Graphic Medicine

The comics below were created by students in my doctoral seminar, WMNST 577, Graphic Feminism: English and Women's Studies, Fall 2016.

Crohn's/colitis is a partially genetic, partially environmental disease where one's lower intestines are constantly angry, inflammed, and confused about any manner of things. This can make normally "safe" foods potential diarrhea bombs, can cause extreme nausea at the drop of a hat, and can lead to infections, lost work, and even weird things like eye inflammation. A month and a half ago I was tentatively diagnosed with Crohn's after a multi-day fever led me almost by chance to see a doctor after an unrelated appointment in the same building. Internal and external hemerrhoids, inflammation and bloody stools, and general abdominal pain led the doctor to recommend seeing a specialist and to get a colonoscopy for a definitive answer. That was placed on hold, however, due to two successive emergency room visits to a rapidly developing set of perianal abcesses, a common complication in those with Crohn's.

One surgery, several appointments, and many many medical bills later, I'm attempting to navigate graduate school with an invisible disease that isn't well known and is certainly not discussed in casual conversation. Illnesses like Crohn's become feminist issues when they are stigmatized due to being un-feminine, cause loss of work in a neoliberal, precarious locale like academia, and highlight existing inequities at the intersection of gender, sexuality, class, and health. Thus, this comic seeks to explore a tiny segment of my experiences thus far.

-Lars

Regarding my technique: I didn’t trace or paste anything but rather worked from the models of Bushmiller’s strips and from the handwriting examples in “Goldie.” I drew mostly freehand in blue pencil, filled in with black Sharpie, scanned my pages, and used the recoloring and eyedropper features of Word to blend the drawings with their square frames. I was happy with the results.

I drew this comic as a way of exploring my own uncertainty about what feminism is. I’m obviously familiar with the common-sense idea of a political or critical concern with female identity and equality but I was (and am, I suppose) unclear what this would mean given the ambiguity of gender. It seems like feminism is dependent upon some categorical difference but how to identify that difference without resorting to an normative conception of identity eludes me. Since most of my exposure to feminist thinking has been through literary theory I’ve found that I can’t make a clear distinction between, say, feminist theory and queer theory, beyond the reductive difference of gender and sexuality.

As I worked on my comic I began to realize I was drawing something closer to a parody of my question than an answer to it and I began imagining the story in the style of the PSAs that were peppered into the Saturday morning cartoons of my childhood; bizarre caricatures with good intentions and questionable content. Obviously the comic is a work in progress. I’d like to caption the first page with an internal monologue about being concerned when choosing a bathroom as a transition to the classroom questioning of what feminism is. And, while I rather like the sudden appearance of a floating feminist cat I think some transition, at least a panel of reaction “who are you guys” is in order before moving to the main PSA adventures section. Again, I see the missing panels/pages of Ms Conceptions and crew as likely being the classic PSA monologue condemning homophobia based on normative gender roles concluding with a suggestion that feminism is hard to define because it is a process and not a fixed category.

STUDENT COMICS