Graphic Medicine Manifesto

Graphic Medicine

by M.K. Czerwiec, Susan Merrill Squier, Michael J. Green

This inaugural volume in the Graphic Medicine series establishes the principles of graphic medicine and begins to map the field. The volume combines scholarly essays by members of the editorial team with previously unpublished visual narratives by Ian Williams and MK Czerwiec, and it includes arresting visual work from a wide range of graphic medicine practitioners. The book’s first section, featuring essays by Scott Smith and Susan Squier, argues that as a new area of scholarship, research on graphic medicine has the potential to challenge the conventional boundaries of academic disciplines, raise questions about their foundations, and reinvigorate literary scholarship—and the notion of the literary text—for a broader audience. The second section, incorporating essays by Michael Green and Kimberly Myers, demonstrates that graphic medicine narratives can engage members of the health professions with literary and visual representations and symbolic practices that offer patients, family members, physicians, and other caregivers new ways to experience and work with the complex challenges of the medical experience. The final section, by Ian Williams and MK Czerwiec, focuses on the practice of creating graphic narratives, iconography, drawing as a social practice, and the nature of comics as visual rhetoric. A conclusion (in comics form) testifies to the diverse and growing graphic medicine community. Two valuable bibliographies guide readers to comics and scholarly works relevant to the field.

Genres: Graphic Novels, Comics, Health, Nonfiction, Medicine, Medical, Science

208 pages, Paperback

First published May 15, 2015

Reviews

[Matthew Noe · Rating 5 out of 5]

I actually finished this a long while back, but never updated my status on here. I have more or less been keeping it on my person throughout the semester, using it for reference - and the references - while working on my 608 research project. I suspect I will be using it for a while to come. If you have ANY interest in comics, healthcare, or anywhere those areas touch, you need to pick this up. Hell, I'll lend you my copy and go buy another if you'll read it.

[Stephan Benzkofer · Rating 3 out of 5]

More research for a story I'm writing on graphic medicine.

[PF · Rating 5 out of 5]

I preordered this book when it first came out, because I could NOT STAND WAITING for it! I had to have it IMMEDIATELY. I was really glad I had, too. It arrived shortly before I was leaving town for a conference. I couldn't bear to leave town without, so I actually carried the whole big book in my luggage, and carried it around with me every day at the conference, waving it at anyone who didn't stop me. It's a brilliant work that explores much of the unjustified stigma associated with comics as well as highlighting the many ways in which visual communication modes, comics in particular, can lend themselves to not only a wide range of academic activities but also reach new audiences with information perspectives of value to them, and reach old audiences in new ways while building off of 'new' literacies. This much loved book is now stuffed with scraps of paper and notes, tattered and worn from the attention I've given it over the years. I may need to buy a new copy. Obviously, I cannot recommend this enough.

[Barrie · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book was interesting for about a chapter, but man--sooooo many words. Each chapter felt the same, just said by a different doctor or humanities professor or a nurse. The most annoying bit was the constant references to comics that weren't on pages near what they were talking about. I'm not about to flip back and forth, especially when sometimes this would happen 5-10 times on a single page. Seems like people were asked their thoughts on graphic novels involving medicine and then after writing the piece, the comics were added as an afterthought. Also, towards the end there was this annoying push to look for Graphic Medicine that I felt sick with the pounding on the head they were treating me with. The only reason I'm not giving it one star is that I found some good tidbits for my own personal medical graphic novel that I might not have found otherwise.

[Coatl S · Rating 3 out of 5]

A beautiful academic work that soon will become a classic.
It has the appeal of the comic, and you can feel the community spirit of the zines.

A must for everybody interested in health care communication, interested or not in graphic-medicine. It's a good start point.

[Rachel]

It's less graphic novel and more novel about graphic novels/graphic medicine. Surely interesting, but not what I was going for.

[Zachary · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fans of Comics will find this book very interesting and illuminating. It explores the relationship between a image and complex ideas surrounding the medical humanities. My rating isn't completely fair, because the writing in it was very concise and they language was lovely. I don't personally enjoy graphic narratives. I find the images and the words to at times be at odds with one another and often times they distract from the other element. But"GMM," used several examples showing the importance of meshing image and language to the art. If you have an interest in the medical humanities, I would say this is a must read.

[Davida · Rating 4 out of 5]

Browsed...interesting