On voicelessness, graphic medicine and beyond: an interview with Georgia Webber

ABSTRACT

The past decade has seen the burgeoning of a new genre of comics dealing with the experience of illness. Labelled as ‘graphic medicine’ by the British doctor and graphic novelist Ian Williams, the term refers to comics' distinctive engagment with  the discourse of health care. Georgia Webber’s Dumb is perhaps the first graphic medical text with the exception of David Small’s Stitches that coheres around issues of voice/voicelessness which also translates to questions of marginality, health justice and self-care. Webber is a Canadian author, comics artist and freelance editor whose interests lie at the intersection of health and art. Webber suffered from a minor throat injury in 2012 which propelled her into a harsh phase of living without a voice. Initially self-published and serialised in zine format in eight issues with introductions by comics artists and activists for each issue, Dumb was later published in 2018 as a single volume by Fantagraphics with an additional chapter titled ‘Contribution.’ Blending Bill Watterson inspired minimalistic art style while maintaining a majorly dichromatic colour scheme of red and black (with traces of grey and paper white), Webber offers an honest portrayal of her experiences of living without a voice. Besides working at a café and volunteering at a local bike co-op, Webber is also a vocal health activist who administers a community event called MAW to celebrate the vocal arts and promote awareness about self-care and voice preservation. Previously, she has published a series of short comics on psychological trauma from an upcoming work titled Dark Whole for the website The Hairpin. Webber currently lives in Toronto and is working as a co-author with Vivian Chong to create Chong’s graphic memoir titled Dancing After TEN. Slated to be published in 2020 by Fantagraphics, Dancing After TEN concerns Chong’s TEN (Toxic Epidermal Necrolysis) related blindness. In this email interview, Webber as a comics artist, editor, illustrator, event coordinator and as a socialite delves deep into her artistic vision, community engagement, comics industry, graphic medicine, future prospects of healthcare and self-care, and her ongoing projects among others.

KEYWORDS:

• Graphic medicine
• voicelessness
• Dumb
• Georgia Webber
• disability
• dumb

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Sathyaraj Venkatesan

Sathyaraj Venkatesan is Associate Professor of English in the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences at the National Institute of Technology, Tiruchirappalli (India). His research concentrates on health humanities and graphic medicine. He is the author of four books and eighty research articles. His articles have appeared in indexed journals including Perspectives in Biology and Medicine, Journal of Medical Humanities, American Medical Association Journal of Ethics (AMA), Health, Concentric: Literary and Cultural Studies, The Explicator, International Fiction Review, INKS: The Journal of the Comics Studies Society among others.

Diptarup Ghosh Dastidar

Diptarup Ghosh Dastidar is an Assistant Professor of English in the School of Languages at Amity University, Chhattisgarh (India). His research concentrates on Indian comics, graphic medicine, and spatial studies. Currently, he is working on appropriation of space in the comic arts of Amruta Patil, an Indian graphic novelist. His recent article has appeared in the Perspectives in Biology and Medicine (JHU).