Fall 2023 Update - MK Czerwiec

Once again, it’s been a minute since posting. What have I been up to? Many things! Here are a few highlights of the year via photos.

My colleague Brian Callender and I again taught our ten week Death Panels course at the University of Chicago.

Students worked with texts of the Ars Moriendi and other archival works in the special collections. They created amazing comics, explored their thoughts and feelings about advance care planning, dying, death, and more.

I had the honor of serving as the inaugural Kingfisher Institute Visiting Fellow at Creighton University. Here I am with my inspiring colleagues Rachel Mindrup and Tracy Leavelle. I visited both the Phoenix and Omaha campuses. This was taken at an exhibit of work by Rachel’s art students in Omaha.

at the new Creighton Phoenix medical campus. The patient care simulation labs here are astonishing.

And here I am teaching graphic medicine in Rachel’s art class. In Omaha we fit in teaching nine different classes in four days!

Next I served as the Cherng Distinguished Scholar at Mizzou where I gave a public lecture and taught in several classes.

A nice article discussed my lecture in the Columbia Missourian.

At the Columbus, MO Museum. Curators and Joan Stack (second from right) shared original work done by Joan’s father, Frank Stack. Frank illustrated Harvey Pekar & Joyce Brabner’s *Our Cancer Year*, an early example of graphic medicine.

You can read more about Frank Stack at the University of Missouri here.

My work with the Graphic Medicine International Collective continued as I curated the website, coordinated our monthly Drawing Together events (that’s a link to one I hosted,) conducted an occasional podcast interview, and participated in our GMIC strategic planning retreat. We have much to look forward toward in the coming years.

With colleagues and fellow GMIC board members Ebru Ustundag and Michael Green at the University of Chicago.

The GMIC Board also hosted our 2023 Annual Conference in Toronto. From right are our key organizers, Shelley Wall and Ebru Ustundag. Continuing to the left are Matthew Noe, Alex Thomas, and Michael Green. Board members Theresa Rojas and Ian Williams were unable to join us in person and they were missed. The presentations were, once again, mind blowing. It was terrific to be with the Graphic Medicine community in person again.

The next highlight of my summer was the American Library Association conference in Chicago.

The Graphic Mundi table at the American Library Association annual conference. Much fun was had by all!

Among many high points of this conference was working and presenting with Rob Kirby AND being featured in Rob’s diary comic! I’ve been a fan of Rob’s work for years. He was launching his terrific new book, Marry Me a Little. I’ll let Rob share what we did at the conference with our fab colleagues Maureen Burdock and Kendra Boileau.

Next up (after much hiking, see my Instagram for those photos) was a trip to Baltimore, MD where I attended one of my favorite comic gatherings, the Small Press Expo. No speaking and only one signing freed me up to enjoy an overwhelming amount of fantastic comics and related panels.

SPX hosted the world premiere of Married to Comics, a warm and honest portrayal of the legendary cartoonists Carol Tyler and Justin Green.

I highly recommend seeing this film when you have the opportunity.

Next up was a drive to nearby Hope College where I was honored to share the stage with my colleague Elizabeth Trembley as Jack Ridl Visiting Writers. The school paper did a nice story about our event here.

Students were engaged and enthusiastic, with terrific questions. We even had theater majors helping us with our live readings!

And I’ve been making comics, of course, mostly in preparation for my next book, which at this point might have the subtitle, “An Auto-ethnography of Moral Development.” Stay tuned for more as it presents itself.

In the meantime, I made this body map in response to a prompt from Wendy MacNaughton’s Grown Ups Table. Can’t recommend the group enthusiastically enough.

Check out Wendy’s New York Times illustrated piece “What You Can Learn From Drawing a Stranger.”

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