Kendra Boileau, assistant director and editor-in-chief of Penn State University Press, will present the lecture The Graphic Medicine Trend in Comics Publishing at 7 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 9, in Room 104 of the Blough-Weis Library at Susquehanna University.
Boileau developed the graphic medicine line of graphic novels for Penn State University Press and launched its Graphic Mundi imprint earlier this year with the release of COVID Chronicles, a comics anthology that expresses the anger, anxiety, fear and bewilderment felt in the era of COVID-19. Her lecture will explore the growing trend of graphic medicine in the publishing of comics and graphic novels among university presses and mainstream publishing outlets.
Boileau will provide context around the burgeoning genre of nonfiction graphic novels addressing important issues, including those concerning the field of graphic medicine. The term graphic medicine refers to the use of graphic novels, comics and visual storytelling in medical education, patient care and other applications related to healthcare.
To date, Graphic Mundi has published 13 titles, including A Chance, the story of a family whose daughter was born with cerebral palsy; Taking Turns, stories from an HIV/AIDS care unit; and Fat, one women’s account of her battle with anorexia and bulimia.
This lecture is sponsored by Susquehanna’s Medical Humanities Initiative. Medical humanities applies the following interdisciplinary fields to medical education and practice: humanities (literature, philosophy, history, religion), social sciences (anthropology, cultural studies, psychology, sociology, medicine) and the arts (theatre, visual arts, music).
