Hello, for the past year and a half I have been writing a comic book about being involuntarily hospitalized and treated in psychiatric wards, as well as the trauma and experiences that led up to...
Hello, for the past year and a half I have been writing a comic book about being involuntarily hospitalized and treated in psychiatric wards, as well as the trauma and experiences that led up to being committed.
I am writing this because I think it is a pervasively suppressed narrative: the mentally ill patient's own experience of being impersonally funneled through a largely coercive system. This is often difficult to relate to neurotypical people, who have not had the same psychological nor institutional experiences as a person with behavioral or developmental diversities, or who has been labelled "treatment-resistant" by various bureaucracies. Feel free to discuss the merits and shortcomings of psychiatry and institutional treatment, that's part of the point.
The comic is drawn with a sable brush and sumi ink on bristol, in the vein of traditional execution. They are then scanned, lettered, and bizarre footnotes are added.
This is the main website, mismedicated.com, and there is also an associated Instagram. I made a Tapas too, but I'm not really sure if I want to be on that platform or Webtoons, and I feel like I'm spreading myself thin. If anyone has advice on how people read comics these days, that would be great -- after a few more pages I'm hoping to do a print run :)
I did a quick read through so this is just the "at a glance" commentary. First off its beautiful, insanely well crafted, with a imagery that repeats itself to reveal the recurring sensations - I...
I did a quick read through so this is just the "at a glance" commentary.
First off its beautiful, insanely well crafted, with a imagery that repeats itself to reveal the recurring sensations - I am thinking of the split person with a skeleton inside here.
The story would gain to have some more structure, the text lower down is awesome as an aside, but I think the tale would benefit from not relying too heavily on it since it can be mixed and with the dense imagery that needs reader interpretation that text can make each page too heavy.
The reason I am saying this is because I totally see the benefit of the looser structure and the density of each page. How they are describing the typhoon of emotions and sensations but from an outsiders vantage point they can quickly become overpowering unless interspersed with some sort of structure. Like a breather for the reader to regain some calm before diving back in.
This wouldn't be a problem if you wheren't such a good artist tbh so take it as a compliment. Even with a quick quick read through I felt slightly nauseous, distressed and panicky at times reading it.
I would suggest an outsiders view in for a couple of pages every 30-odd page. Drawn in a more clinical form and with a clearly structured comic approach (like 3x4 panels per page in the same shapes and layout) to really hammer in the sensations of paranoia, fear, and isolation in the rest. That disparity of your surroundings view and your own.
As for the other side, as a person who have had to convince someone who didn't want help that they needed it being on the other side of the situation is terrifying. Someone telling you that they don't want to go to a hospital and their fine and the next second teetering on the psychotic episode. At other times they claim you are abusing them for not letting them be, in the other they get full episodes and almost die as a result.
You get blamed and assaulted because the person in that situation doesn't understand that they are a threat to themselves and others as their connection to reality slips. Having to force someone you love who's raging, crying and thinks you're betraying them in to the care of the police to get them to a hospital is horrid. And since they don't remember the times you didn't but let them do what they wished and almost died as a result - they can't see that your options are impossible.
This is the first chapter and was meant to be a bit fast-paced/overwhelming, because that is sort of how being committed feels. Do you think the dense/overwhelming nature of the pages lends itself...
This is the first chapter and was meant to be a bit fast-paced/overwhelming, because that is sort of how being committed feels. Do you think the dense/overwhelming nature of the pages lends itself to this impression, or is it simply too chaotic? I don't mind it being a bit avant-garde/difficult to read, just so long as those qualities help communicate the experience through the medium.
I will think about the clinical format! I can't really speak that much to clinical expertise but maybe I can interview a nurse or something.
Yes I think the situation you've described with people not wanting to be committed is a big problem. In my opinion, the psychological health care system shouldn't be so traumatizing that people don't want to get help. I recently cited this paper (which may trigger you), Perceived Coercion During Admission Into Psychiatric Hospitalization Increases Risk of Suicide Attempts After Discharge, which definitely puts the issue into perspective. My hope is that by communicating why these experiences are retraumatizing or unhelpful, people can begin to imagine better alternative or protocol changes.
