This fall we are celebrating the launch of the 10th Anniversary edition of the Graphic Medicine Manifesto. This past summer was the 15th anniversary of the first graphic medicine conference. Here are Ian Williams, conference organizer, and I, each with keynote speaker Brian Fies. Ian’s conference program cover is on the right.
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how art has saved me in challenging times. Learning to make comics while working as an AIDS nurse, caring for my elderly family members as their health declined (stories detailed in my latest book, LB& Me), and colorful monoprinting right now, making and engaging with art has always helped me cope with bad times. And like bad storms, bad times do pass. We just need to get through them as intact as possible. I guess art can help us remain intact.
Ian and I started getting at some reasons why this works – through musings about play – in the original, not used, nearly lost to history, introduction to the first edition of the Graphic Medicine Manifesto.
This hasn’t seen the light of day since we abandoned this version back in 2012. But here it is. Perhaps I’ll print this up and share at our 16th annual conference next summer.
