Mom's Cancer
Cover of the printed graphic novel
Author(s)Brian Fies
Websitewww.momscancer.com/
Comic available at www.gocomics.com/moms-cancer
Current status/scheduleCompleted
Launch date2004
Genre(s)Autobiographical

Mom's Cancer is an autobiographical graphic medicine webcomic by Brian Fies which describes his mother's fight against metastatic lung cancer, as well as his family's reactions to it. Mom's Cancer was the first webcomic to win an Eisner Award, winning in 2005. Its print collection, published in 2006, won a Harvey Award and a Deutscher Jugendliteraturpreis.

Characters and story

There are four main characters in the story, all of which are part of the family. None of the characters are ever referred by name, and the author uses his relationships to identify them.

  • Mom: the author's mother; she is in her 60s, and suffers from stage IV metastatic lung cancer.
  • Me: The author, a "self-employed writer" in his 40s, and the eldest child.
  • Nurse Sis: One of the author's sisters; slightly younger than him, and a registered nurse.
  • Kid Sis: The author's youngest sister; an actress and writer who lives with her mother.

Aside from the main characters, there are several secondary characters who appear several times, most notably the author's stepfather and his mother's head doctor.

A reviewer described the story as "not a discussion about the science of cancer, [and] not a guidebook to the troubles one may face with this disease... through this graphic novel, Fies simply tries to make sense of and document the reality of the course of his mother’s illness and how it affected his family... he simply tells the reader how it is, how he felt, and how it happened... Mixed messages from different doctors contradict and confound one another. As Fies’ mother struggles (and to an extent, fails) to understand her illness she is made to feel less than by providers who belittle her concerns or simply put on a big smile. The pain, fear, and anguish that patients face once they leave the hospital is brought to the forefront throughout the book."[1]

Format

The story is divided into chapters, each one containing several multipanel pages. Although the webcomic is mostly presented in black and white, several chapters are done in full or partial color, primarily for effect or when color helps the understanding of the ideas that are presented. In total, there are thirty-three chapters, including an epilogue.

The comic was originally published Mom's Cancer on its own website.[2] The comic is no longer hosted there, but appears in full on GoComics.[3] The webcomic was published as a graphic novel by Harry N. Abrams Inc. in March 2006.[4]

Reception

Awards

Mom's Cancer was the first webcomic to receive an Eisner Award.[5] Fies won in 2005 under the newly-created category "Best Digital Comic". Fies also won a Harvey Award, in the Best New Talent category, for Mom's Cancer,[6][7] as well as the Lulu Blooker Prize in its Comics category.[8] The German edition of the graphic novel received the Deutscher Jugendliteraturpreis (German Youth Literature Prize) in the Non-Fiction category.[9][10] Mom's Cancer was also nominated for a Quill Award[11] and two further Eisner Awards.[12]

Reviews

Medical student Samantha Estevez, writing for the blog Graphic Medicine, encouraged anyone in medicine to read the work, saying "No matter what field of medicine you are in, you are sure to encounter cancer and Fies’ perspective may help you not only be a better physician for your patients but a better friend to them as well."[1] Several scientific papers have cited Mom's Cancer when examining medical humanities such as doctor-patient interactions and narratives around illness.[13][14][15][16][17][18]

About the author

Mom's Cancer was created by Brian Fies (pronounced /ˈfiːz/).[19] Fies also wrote The Last Mechanical Monster, which was also nominated for an Eisner Award in 2014.[5] Other works by Fies include Whatever Happened to the World of Tomorrow?[20] and the 18-page webcomic A Fire Story (later expanded to a 154-page book) which recounts the devastation caused by California wildfires in 2017 which destroyed his home.[19][21] Fies was given an Inkpot Award in 2018.[22]