Another issue is that many "crazy people" have brains which function differently than neurotypicals', and often go into fight/flight/assault modes as you describe, which is totally an issue that self-perpetuates stigma against disinhibited sick people. It is generally handled as a personality problem to be sedated. I would argue it really should be treated through patient- and trauma-centric modalities that rehabilitate autonomic nervous responses to social and environmental triggers so that nervous system doesn't get thrown into violent or dysregulated and dissociated states. But that's expensive.
Before I start I want to say two things: I am in NO way claiming your experiences are irrelevant, untrue or not worthwhile. If it sounds like it at any point please bare in mind this isn't my...
Before I start I want to say two things:
I am in NO way claiming your experiences are irrelevant, untrue or not worthwhile. If it sounds like it at any point please bare in mind this isn't my first language and speech patterns etc is different.
You know way more than me on this subject and any question is so I can have your answer, not as a challenge - but to learn.
First I should also say that I am not from the US so don't know fekk-all about the process there. Here the police are... well their shits, but they at least have some training and requirements put on them to be able to be a police officer (recently and article of the "how dare they" quality was written where a young man was blocked from entering the police academy, even though "hes strong" because he lacked previous proven skill at helping others who are not in positions of power - they suggested he work a few years in a home for the elderly, or a kindergarten to pick up those skills - the usual suspect pundits where furious since he was "physically strong" (as if that does anything)) BUT here as in many other places medical care have been increasingly defunded, and the sections that goes under the axe first is things like nurses, wards and help psychiatric wards and units.
Which is something that just makes me angry every time I even think about it.
Would you say that your experience was affected by a constant understaffing? That the time spent would have been better had the ward have had more nurses on staff, less stressed out staff and staff more capable at being present and in the room of new admittances?
As for neuro-atypical (is that the right term? If not, sorry) people I am not one of them. I've had my run ins with burnouts and the anxiety/depression/phobia associated with that but thats similar but still insanely different all together. Still isn't fight/flight/assault modes just a common way of dealing with overwhelming stress? That the way our bodies react to situations are a-typical but its still the same stress pattern? If so, would more information of triggers be an effective way for you at those times? Like having a note saying "Shelley don't deal well with X/Y/Z" like a mute person may have a note stating "I'm mute but can hear you" to make it easier for neorotypical people in key professions to react correctly?
Plus you seem to live in larger cities - where normality and people who are not "normal" are avoided because there are too many people any way so for most random strangers someone behaving a-typical is an indicator of a bigger threat? Have you had any experience in smaller towns or communities?
Would - for example - smaller communities be a helpful way of living for neuro-atypical people (again, the term, don't know it)?
As for the artwork again - you are ACING the sensations you are setting out to describe so no criticism in that BUT it is overwhelming and for a good damn reason (you're good at this). So thinking of the readers experience may be good, you are "used" to the sensations you describe, for me at least they are overwhelming and alien so it can be too much without breathing breaks?
If you sell prints of pages at any point - ping me. Page 5, 7 and 30 are so well crafted that they are just "pieces of excellent art".
Yes, the experience was significantly impacted by understaffing and underfunding, and overbilling (a uniquely American combination). I would frequently have to wait 40 minutes for a nurse to...
Yes, the experience was significantly impacted by understaffing and underfunding, and overbilling (a uniquely American combination). I would frequently have to wait 40 minutes for a nurse to become available to dispense my medication -- literally just standing there blankly watching the clock in front of the front desk. Most of these places don't have adequate funding for effective therapies, so they go the psychiatric route. Private institutions are different and may provide additional therapies.
The term is "neurodiverse."
Yes, informing people of triggers is very helpful. The fight-or-flight states are more or less automatic, we don't decide to go into them (ask any combat veteran or ambulance technician). Just asking people not to be triggering isn't an end in itself though, there are effective cognitive and traumacentric therapies that help reduce one's response to triggers, which would be a more permanent solution than making trigger lists.
