Graphic Medicine
Information on the use of the comics medium to explore issues in healthcare.
Public Health
Books in the Health Sciences Library
Becoming Unbecoming by Powerful denunciation of sexual violence against women. This is a no-holds-barred indictment of sexual violence against women and the shame and blame of its victims.
Bipolar Bear and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Health Insurance by A graphic novel about navigating the US medical insurance system and receiving fair and adequate coverage for mental illness. Based on the author's own experience in being treated for bipolar disorder
Doc-Related by Anecdotes and comics supported with timely data presented in a satirical format. Chapters identify what’s broken in our health care system for clinicians and patients, along with what we can do to fix them. Dr Valenzuela's experiences include private practice, academics, multi-specialty medical groups and integrated delivery systems.
Dying for Attention by The author describes her often arduous experiences interacting with the long-term care system to get quality nursing home care for her 90-year old mother.
Fights by A visceral and deeply affecting memoir of artist/author Joel Christian Gill, chronicling his youth and coming of age as a Black child in a chaotic landscape of rough city streets and foreboding backwoods.
Graphic Public Health by Addresses topics such as disease outbreaks, opioid addiction prevention, healthcare reform, and climate change in an empathetic, perspective-broadening way
Not My Shame by This graphic novel draws you into the experience of trauma and dissociation caused by sexual violence. It reveals the intrusive traumatic memories and distress experienced by a victim of childhood sexual exploitation in her adulthood and follows the process of coming to terms with her past through therapy and art.
Where We Live: Las Vegas Shooting Benefit Anthology by Collection of both fictional stories and actual eye-witness accounts of the October 1, 2017, Las Vegas, Nevada mass shooting - the largest in modern American history - resulting in 58 deaths and over 500 injured.
COVID Chronicles by A collection of short comics about the COVID-19 pandemic. Diverse artists address disruptions in work, school, and family life as well as failures in public policy, racial biases, and systemic inequalities revealed by the pandemic.
Webcomics
Pandemics
- America Isn’t Ready For a PandemicWhit Taylor is a cartoonist and public health professional. This comic is intended to educate the public about pandemic and the issues that could allow an outbreak to happen in the U.S.
- If history is a guide, schools will start requiring COVID vaccinesA historical timeline of vaccines in schools
- In/Vulnerable: Inequity in the Time of PandemicCreated in collaboration with Reveal from The Center for Investigative Reporting, In/Vulnerable captures both the shared experience of the pandemic and the ways it has laid bare the stark disparities that shape our lives.
- The Junior Disease Detectives: Operation OutbreakCDC, USDA, and 4-H developed “The Junior Disease Detectives: Operation Outbreak,” a graphic novel intended to educate youth audiences about variant flu and the real disease detective work conducted by public and animal health experts when outbreaks of infectious diseases occur.
- No Ordinary FluTargeting readers of all ages, this story tells the tale of a family's experience with the 1918 influenza pandemic. It explains what to expect in a severe pandemic and offers tips to help households prepare. This publication was created in anticipation of a severe pandemic similar to the one in 1918 and is available for download in multiple languages.
- Vaccines Work. Here Are the FactsThe risks, the misinformation, and the science behind history’s greatest life saver.
- When “Peanuts” Went All-In on VaccinationsCharles Schulz used his culturally monolithic comic strip to advocate for public health. But his approach had some serious shortcomings.
Violence and Victimization
- The Courage to be MeDr. Nina Burrows recounts her journey of sexual assault and healing.
- How I Leave YouA powerful graphic memoir of one woman's story of rape and resulting PTSD
Public Health Access and the Healthcare System
- The Doctor is LoadingA satirical comic showcasing a diminishing of the patient/provider relationship as a result of today's healthcare system and its heavy reliance on technology
- The Nib - Whit TaylorCartoonist with public health background. Explores and interrogates the issues of inequity in the healthcare system
- Public Health InsiderTimely comics about various aspects of the public health system
- Sketches from Outside the MarginsSeattle/King County's free pop-up clinic. Local cartoonists gathered stories from patients about the reasons they sought healthcare there. The comics they created from these stories offer intimate accounts of what it’s like to negotiate the healthcare system as a person in need.
- Waiting for Health EquityA fictional story of characters all brought to the same healthcare clinic in Colorado on the same day. The stories here help start conversations about the oppressive policies and practices that have very real consequences on the people served.
Built Environment
- Why Am I Scared to Ride a Bike?To save lives, cities need to design roads for people—not cars. How the built environment contributes to lack of safety for bicylclists
- Reclaiming the Sacrifice ZoneDescribing how an urban city's built environment has disproportional negative effects on under-served communities and the power of community organizing to affect positive change. Free downloadable pdf