Episode 47 - That Boy Needs Therapy

Comics Therapy. No Reviews. Just Analysis.

Two books from June 18, 2014. Plus Your Nerd Confessions (about which characters would benefit most from therapy or counseling) and a new segment, Regression Therapy.

On The Couch: cartoonist and designer Jen Vaughn.

Show Notes:

This week's theme is internal demons, specifically in the form of mental illness. There’s such a stigma in our culture when it comes to talking about this kind of stuff, and even more so when it comes to admitting it’s something you have dealt with personally. Comics - and movies, books, television, art in general - give us a chance to be honest under the guise of storytelling. Something happens, though, when that raw truth is recognizable and relatable under the fictional glaze. It’s beautiful and scary and awesome. Comics, man. Good job this week making us think.

Translucid #3 13:35

The story of the way a young boy deals with his fractured, abusive home life. How he uses fantasy to escape his tragic reality. And how this vivid disassociation itself could be the symptom of something far more insidious going on inside his head. This isn’t a superhero story in the traditional sense at all, and that’s what makes its character journeys so incredible.

Sex Criminals #6 22:40

A much more complete view of Jon than we’ve ever seen before. He’s struggling. He’s impulsive. He’s intense. He’s detaching from his own contrived reality. He needs help, because he can’t help himself. This issue is Jon’s story of the consequences of his own slippage and one possible attempt at a reset. He’s on meds, so there may not be any more impulsivity issues - bad or good - but there are also no more feelings. Everything is just fine. Until it isn’t.

The Couch - Jen Vaughn 39:55

Jen has contributed to Adventure Time and Princeless, and is part of the team doing Cartozia Tales, the all-ages anthology. Her book Avery Fatbottom: Renaissance Fair Detective - decidedly not all-ages - is published by Monkeybrain Comics. Jen also works in marketing and communications for Fantagraphics and you may have seen her in Cartoon College, the documentary film about the Center for Cartoon Studies where she did her graduate work.