References

  1. 1 2 Estevez, Samantha. "Mom's Cancer". Graphic Medicine. Retrieved 2021-04-06.
  2. ↑ "Index". 2004-05-07. Archived from the original on 2004-05-07. Retrieved 2021-04-06.
  3. ↑ "Today on Mom's Cancer - Comics by Brian Fies - GoComics". www.gocomics.com. Retrieved 2021-04-06.
  4. ↑ Thorne, Amy (2010-04-19). "Webcomics and Libraries". Graphic Novels and Comics in Libraries and Archives. Literary Criticism. p. 211. ISBN 978-0786456932.
  5. 1 2 Cruz, Larry (2014-07-10). "'The Last Mechanical Monster': No country for old villains". CBR. Retrieved 2021-04-06.
  6. ↑ "Previous Winners". www.harveyawards.com. Retrieved 2021-04-06.
  7. ↑ Fies, Brian (2007-10-05). "Mom's Cancer Blog: What My Harvey Award Looks Like". Mom's Cancer Blog. Retrieved 2021-04-06.
  8. ↑ "War book wins Blooker blog prize". BBC News. 2007-05-14. Retrieved 2021-04-07.
  9. ↑ www.akj.de, AKJ-. "Mutter hat Krebs". Arbeitskreis für Jugendliteratur e.V. (in German). Retrieved 2021-04-06.
  10. ↑ Fies, Brian (2007-10-12). "Deutscher Jugendliteraturpreis". Mom's Cancer Blog.
  11. ↑ "The Quill Awards | The 2006 Awards". thequills.org. 2007-06-06. Archived from the original on 2007-06-06.
  12. ↑ McElhatton, Greg (April 20, 2007). "2007 Eisner Award Nominees Announced". ComicsAlliance. Retrieved 2021-04-07.
  13. ↑ Pedri, Nancy; Staveley, Helene (2018). "Not Playing Around: Games in Graphic Illness Narratives". Literature and Medicine. 36 (1): 230–256. doi:10.1353/lm.2018.0010. ISSN 0278-9671. PMID 29961732. S2CID 49647925.
  14. ↑ Venkatesan, Sathyaraj; Saji, Sweetha (2018-09-01). "Graphic Medicine and the Limits of Biostatistics". AMA Journal of Ethics. 20 (9): E897–901. doi:10.1001/amajethics.2018.897. ISSN 2376-6980. PMID 30242823.
  15. ↑ Squier, Susan Merrill (2007). "Beyond nescience: the intersectional insights of health humanities". Perspectives in Biology and Medicine. 50 (3): 334–347. doi:10.1353/pbm.2007.0039. ISSN 0031-5982. PMID 17660629. S2CID 31236212.
  16. ↑ Venkatesan, Sathyaraj; Saji, Sweetha (December 2019). "(Un)bridgeable Chasms?: Doctor-Patient Interactions in Select Graphic Medical Narratives". The Journal of Medical Humanities. 40 (4): 591–605. doi:10.1007/s10912-018-9528-y. ISSN 1573-3645. PMID 30117008. S2CID 52014147.
  17. ↑ Venkatesan, Sathyaraj; Peter, Anu Mary (2015). "Life is a game: visual metaphors in Brian Fies's Mom's Cancer - Hektoen International". hekint.org. Retrieved 2021-04-06.
  18. ↑ Lee, Tzu-I; Sheu, Shuh-Jen; Chang, Hsueh-Chin; Hung, Yu-Ting; Tseng, Ling-Ming; Chou, Shin-Shang; Liang, Te-Hsin; Liu, Hui-Ju; Lu, Hui-Ling; Chen, Mei-Chun; Liu, Ying-Chun (2019-02-04). "Developing a Web-Based Comic for Newly Diagnosed Women With Breast Cancer: An Action Research Approach". Journal of Medical Internet Research. 21 (2): e10716. doi:10.2196/10716. ISSN 1439-4456. PMC 6378550. PMID 30714947.
  19. 1 2 Williams, David (2017-10-18). "He lost his home to the wildfire and poured his pain into a web comic". CNN.
  20. ↑ "Whatever Happened to the World of Tomorrow?". Wired. ISSN 1059-1028. Retrieved 2021-04-06.
  21. ↑ Hoffman, Alex (2019-08-12). "Review: A Fire Story by Brian Fies". Sequential State. Retrieved 2021-04-06.
  22. ↑ "Inkpot Award". Comic-Con International: San Diego. 2012-12-06. Retrieved 2021-04-06.
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