisfying (?) about this book is how Forney's opinions and perspective change over the course of the book. She starts out being blatantly opposed to medication (other than her self-medication, smoking pot), yoga, or any wishy-washy methods that might detract...more
Interesting account of cartoonist Forney's experience with being diagnosed as bipolar, her battle with the mental illness, and her interest in the link between mental illness and artistic creativity. Works terrifically in the graphic novel type format. Sometimes funny, or wryly self-deprecating, illustrations prevent the work getting bogged down in navel gazing gone too far, and add a lot of information besides.
As a companion read to Too Bright To Hear, Too Loud To See, a recently released novel...more
As a companion read to Too Bright To Hear, Too Loud To See, a recently released novel...more
As an artist and someone that was recently diagnosed with depression, I was excited to get ahold of a copy of Ellen’s memoir. It just jumped out at me as one of those books that I just had to read, as it was clear to me she would talk about some of the same things that worried me about starting medication (how it would impact my creativity as an artist namely.) And I wasn’t disappointed.
Ellen’s life is an open book. She speaks her mind, is comfortable with her body, has no problem sharing it wi...more
Ellen’s life is an open book. She speaks her mind, is comfortable with her body, has no problem sharing it wi...more
Feb 22, 2013
Jim
rated it
4 of 5 stars
Shelves:
art,
friendship,
graphic-non-fiction,
medical,
sanity,
suicide,
wrinkle-in-time-reference,
women
first the positive, Forney writes/draws clearly and honestly from the viewpoint of a bipolar artist that has made it. she can write "it gets better" w/conviction. she's realistic, but hopeful.
and she deals w/the question "Can i be an artist w/out mania and on perscription mood changing drugs?" Her answer is well thought out and she gives both the pros and cons and the reasons for her choice.
she gives a lot of info on specific drugs (including marijuana). she quotes styron and jamison and give...more
and she deals w/the question "Can i be an artist w/out mania and on perscription mood changing drugs?" Her answer is well thought out and she gives both the pros and cons and the reasons for her choice.
she gives a lot of info on specific drugs (including marijuana). she quotes styron and jamison and give...more
I'm really excited at the boom in graphic memoirs in the last decade. Especially when something as fantastic as Marbles comes out of this boom. Ellen Forney's honest, emotional and darkly funny portrayal of being diagnosed and living with bipolar disorder is a powerful, engrossing read. I actually couldn't put it down and read the whole thing in one sitting. But I can already tell it's something I'll want to read more than once. Much the way Susanna Kaysen's Girl, Interruptedpresented her experi...more
Reason for Reading: This book talked to me and I had to read it. I'm bi-polar and had always been creative in various media. I had expanded into what I finally called "art" but since my various diagnoses and meds, I have not done my art or any form of creative expression besides my current so-called book reviews.
This gripped me right from the beginning. Ellen is Bipolar I, while I am a milder diagnosis but still I could relate to her in every way. I ended up taking notes while reading this at it...more
This gripped me right from the beginning. Ellen is Bipolar I, while I am a milder diagnosis but still I could relate to her in every way. I ended up taking notes while reading this at it...more
If you’re lucky, a special book comes into your life. If you’re exceptionally lucky this happens once a year or more. Near the end of 2012 all the big book sites and small bloggers crafted their lists of “Best of 2012″ and several books repeated regardless of the genre. Among them was Ellen Forney’s graphic novel memoir about her bipolar disorder and her history of decision-making regarding treatment, her worry that medication would change who she was and fear that all her marvelous artistic tal...more
A cartoonist newly diagnosed with bipolar disorder - what better topic for her to explore and share. Forney had always embraced the archetype (or maybe, stereotype?) of the crazy, tortured artist, and counts herself among them. At first, she resists medication, fearing she'll lose her creative edge. A good chunk of the book deals with her years of attempting to find the right meds, the right balance. Alongside this, she delves into that idea that art and depression and/or bipolar disorder are li...more
In this Graphic Memoir, Ellen Forney illustrates her diagnosis of bipolar disorder and the episodes of mania and depression that this caused over the course of four years afterwards. While exploring these episodes, Forney considers the idea of the "crazy artist," looking at famous artists such as Van Gogh, Plath, and O'Keeffe while wondering whether the cocktails of medications that her therapist suggest to her will zap away her creativity... and if so, whether it is worth it or not. Throughout...more
This book is an astonishingly candid look at the inside of the author's head when she is diagnosed with Bi-polar Disorder and then struggles for years to achieve balance with medications and lifestyle changes. The illustrations are delightful and the author often shares a wry humor about her situation. I particularly loved the sections on yoga and her experiences from the perspective of a creative person. Along the way, she mentions the large number of creatives from history who have suffered fr...more
In "Marbles," Ellen Forney maintains a difficult balance of gentle humor, honest autobiographical exploration, and external, additional information (from books she has read, and information she gathered through her experiences) to chronicle her personal battle with mania and depression. She confronts the pros and cons of medicating for mood just as carefully, presenting medical experiences alongside creative worries about what medication might do to her artistic abilities -- something with which...more
3.5 stars, really.
