Mom's Cancer is the true tale of my mother's
battle with metastatic lung cancer. The story describes how a
serious illness affects patient and family, both practically and emotionally,
in ways that I've discovered are very common. Many readers wrote to
tell me how surprised and relieved they were to learn they weren't
alone.
Mom's Cancer began as a serialized Internet comic, with
new installments added throughout 2004. Readership grew by word-of-mouth.
People who needed the story found it and told their friends about
it.
Mom's Cancer won the comics industry's Eisner Award for Best Digital
Comic, the Harvey Award, and the German Deutscher Jugendliteraturpreis
(Youth Literature Prize).
In early 2006, publisher
Harry
N. Abrams released a hardcover edition of
Mom's Cancer,
which unfortunately meant removing it from the Web. I'm very gratified
by the reviews and recognition the book has received, and
happy that my family's story is being used by medical professionals
and reaching people I wouldn't have thought possible when I began
writing it.
In particular, the international
Graphic Medicine movement
is a group of physicians, nurses, academics, caregivers, writers,
artists and cartoonists that I've been involved with for several years.
They're developing interesting ways of using comics in
healthcare to deliver information, tell stories (from both the patients'
and healthcare providers' perspectives), and teach medical humanities
to future doctors and nurses. It's an exciting, new and growing field
full of good people.
