Cancer

Though appearing in educational comics as early as the 1950s, cancer was practically a taboo subject when Susan Sontag wrote her seminal book Illness as Metaphor in 1978, addressing shame and stigma around certain conditions, including cancer and later HIV/AIDS (1990). Sontag addressed the shame that many patients felt about their illness, as well as their ignorance of options and acceptance of the diagnosis as a death sentence. She became, as she would describe herself, a “crusader for the sick.” Since that time, cancer has not only become a subject discussed openly, but also a common topic of memoir, literature, and graphic medicine. In the books displayed, protagonists share their story as they learn about the disease, cope with treatment and the possibility—or imminence—of death.