This panel from the 2012 Toronto Comics & Medicine conference was moderated by Shelley Wall. First up is Steven Bergson, an administrator in the Research Department of UJA Federation of Greater Toronto and Vice-President of the Ontario chapter of the Association of Jewish Libraries. He also maintains three blogs on the subject of the representation of Jews and Israelis in comix, including this one. Of his presentation, “From Ivanhoe to Rex Mundi: Jews and Medicine in Comic Books, Comic Strips, and Graphic Novels” he writes, “Although the number of examples is quite small, a content analysis of certain comics can... Read More The post Toronto Panel 10: Graphic Fiction appeared first on Graphic Medicine.

This Toronto conference panel is moderated by Ian Williams. Managing difference through graphic cancer narratives, Juliet McMullin, Department of Anthropology, University of California, Riverside. Juliet writes of her talk, “A common refrain in cancer disparities research states that while cancer mortality rates have dramatically decreased over the past decade, these gains have not accrued evenly across populations. Yet, there is little surprise in the findings of difference in cancer mortality rates. Cancer has always been about difference; difference in cells, in a body, between bodies, in access to resources, knowledge, and medical care. Graphic novels that have cancer narratives at their... Read More The post Toronto Panel 12: Comics & Producing Identity appeared first on Graphic Medicine.

Our eleventh panel from Toronto and they just keep getting better and better! I, MK, had the honor of moderating this panel and am quite pleased to revisit and post it here. The first speaker is Michelle N. Huang,  a Master’s Student and University Graduate Fellow at The Pennsylvania State University. Her research interests include disability studies, war literature, and cultural studies in the twentieth century. She writes of her paper, The “Good Enough Daughter” in Special Exits and Tangles: “This paper examines the representation of maternal decline in two recent book-length autobiographical comics that portray individuals with Alzheimer’s disease: Tangles by Sarah Leavixtt and Special Exits by... Read More The post Toronto Panel 11: Comics & Caregiving appeared first on Graphic Medicine.

On this panel from Toronto, we’ll hear four great speakers. Unfortunately the audio starts slightly into Courtney’s presentation, but one can catch up quite quickly. First up is Courtney Donovan. Courtney is an assistant professor in the Department of Geography and Human Environmental Studies, San Francisco State University. Of her presentation, Visualizing Medical Data Through Graphic Novels, she writes, “In more recent years, there has been a burgeoning interest in graphic novels exploring health and medical themes. Researchers and practitioners across different fields have in particular been drawn to these texts as medical narratives. That is, these texts are ways... Read More The post Toronto Panel 7: Comics in Medical Practice appeared first on Graphic Medicine.

This panel from Toronto, “Comics and Rhetoric,” features Brandon Strubberg, Tim Elliot, and Matt Kaske Cirigliano. Brandon Strubberg and Tim Elliott are second-year PhD students in Technical Communication and Rhetoric at Texas Tech University. Brandon’s Master’s thesis focused on rhetorical representations of diabetic identity, and he has presented on the topic in the past. His current research projects include examining the interactions between identities of disease and technology as well as the usability of medical manuals. Tim has presented a number of papers on superhero comics and popular culture, mostly recently on a panel titled “Giant Sized Introductions: Using X-Men... Read More The post Toronto Panel 9: Comics & Rhetoric appeared first on Graphic Medicine.

Another fantastic panel from Toronto! This one is moderated by Brian Fies and discusses comics in relation to two major public health issues: smoking and hypertension. First up is Alan Blum, an authority on the tobacco industry. In 1977, he founded Doctors Ought to Care (DOC), the first physicians’ organization dedicated to ending the tobacco pandemic. As editor of the Medical Journal of Australia and the New York State Journal of Medicine in the 1980s, he published the first theme issues on smoking at any journal. He describes part one of his presentation, “Seeing patients: The sketchiest details” As a... Read More The post Toronto Panel Five: Comics and Public Health appeared first on Graphic Medicine.

This week’s podcast is the keynote address Joyce Brabner gave on July 23 at the 2012 Comics & Medicine conference in Toronto. She opens by describing her talk as, “What happens to us when we tell these stories.” Brabner then talks about some experiences in writing reportage comics, primarily about young victims of war and other atrocities. She talks about collaboration with her husband Harvey Pekar, and she talks about her role as “character Joyce.” During the Q&A after Joyce’s address, you will see in the AAC feed Rachel Abrams’ live drawing of Joyce’s keynote address. Download podcast. The post Joyce Brabner’s Toronto Keynote Address appeared first on Graphic Medicine.