When I set out to write and draw my first graphic novel, Mom’s Cancer, more than 20 (!) years ago,* I faced a decision.
My first thought was to render it in a Gothic scritchy-scratchy crosshatched art style saturated in grays and blacks. I can draw like that if I want to, and darkness seemed apt for a cancer story.
My second thought was to do the opposite. I realized that gloomy art would repel the readers I was hoping to attract. Instead, I drew it open and light, with panel layouts that were easy to follow. I wanted it to feel familiar, comfortable, like an old comic strip. I’d lure readers in and then hit them with my family’s story.
(Incidentally, Mom’s Cancer is in landscape format because it began as a webcomic. Each page had the proportions of a computer monitor so visitors could read it without scrolling.)
If I’d ever had any doubts I made the right stylistic decision, they would have been erased at this year’s Graphic Medicine International Conference in Baltimore. More than two decades after I created Mom’s Cancer, medical schools still teach it and academic papers still cite it. When I thanked those teachers and scholars for using my work, many of them said something like:
“It’s so accessible.” “It’s a comic I hand to people who don’t read comics.” “It’s a great introduction to graphic medicine.”
To which, if I’m being honest, I can only reply, “Thanks. I did that on purpose.”
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* And I will take this opportunity to remind everyone that the 20th anniversary edition of Mom’s Cancer, featuring the entire original story plus 22 new pages, as well as new introductions and end notes, can be bought or ordered from your heroic local independent bookseller today!
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