I picked up this book because 1) I like graphic novels, and 2) I was diagnosed with severe depression this past year and was interested how a graphic novel could approach such an immense topic.
Overall, I'd say Ms. Forney did a marvelous job. There were moments that stunningly captivated me, such as her sentence, "My own BRILLIANT, UNIQUE personality was neatly outlined right there in that inanimate stack of paper," and the image on pg. 70, as well as the astoundingly accurate d...more
I picked up this book because 1) I like graphic novels, and 2) I was diagnosed with severe depression this past year and was interested how a graphic novel could approach such an immense topic.
Overall, I'd say Ms. Forney did a marvelous job. There were moments that stunningly captivated me, such as her sentence, "My own BRILLIANT, UNIQUE personality was neatly outlined right there in that inanimate stack of paper," and the image on pg. 70, as well as the astoundingly accurate d...more
I think the graphic novel format really worked for this exploration of Forney's bipolar disorder and her struggle with it. She clearly thinks in pictures and using those pictures to express what she felt during her highs and lows was very effective.
My struggle with the book is that it seems to be written for a younger audience - particularly at the end when it gets a bit didactic when examining the possible link between mental illness and creativity. I felt a little talked down to. Yet, much of...more
My struggle with the book is that it seems to be written for a younger audience - particularly at the end when it gets a bit didactic when examining the possible link between mental illness and creativity. I felt a little talked down to. Yet, much of...more
I randomly found this book in my local B&N, and I was familiar with the author because she collaborated with Sherman Alexie on The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian. Her illustrations in that book were highly entertaining. In the past few weeks, one of my friends revealed to me that he has been diagnosed with Bipolar-2. With these thoughts on my mind, I decided to purchase this book.
It won't make its way into my classroom library because of some female nudity. Even though it's in c...more
It won't make its way into my classroom library because of some female nudity. Even though it's in c...more
Despite the dumb and unrepresentative title of this book, and despite cursing myself for picking up every single memoir comic that comes my way, this was pretty darn good. The story of Forney's bipolar diagnosis and learning to live with it, an honest, sober, and direct look at what were, often times, her maddeningly restless and off the wall personality swings. There was a lot of complicated drug-prescribing going on throughout the book, and as much as I struggled with that (how can it really h...more
It takes a lot of bravery to expose yourself like this, and even more so than a written memoir, the artist here not only shows the reader what she was going through, but also a visual representation of how she perceived herself at the time. That takes a lot of honesty. I think it is very difficult to be honest with yourself, but I imagine it's even more difficult to be honest at that level with friends, family, and a readership of thousands. That makes this book very compelling.
I enjoyed the art...more
I enjoyed the art...more
When Forney got a diagnosis of bipolar, one of the things she considered was the significant number of artists and writers who suffer(ed) from mental illness. It's easy to infer that the incidence is higher in this group, but Forney really made me wonder if, rather, most sufferers suffer in private and don't create works for the public, so the impression is skewed. Forney elegantly depicts her emotions from the manic highs to the depths of despair. Her drawings expressing how depression feels ar...more
With Marbles, Ellen Forney invites us in to the realities of what it's like to live with bipolar disorder. The blessing in this book is that it isn't harrowing or tearful (though there are times my heart wanted to hug her while I was reading) or dry, like many works on mood disorders. Instead it's frank and honest and beautiful and ugly and funny. Just like life (any life, even the lives of mysterious depressed and bipolar people).
