Graphic medicine flourished in 2017. In a year of turmoil and change, artists and writers continued to use the medium of comics in a manner consistent with its historical role—to challenge conventions, question assumptions, and address taboo topics by combining words and images sequentially.
Two book-length comics stood out in a crowded field: Last Things: A Graphic Memoir of Loss and Love1 by Marissa Moss and Taking Turns: Stories from HIV/AIDS Care Unit 371 by MK Czerwiec.2 These memoirs both address death and dying, speaking from the perspective of a family caregiver in Last Things and from the perspective of a nurse in Taking Turns. In an era where there is no shortage of memoirs about illness and dying, these works offer bracing alternatives to conventional narratives that typically reach for a silver lining when addressing experiences of illness, pain, suffering, and inevitable decline.