It’s been a crazy last five weeks in the Comic Nurse studio. Ian Williams, Welsh physician, comics creator, and master of the graphicmedicine.org domain
has been our guest. We’ve drawn collaborative comics (some of which are posted to the studio door, above left) taught a ‘Graphic Medicine’ seminar to second year med students at Northwestern Medical School, and gave lectures at Northwestern, the Art Institute of Chicago, Penn State University, and George Washington University Medical School. Phew. Plus we searched for crinoids on the Michigan shore, drank insane amounts of tea, acquired and experimented with new ink nibs, beat drums, and met with incredible artists & scholars such as Riva Lehrer, Hillary Chute, Cate Belling, Katie Watson, Tod Chambers, Alice Dreger, Rinko Endo, David Blatt & David Moore, Mita Mahato, Linda Raphael, Marc Raphael, Susan Squier, and Michael Green. Double phew.
In the process I’ve learned an incredible amount. I’m now starting the process of integrating all I’ve learned into my artistic & academic practice. It’s all very, very exciting and challenging.
To that end, here is the talk I gave at Northwestern Medical School just before Ian arrived, an introduction to Graphic Medicine. He gives the third lecture in this series, which will also be posted as a Graphic Medicine podcast in the coming weeks.