Welcome to the new year! Here’s hoping 2026 gets better than it’s starting. It’s a rare sunny day in snowy Southwest Michigan so that’s a nice distraction from my suspicion that I might be getting a cold. Or the flu that’s going around. Crossing fingers and taking my immunity gummies. (They may be just a placebo, but the placebo effect is still an effect, right?)
As stated in prior posts, I was on a teaching sabbatical to complete my latest book project about comics, the health humanities, being a dork, the importance of community, and Lynda Barry (who is definitely not a dork.)
The highlight of my spring was travel to California. There were two best bits of that trip. The first was walking through the awe-inspiring old growth coast redwoods of Muir Woods. Best hike ever.
Later that trip, friends and I visited the Charles M. Schulz Museum and Research Center in Santa Rosa. We had the honor of meeting Mrs. Jean Schulz herself! What a treat. (Click on any image to enlarge.)
Recognize a familiar face? That’s right, it’s Brian Fies! Brian Fies of Mom’s Cancer and A Fire Story and Whatever Happened to the World of Tomorrow fame. Brian was kind enough to meet us at the museum and show us around, introduce us to a few key folks, and share his love (and knowledge!) of Peanuts. In fact, there has been a series of four-panel strips stuck in my psyche since I was a kid, and I could never find it in my books. I wanted the reference for a future project, and of course, Brian found it for me. This is a reference to that series… and perhaps the project about adoption to follow? Time will tell.
After visiting the museum, Brian invited us to his studio. He shared the exciting news that Abrams would be releasing an updated, 32 pages of all-new material, twentieth anniversary edition of Mom’s Cancer! (Available for pre-order now!!! Releases March 3.)
But that wasn’t even the best part. In his studio, among the amazing work surrounding me, trying to take all of it in, Brian asked if I would write the foreword to the anniversary edition of Mom’s Cancer. Honored, thrilled, excited, floored, and humbled. Whatever all those words are that describe the feeling when your chest swells and you may cry. In the midst of all that emoting, I had the good sense to say, “YES.”
The next morning I woke up and went for a walk in the cool California mist. I voice dictated the first draft of my foreword, bringing to mind all the ways Mom’s Cancer has changed and improved my life and helped birth the entire graphic medicine movement. (I shaped that first draft into a cohesive essay in the dark corner of a hotel bar in Philadelphia. More on that trip later.)
Before leaving Brian’s studio, I also was thrilled to see that the first page of the original art for the Graphic Medicine Manifesto introduction hangs on his wall. Most of this page was drawn by Ian Williams. We decided to send it to Brian to help replace some of the precious art he lost in the 2017 Tubbs fire. Plus he’s in the drawing!
In March I was invited to Boston to participate in a Harvard Radcliffe Institute seminar. I knew when I walked in the room and saw toys, stickers, and markers that I might have something to contribute to this brilliant group. These were my people.
By spring I was ready to revel in the unfolding of nature, work the garden, get back to bike rides and running. I also got serious with my guitar lessons by starting a course at the Old Town School of Folk Music in Chicago. What a wonderful place. We used to live three blocks away, I never took a lesson. Now I travel 70 miles a week. Worth it. I can play at least four whole songs!
All winter and spring I kept working on my latest book, and I was thrilled to have it ready for the 15th Anniversary of Laydeez do Comics online comics fair. After that ended it became available via my website as I decided to self publish, my first foray into this world. It was a learning curve, but isn’t there always at least one for every new endeavor?
In April I attended the Health Humanities Consortium conference in Philadelphia. I visited the Mutter Museum, co-presented a death panels workshop, listened to terrific talks and performances that widened my perspectives, spent time with cherished colleagues, participated in a No Kings protest, and visited a historically and medically significant cemetery.
As there was no in-person graphic medicine conference this year, it was a dahlia growing, hiking, and Gelli printing summer. First, my bumper crop of dahlia, grown mostly from tubers I was gifted over the past two years.
Next, Gelli printing. You can hear me revel in my love of Gelli printing, and how it further connects me to nature, in the introduction to the latest episode of the Graphic Medicine Podcast. (Stay for the interview with Shay Mirk about the TERRIFIC new book, Making Nonfiction Comics.) Some of the prints below were made with the flowers you see above.
We took a quick detour to Ohio en route to Pittsburgh to visit the Carol Tyler exhibit at the Billy Ireland Museum & Library.
It was so important a retrospective that the museum hosted a livestream of Carol giving a tour of the exhibit before it was taken down. They kindly granted the Graphic Medicine website the right to host the video on our YouTube channel.
Phew, that’s enough for now! This post is growing longer than I expected, so more in part two!