I've been a fan of Forney's comic style for many years, and the i...more
I've been a fan of Forney's comic style for many years, and the i...more
Forney's Marbles is a modern, more LGBT-friendly, illustrated version of Jamison's An Unquiet Mind (which it references frequently) written for the Red Bull generation, and it skips lightly along the ties as the author chronicles her ride on the crazy train that is bipolar disorder. I confess to not particularly caring for Forney's style artistically, but her depiction of her diagnosis and the progression of her disease are spot-on (for the record, page 77 is my favorite, and one of the truest d...more
An unorthodox but highly effective portrayal of manic-depressive disorder. Being unipolar, my understanding of the former condition is one-sided at best, but I felt that the visual medium conveys the illogical simultaneity of a manic episode in a way that straight prose, being more or less sequential, cannot. Forney's portrayal of depressive episodes was less effective but only slightly so, and unquestionably sincere.
The experience of reading this was far more akin to that of fiction than of non...more
The experience of reading this was far more akin to that of fiction than of non...more
I can't say enough how much I loved this book. I saw her (and julia wertz) speak at The Strand in NYC and she was very interesting and honest. Her description of her massive struggle not just with the bipolar, but the fear of losing her creativity, while, heavy, overlays a base of hope and humour. Also love how she included sketches from her personal sketchbooks at the time, as well, as tips for what's helped her.
An honest, funny, interesting and educational exploration of Ellen Forney's bipolar disorder. The story starts from just before she was diagnosed and was in, what is now obvious to her, as a manic phase. The bulk of the book describes how she and her doctor figured out the best way to treat the condition (which varies enormously for each individual) and how she learned to live with it. There's a very touching scene toward the end where the older Ellen talks to the younger, just struggling to acc...more
It's no secret that loads of famous artists suffered mental health problems, often severe and untreated. But will medication rob one of one's creativity? What if the mental health issues are key to the art? In this unabashedly frank graphic memoir, Forney relates her adventures with bipolar syndrome, from diagnosis to eventual stability. Her ups and downs, as well as her fear of being "cured", were very familiar to me, almost uncomfortably so. It made me want to read some of the other books Forn...more
Apr 02, 2013
Alison
rated it
4 of 5 stars
Shelves:
american,
creativity,
graphic-novels,
library-book,
memoir,
contemporary,
non-fiction,
mental-health
When I first picked this up, I wasn't sure if I was going to really get pulled into the story or the “art style,” as my husband calls it. (The last graphic novel I readAre You My Mother? had incredibly rich drawings, so these seemed distractingly simple.)
But after just a few pages in, I was hooked and didn't think twice about the complexity of the drawings (unless, as was the case in several chapters, I was really impressed by the way the artist depicted certain emotions).
The author approaches...more
But after just a few pages in, I was hooked and didn't think twice about the complexity of the drawings (unless, as was the case in several chapters, I was really impressed by the way the artist depicted certain emotions).
The author approaches...more
A fascinating look at mental health and how it relates to creativity. The author takes readers on a journey from diagnosis (bipolar disorder) through the hectic back and forth game of trying to zero in on a treatment plan. She raises many valid questions regarding the fear that a successful treatment plan might put an end to her career as an artist. Much research is included about notable artists (poets, painters, writers etc) who battled various mental health disorders.
Artwork appears in black...more
Artwork appears in black...more
A woman cartoonist recently diagnosed with bipolar disorder? That sentence alone intrigued me. And the cartoonist, Ellen Forney, really came through in illustrating her journey with mental illness. As a frequent reader of graphic novels I was primarily interested in the how of this, just the technical stuff - how does one go about illustrating such extreme emotions without it looking well, cartoony? Forney did it and did it remarkably well. And not only that she is a good storyteller. She even s...more
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Ellen Forney grew up in Philadelphia and has lived in Seattle since 1989. She has been a professional cartoonist/ illustrator since 1992, and also sometimes paints, and dabbles in other artsy pursuits. She teaches Comics at Seattles Cornish College of the Arts. She drives a silver 1968 Mercury Cougar.
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