Yes, most homeless people have symptoms of PTSD and/or schizophrenia, and are more common in big cities. Homelessness and mental illness is a self-perpetuating cycle that isn't addressed well by most municipalities, obviously.
In smaller communities with more social support, people who are more prone to these sorts of illnesses are more likely to be incorporated into the group somehow, even if it is just someone's crazy aunt. However, many smaller communities are insular and self-protecting, and push out diverse individuals (psychologically or otherwise) unless their differences are already accepted. Meanwhile big cities endlessly bus their homeless around to different urban centers, so often nobody is getting help except the ones who already had it.
"neurodiverse"! Thank you! <3 Will try to remember the term and use it from now on. As for the triggering thing - I mean its hit or miss of course but I would love to have like a "ok heads up...
"neurodiverse"! Thank you! <3 Will try to remember the term and use it from now on.
As for the triggering thing - I mean its hit or miss of course but I would love to have like a "ok heads up here. We're gonna take the bus and I get pushed into this, if so can you do this?" kind of info from friends. I mean that demands so much more openness about mental health of course.
As for the proper therapy I am all for - the tricky bit is how to make the best course for each patient - which again makes this a "ffs give more tax money to health care!"
Did a complete read through now. My opinions still stand but I would like to add that the artwork is absolutely fucking aces. Many of the pages stand on their own legs as artwork and could be...
Did a complete read through now. My opinions still stand but I would like to add that the artwork is absolutely fucking aces. Many of the pages stand on their own legs as artwork and could be isolated and on their own - it really is a very very well made piece of art.
Wow. This is incredible work, and I'm saying that as someone who reads a lot of graphic novels (see: these pictures of my bookshelves). Your visual composition is absolutely amazing. This, to me,...
Wow. This is incredible work, and I'm saying that as someone who reads a lot of graphic novels (see: these pictures of my bookshelves). Your visual composition is absolutely amazing. This, to me, is find-a-publisher good, if that's a route that you would want to pursue.
Furthermore, your perspective is something very much needed. By sheer coincidence, I'm currently reading The Quiet Room by Lori Schiller, which is about her own experiences with mental illness and institutionalization, and while her story is considerably older than yours (it mostly focuses on her experiences in the 1980s), it carries with it many of the same themes. It's actually a bit disheartening to hear how similar things are now. I would have expected a lot more positive change in that time.
I might have been primed by your myriad references to other works in your footnotes, but your comic reminds me of several others. Neurocomic by Hana Ros and Matteo Farinella is a visual exploration of the workings of the brain, though it's intended to be more instructive than experiential like your work. Stitches by David Small has a different artwork style but is tonally similar, as everything is drawn with a sort of haunted, unsettling quality that acts as an aesthetic foundation for the entire story in much the same way that your drawings do. Meanwhile, your form of pairing visuals with footnotes and verbal descriptions is reminiscent of The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage by Sydney Padua.
I mention all of those simply to say that you clearly know what you're doing and the format you've chosen is ripe for your specific method of expression -- a type that I don't think can be adequately conveyed in any other medium. I think you've produced absolutely amazing work so far, and I look forward to its continuation. If you ever publish a physical book or books, I would be thrilled to add them to my shelves.
Thanks, this is very encouraging! I will look into the comics you mentioned, as I have not read any of them. My primary compositional inspirations are probably Blankets by Craig Thompson and...
Thanks, this is very encouraging! I will look into the comics you mentioned, as I have not read any of them. My primary compositional inspirations are probably Blankets by Craig Thompson and Epileptic by David B, and sometimes I see my work as just a bastard imposter hybrid of these two works. But that's how one learns, I suppose.
Yes, most depictions of mental wards that you would think to be outdated really aren't outdated at all. Things like One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest only differ from current reality on minor details, such as the substituting of indoor cigarette smoking with prescribed nicotine patches.
