So… I started to read loads of graphic novels and trawled comics sites and shops for anything that could conceivably be of medical relevance. I wanted to see whether reading these works gave some insight into the situations of experiences they described- or rather I assumed they would give some insight but I wanted to work out what made comics a good medium for portraying these experiences. Not that I was coming up with any great new theory here- there is plenty of "comics theory" out there, some of it if fairly highbrow. A good place to start, if you want to understand how the medium works is Scott McCloud's classic "Understanding Comics" (1993).
When selecting material I didn't want to "over medicalise" life: as a GP you are presented, day in day out, with everything from neighbour's squabbles over bin bags to life threatening illness, and there is a tendency nowadays to think that everything is in someways medical- smelly feet, or shyness, or "anger problems" or bereavement. This is partly caused by control freak medics appropriating everyday occurrences, partly the fault of "big pharma", inventing new conditions for their new expensive drugs to treat, and partly caused by those people who look for answers to all of life's problems in a pill.
I decided to include stories that dealt with situations or conditions that might reasonably present to a GP surgery, like cancer, epilepsy, mental illness etc. I wanted to construct an argument along the lines that comics would be a useful resource for health professionals, giving some understanding of what it is like to suffer a particular condition of care for somebody who has that condition. What the arts and literature give, that textbooks don't, is an insight into how it feels to experience something, and I think comics, with its combination of text and image is well set up to provide acres of detail.
You know when you are reading a comic strip and, in the corner of each panel there may be another sequential story going on, something in the background? Like a mouse engaged in some humorous activity outside his hole in the skirting board while a the family discuss something at the dining table? Or the artist includes a little arrow pointing at, say, a pile of letters with a little caption heading the arrow that says "love letters"? Well comics can provide loads of visual footnotes and subsidiary information in each panel alongside the main story.
You may think I'm stating the bleeding obvious here, but there is more to follow.
ref: McCloud, S. (1993) Understanding comics. New York: Harper Collins
