''Mom's Cancer'' is an autobiographical

graphic medicine Graphic medicine connotes the use of comics in medical education and patient care. Overview The phrase ''graphic medicine'' was coined by Dr. Ian Williams, founder of GraphicMedicine.org, to denote "the intersection between the medium of comics an ...

webcomic Webcomics (also known as online comics or Internet comics) are comics published on the internet, such as on a website or a mobile app. While many webcomics are published exclusively online, others are also published in magazines, newspapers, or ...

by Brian Fies which describes his mother's fight against

metastatic Metastasis is a pathogenic agent's spreading from an initial or primary site to a different or secondary site within the host's body; the term is typically used when referring to metastasis by a cancerous tumor. The newly pathological sites, ...

lung cancer Lung cancer, also known as lung carcinoma, is a malignant tumor that begins in the lung. Lung cancer is caused by genetic damage to the DNA of cells in the airways, often caused by cigarette smoking or inhaling damaging chemicals. Damaged ...

, as well as his family's reactions to it. ''Mom's Cancer'' was the first webcomic to win an

Eisner Award The Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards, commonly shortened to the Eisner Awards, are awards for creative achievement in American comic books. They are regarded as the most prestigious and significant awards in the comic industry and often referred ...

, winning in 2005. Its print collection, published in 2006, won a

Harvey Award The Harvey Awards are given for achievement in comic books. Named for writer-artist Harvey Kurtzman, the Harvey Awards were founded by Gary Groth in 1988, president of the publisher Fantagraphics, to be a successor to the Kirby Awards, which were ...

and a

Deutscher Jugendliteraturpreis The (German Youth Literature Award) is an annual award established in 1956 by the Federal Ministry of Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth to recognise outstanding works of children's and young adult literature. It is Germany's only ...

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, ndnot 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."

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. The comic is no longer hosted there, but appears in full on

GoComics GoComics is a website launched in 2005 by the digital entertainment provider Uclick. It was originally created as a distribution portal for comic strips on mobile phones. However, in 2006, the site was redesigned and expanded to include online st ...

. The webcomic was published as a graphic novel by Harry N. Abrams Inc. in March 2006.

Reception

Awards

''Mom's Cancer'' was the first webcomic to receive an

. 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,'' as well as the

Lulu Blooker Prize Lulu Press, Inc., doing business under trade name Lulu, is an online print-on-demand, self-publishing, and distribution platform. By 2014, it had issued approximately two million titles. The company's founder is Red Hat co-founder Bob Young (bu ...

in its Comics category. The German edition of the graphic novel received the

(German Youth Literature Prize) in the Non-Fiction category. ''Mom's Cancer'' was also nominated for a

Quill Award The Quill Award was an American literary award that ran for three years, from 2005 to 2007. It was a "consumer-driven award created to inspire reading while promoting literacy". The Quills Foundation, the organization behind the award, was supp ...

and two further Eisner Awards.

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." Several scientific papers have cited ''Mom's Cancer'' when examining

medical humanities Medical humanities is an interdisciplinary field of medicine which includes the humanities (philosophy of medicine, medical ethics and bioethics, history of medicine, literary studies and religion), social science (psychology, medical sociology, m ...

such as doctor-patient interactions and narratives around illness.

About the author

''Mom's Cancer'' was created by Brian Fies (pronounced ). Fies also wrote ''The Last Mechanical Monster'', which was also nominated for an Eisner Award in 2014. Other works by Fies include ''Whatever Happened to the World of Tomorrow?'' 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. Fies was given an

Inkpot Award The Inkpot Award is an honor bestowed annually since 1974 by Comic-Con International. It is given to professionals in the fields of comic books, comic strips, animation, science fiction, and related areas of popular culture, at Comic-Con Internati ...

in 2018.

References

External links

* {{Inkpot Award 2010s Webcomics in print Cancer awareness Diseases and disorders in comics Medical humanities Eisner Award winners Abrams Books books 2004 webcomic debuts Literature about cancer