Thanks again, I will let you know once it reaches printing :)
Hello, This work really touched me. I've had friends who were committed (don't we all), but although I've been threatened with commitment, I've never been in that position myself. Thank you for...
Hello,
This work really touched me. I've had friends who were committed (don't we all), but although I've been threatened with commitment, I've never been in that position myself. Thank you for creating this.
The quotes are a wonderful touch. I feel like I got to know you a bit through the proxy of what quotes you selected - who must you be to pick this, and that, and the other quote? That was my favorite part. It's a little ironic that I feel like the way I learned about you was through the words of others.
Thanks! Some of the quotes are intentionally misattributed or mistated, I'm not even sure sometimes! A quote is a creative medium too, I think. Borges and David Foster Wallace did a lot of...
Thanks! Some of the quotes are intentionally misattributed or mistated, I'm not even sure sometimes! A quote is a creative medium too, I think. Borges and David Foster Wallace did a lot of semi-fictional quoting in their work, and I just think it's such an interesting way to blur the fourth wall to convey subjective realities.
Okay, I loved this. I struggle with depression and ADHD, and while I haven't been committed I have empathy for anyone who struggles with mental health. If you ever create a kickstarter to get this...
Okay, I loved this. I struggle with depression and ADHD, and while I haven't been committed I have empathy for anyone who struggles with mental health. If you ever create a kickstarter to get this published please let me know, I'd love to help fund this into a full series.
Would you be wiling to give me permission to download your comic and convert it to CBZ format? I try to backup any comics that I really like.
Also, If you are okay with me downloading/converting this, are you okay if I share it with friends? I would make sure the file had your name and site listed in the metadata.
Thank you! I will let you know, I am working on getting this first issue printed now. And yes, sure, share aware. It is published under Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 4.0, check the bottom of the page,...
Thank you! I will let you know, I am working on getting this first issue printed now.
And yes, sure, share aware. It is published under Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 4.0, check the bottom of the page, you should be okay as long as you attribute and don't sell it :)
This is just feedback for the site - I have yet to read the comic but I definitely will, because the art looks great from just the three pages I've seen. I would add an ability to go to the next...
This is just feedback for the site - I have yet to read the comic but I definitely will, because the art looks great from just the three pages I've seen. I would add an ability to go to the next page of the comic with the keyboard - probably with the arrow keys. Also, I don't know if you can do anything with it, but I keep getting a pop up making me accept cookies whenever I go to the next page, even if I accepted it already. Both of these things are fixed by reading on Tapas which you link to so it might be okay to leave it as it is. Looking forward to reading through it :). I will report back on how I liked it.
So I finished reading what's up so far and I love it! The art is so so amazing - really incredible work and your story shared is very interesting too. I have to say I am a huge fan of what I've...
So I finished reading what's up so far and I love it! The art is so so amazing - really incredible work and your story shared is very interesting too. I have to say I am a huge fan of what I've seen so far :). I can't wait for more!
I agree with others that the quality is so good that you could get a publisher and all that. I hope this blows up and a lot of people read this!
Before I read it, I wanted to let you know that your link goes directly to Page 30 instead of Page 1 so you may want to edit/re-submit this so people aren't confused or read the ending before the...
Before I read it, I wanted to let you know that your link goes directly to Page 30 instead of Page 1 so you may want to edit/re-submit this so people aren't confused or read the ending before the beginning.
Hello, for the past year and a half I have been writing a comic book about being involuntarily hospitalized and treated in psychiatric wards, as well as the trauma and experiences that led up to being committed.
I am writing this because I think it is a pervasively suppressed narrative: the mentally ill patient's own experience of being impersonally funneled through a largely coercive system. This is often difficult to relate to neurotypical people, who have not had the same psychological nor institutional experiences as a person with behavioral or developmental diversities, or who has been labelled "treatment-resistant" by various bureaucracies. Feel free to discuss the merits and shortcomings of psychiatry and institutional treatment, that's part of the point.
The comic is drawn with a sable brush and sumi ink on bristol, in the vein of traditional execution. They are then scanned, lettered, and bizarre footnotes are added.
This is the main website, mismedicated.com, and there is also an associated Instagram. I made a Tapas too, but I'm not really sure if I want to be on that platform or Webtoons, and I feel like I'm spreading myself thin. If anyone has advice on how people read comics these days, that would be great -- after a few more pages I'm hoping to do a print run :)
Thanks for reading.
I did a quick read through so this is just the "at a glance" commentary.
First off its beautiful, insanely well crafted, with a imagery that repeats itself to reveal the recurring sensations - I am thinking of the split person with a skeleton inside here.
The story would gain to have some more structure, the text lower down is awesome as an aside, but I think the tale would benefit from not relying too heavily on it since it can be mixed and with the dense imagery that needs reader interpretation that text can make each page too heavy.
The reason I am saying this is because I totally see the benefit of the looser structure and the density of each page. How they are describing the typhoon of emotions and sensations but from an outsiders vantage point they can quickly become overpowering unless interspersed with some sort of structure. Like a breather for the reader to regain some calm before diving back in.
This wouldn't be a problem if you wheren't such a good artist tbh so take it as a compliment. Even with a quick quick read through I felt slightly nauseous, distressed and panicky at times reading it.
I would suggest an outsiders view in for a couple of pages every 30-odd page. Drawn in a more clinical form and with a clearly structured comic approach (like 3x4 panels per page in the same shapes and layout) to really hammer in the sensations of paranoia, fear, and isolation in the rest. That disparity of your surroundings view and your own.
As for the other side, as a person who have had to convince someone who didn't want help that they needed it being on the other side of the situation is terrifying. Someone telling you that they don't want to go to a hospital and their fine and the next second teetering on the psychotic episode. At other times they claim you are abusing them for not letting them be, in the other they get full episodes and almost die as a result.
You get blamed and assaulted because the person in that situation doesn't understand that they are a threat to themselves and others as their connection to reality slips. Having to force someone you love who's raging, crying and thinks you're betraying them in to the care of the police to get them to a hospital is horrid. And since they don't remember the times you didn't but let them do what they wished and almost died as a result - they can't see that your options are impossible.
This is the first chapter and was meant to be a bit fast-paced/overwhelming, because that is sort of how being committed feels. Do you think the dense/overwhelming nature of the pages lends itself to this impression, or is it simply too chaotic? I don't mind it being a bit avant-garde/difficult to read, just so long as those qualities help communicate the experience through the medium.
I will think about the clinical format! I can't really speak that much to clinical expertise but maybe I can interview a nurse or something.
Yes I think the situation you've described with people not wanting to be committed is a big problem. In my opinion, the psychological health care system shouldn't be so traumatizing that people don't want to get help. I recently cited this paper (which may trigger you), Perceived Coercion During Admission Into Psychiatric Hospitalization Increases Risk of Suicide Attempts After Discharge, which definitely puts the issue into perspective. My hope is that by communicating why these experiences are retraumatizing or unhelpful, people can begin to imagine better alternative or protocol changes.
Another issue is that many "crazy people" have brains which function differently than neurotypicals', and often go into fight/flight/assault modes as you describe, which is totally an issue that self-perpetuates stigma against disinhibited sick people. It is generally handled as a personality problem to be sedated. I would argue it really should be treated through patient- and trauma-centric modalities that rehabilitate autonomic nervous responses to social and environmental triggers so that nervous system doesn't get thrown into violent or dysregulated and dissociated states. But that's expensive.
Before I start I want to say two things:
First I should also say that I am not from the US so don't know fekk-all about the process there. Here the police are... well their shits, but they at least have some training and requirements put on them to be able to be a police officer (recently and article of the "how dare they" quality was written where a young man was blocked from entering the police academy, even though "hes strong" because he lacked previous proven skill at helping others who are not in positions of power - they suggested he work a few years in a home for the elderly, or a kindergarten to pick up those skills - the usual suspect pundits where furious since he was "physically strong" (as if that does anything)) BUT here as in many other places medical care have been increasingly defunded, and the sections that goes under the axe first is things like nurses, wards and help psychiatric wards and units.
Which is something that just makes me angry every time I even think about it.
Would you say that your experience was affected by a constant understaffing? That the time spent would have been better had the ward have had more nurses on staff, less stressed out staff and staff more capable at being present and in the room of new admittances?
As for neuro-atypical (is that the right term? If not, sorry) people I am not one of them. I've had my run ins with burnouts and the anxiety/depression/phobia associated with that but thats similar but still insanely different all together. Still isn't fight/flight/assault modes just a common way of dealing with overwhelming stress? That the way our bodies react to situations are a-typical but its still the same stress pattern? If so, would more information of triggers be an effective way for you at those times? Like having a note saying "Shelley don't deal well with X/Y/Z" like a mute person may have a note stating "I'm mute but can hear you" to make it easier for neorotypical people in key professions to react correctly?
Plus you seem to live in larger cities - where normality and people who are not "normal" are avoided because there are too many people any way so for most random strangers someone behaving a-typical is an indicator of a bigger threat? Have you had any experience in smaller towns or communities?
Would - for example - smaller communities be a helpful way of living for neuro-atypical people (again, the term, don't know it)?
As for the artwork again - you are ACING the sensations you are setting out to describe so no criticism in that BUT it is overwhelming and for a good damn reason (you're good at this). So thinking of the readers experience may be good, you are "used" to the sensations you describe, for me at least they are overwhelming and alien so it can be too much without breathing breaks?
If you sell prints of pages at any point - ping me. Page 5, 7 and 30 are so well crafted that they are just "pieces of excellent art".
Yes, the experience was significantly impacted by understaffing and underfunding, and overbilling (a uniquely American combination). I would frequently have to wait 40 minutes for a nurse to become available to dispense my medication -- literally just standing there blankly watching the clock in front of the front desk. Most of these places don't have adequate funding for effective therapies, so they go the psychiatric route. Private institutions are different and may provide additional therapies.
The term is "neurodiverse."
Yes, informing people of triggers is very helpful. The fight-or-flight states are more or less automatic, we don't decide to go into them (ask any combat veteran or ambulance technician). Just asking people not to be triggering isn't an end in itself though, there are effective cognitive and traumacentric therapies that help reduce one's response to triggers, which would be a more permanent solution than making trigger lists.
Yes, most homeless people have symptoms of PTSD and/or schizophrenia, and are more common in big cities. Homelessness and mental illness is a self-perpetuating cycle that isn't addressed well by most municipalities, obviously.
In smaller communities with more social support, people who are more prone to these sorts of illnesses are more likely to be incorporated into the group somehow, even if it is just someone's crazy aunt. However, many smaller communities are insular and self-protecting, and push out diverse individuals (psychologically or otherwise) unless their differences are already accepted. Meanwhile big cities endlessly bus their homeless around to different urban centers, so often nobody is getting help except the ones who already had it.
"neurodiverse"! Thank you! <3 Will try to remember the term and use it from now on.
As for the triggering thing - I mean its hit or miss of course but I would love to have like a "ok heads up here. We're gonna take the bus and I get pushed into this, if so can you do this?" kind of info from friends. I mean that demands so much more openness about mental health of course.
As for the proper therapy I am all for - the tricky bit is how to make the best course for each patient - which again makes this a "ffs give more tax money to health care!"
Did a complete read through now. My opinions still stand but I would like to add that the artwork is absolutely fucking aces. Many of the pages stand on their own legs as artwork and could be isolated and on their own - it really is a very very well made piece of art.
Wow. This is incredible work, and I'm saying that as someone who reads a lot of graphic novels (see: these pictures of my bookshelves). Your visual composition is absolutely amazing. This, to me, is find-a-publisher good, if that's a route that you would want to pursue.
Furthermore, your perspective is something very much needed. By sheer coincidence, I'm currently reading The Quiet Room by Lori Schiller, which is about her own experiences with mental illness and institutionalization, and while her story is considerably older than yours (it mostly focuses on her experiences in the 1980s), it carries with it many of the same themes. It's actually a bit disheartening to hear how similar things are now. I would have expected a lot more positive change in that time.
I might have been primed by your myriad references to other works in your footnotes, but your comic reminds me of several others. Neurocomic by Hana Ros and Matteo Farinella is a visual exploration of the workings of the brain, though it's intended to be more instructive than experiential like your work. Stitches by David Small has a different artwork style but is tonally similar, as everything is drawn with a sort of haunted, unsettling quality that acts as an aesthetic foundation for the entire story in much the same way that your drawings do. Meanwhile, your form of pairing visuals with footnotes and verbal descriptions is reminiscent of The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage by Sydney Padua.
I mention all of those simply to say that you clearly know what you're doing and the format you've chosen is ripe for your specific method of expression -- a type that I don't think can be adequately conveyed in any other medium. I think you've produced absolutely amazing work so far, and I look forward to its continuation. If you ever publish a physical book or books, I would be thrilled to add them to my shelves.
Thanks, this is very encouraging! I will look into the comics you mentioned, as I have not read any of them. My primary compositional inspirations are probably Blankets by Craig Thompson and Epileptic by David B, and sometimes I see my work as just a bastard imposter hybrid of these two works. But that's how one learns, I suppose.
Yes, most depictions of mental wards that you would think to be outdated really aren't outdated at all. Things like One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest only differ from current reality on minor details, such as the substituting of indoor cigarette smoking with prescribed nicotine patches.
Thanks again, I will let you know once it reaches printing :)
Hello,
This work really touched me. I've had friends who were committed (don't we all), but although I've been threatened with commitment, I've never been in that position myself. Thank you for creating this.
The quotes are a wonderful touch. I feel like I got to know you a bit through the proxy of what quotes you selected - who must you be to pick this, and that, and the other quote? That was my favorite part. It's a little ironic that I feel like the way I learned about you was through the words of others.
Thanks! Some of the quotes are intentionally misattributed or mistated, I'm not even sure sometimes! A quote is a creative medium too, I think. Borges and David Foster Wallace did a lot of semi-fictional quoting in their work, and I just think it's such an interesting way to blur the fourth wall to convey subjective realities.
Okay, I loved this. I struggle with depression and ADHD, and while I haven't been committed I have empathy for anyone who struggles with mental health. If you ever create a kickstarter to get this published please let me know, I'd love to help fund this into a full series.
Would you be wiling to give me permission to download your comic and convert it to CBZ format? I try to backup any comics that I really like.
Also, If you are okay with me downloading/converting this, are you okay if I share it with friends? I would make sure the file had your name and site listed in the metadata.
Thank you! I will let you know, I am working on getting this first issue printed now.
And yes, sure, share aware. It is published under Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 4.0, check the bottom of the page, you should be okay as long as you attribute and don't sell it :)
Thanks!
This is just feedback for the site - I have yet to read the comic but I definitely will, because the art looks great from just the three pages I've seen. I would add an ability to go to the next page of the comic with the keyboard - probably with the arrow keys. Also, I don't know if you can do anything with it, but I keep getting a pop up making me accept cookies whenever I go to the next page, even if I accepted it already. Both of these things are fixed by reading on Tapas which you link to so it might be okay to leave it as it is. Looking forward to reading through it :). I will report back on how I liked it.
So I finished reading what's up so far and I love it! The art is so so amazing - really incredible work and your story shared is very interesting too. I have to say I am a huge fan of what I've seen so far :). I can't wait for more!
I agree with others that the quality is so good that you could get a publisher and all that. I hope this blows up and a lot of people read this!
Before I read it, I wanted to let you know that your link goes directly to Page 30 instead of Page 1 so you may want to edit/re-submit this so people aren't confused or read the ending before the beginning.
Here is the link to the first page. That is just sort of how the website is setup, I will look into making the beginning more obvious, thanks :)