University of Aberdeen postgraduate student Claire Robertson has come up with a creative way to educate the public about the “invisible symptoms” of multiple sclerosis (MS).
Working with a team of health professionals and comic creators Cat Laird and Ashling Larkin from CHIP Collective, she has designed a comic to raise awareness of MS, a condition that is estimated to affect an estimated 150,000 people in the UK.
Inspired by her dad’s experience of living with the condition, after diagnosis in 2011, Claire has used comics to describe the everyday struggles faced by people with the disease.
The comic was launched as part of MS Awareness Week in the UK at the beginning of May.
Through the MS Looking Glass: Navigating the Unseen highlights the “invisible” or hidden symptoms of MS, told through an Alice in Wonderland-style narrative, where familiar characters represent different symptoms.
The MS Trust say the comic could help raise awareness about the “less obvious symptoms” and “improve knowledge” about MS.
“With invisible symptoms, there’s a lot of stigma that can come with them, especially from people who don’t have an understanding of MS,” BBC News Scotland reported.
“There can be a lot of misunderstanding surrounding hidden symptoms and a lack of awareness of the difficulties that individuals with MS can face daily.”
The story is available to download here from the MS Trust website.
CHIP Collective is a comic collective run by Ashling Draws and Cat Laird, who create collaborative anthologies with the help of artists and storytellers all across the UK and Ireland, covering a wide range of subjects. The ambition behind the collective is to make positive social impact through their work and publications, which also include Living with Cancer: Our Stories and Working In: The Arts.
“Comics have different communication strategies which set them apart from standard forms of health information (e.g. a leaflet), says Claire Robertson, a third year PhD student from the University of Aberdeen’s School of Psychology. of the project in an article for the MS Trust.
“Comics have a narrative throughout and use storytelling to engage readers. They can also make use of visual metaphors, which are especially useful in health comics. This is where abstract concepts are made more concrete by making them into a visible image.
“A good example of this is Covid-19 particle transmission,” she notes. “You can’t see this process with your eyes, but a visual metaphor can do a good job of showing this, which can improve understanding.”
“I wanted to create a health comic on multiple sclerosis because my dad has MS and was diagnosed in 2011,” she explained separately.
“As my PhD project is all about how to make effective and engaging health information through the use of comics, I really wanted to be able to make my own health comic during the project process that can have a dual purpose – be used as an experimental material in my research but also can get people engaged with health information.”
Determined to support other families, children and loved ones of those with MS, Claire wanted to tell a story that would inform others about the hidden aspects of the condition.
She explains: “I was conscious that I didn’t just want to make the comic about my family’s experience with MS, so I reached out to MS charities to ask them which health topics they felt were either underrepresented or poorly communicated.
“One of the topics on the shortlist was ‘invisible’ symptoms of MS, and I felt as though a comic could do a really nice job of making these invisible symptoms concrete and visible through visual metaphors and raising awareness of the impact that these symptoms can have on daily life for people with MS.”
Invisible symptoms describe aspects of MS that people struggle with but aren’t immediately apparent to others. They include pain, fatigue, brain fog, bladder and bowel difficulties, dizziness and mental health challenges.
Following the Alice in Wonderland narrative, the invisible symptoms are embodied by characters akin to the ones from Wonderland.
“The reasoning for this is embedding unfamiliar concepts in a story that is likely familiar to the majority will hopefully make it slightly less daunting and ‘new’.”
Claire continues: “I am very aware that if someone hasn’t heard of MS before, the health information may seem quite abstract and confusing – like if you were picking up a leaflet about a health condition you didn’t really know about.
“So, throughout the comic, I have tried to use accessible language and avoid unnecessary jargon. I hope this will make it a bit easier for the reader to understand and enhance their engagement through storytelling and impactful visuals.”
Claire adds: “The comic’s main message is that everyone’s MS journey is unique and it is important to be supportive and understanding of the struggles people are going through.
“Even if you can’t visually see what symptoms someone is dealing with, it doesn’t mean they aren’t there and having a big impact on daily life.”
The comic is supported by the University of Aberdeen, University of Dundee, the MS Trust, and the Anne Rowling Regenerative Neurology Clinic at the University of Edinburgh.
Claire’s PhD is funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC).
• You can find out more details about Through the MS Looking Glass: Navigating the Unseen here | Download the comic here from the MS Trust website
• Check out the work of The Chip Collective
• If you are interested in reading more about the comic, the MS Trust have shared a blog post about the comic (Making invisible MS symptoms visible through a health comic | MS Trust) as have the Anne Rowling Regenerative Neurology Clinic (Revealing Hidden MS Symptoms Through a Health Comic | Anne Rowling Regenerative Neurology Clinic).
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John is the founder of downthetubes, launched in 1998. He is a comics and magazine editor, writer, and Press Officer for the Lakes International Comic Art Festival. He also runs Crucible Comic Press.
Working in British comics publishing since the 1980s, his credits include editor of titles such as Doctor Who Magazine and Overkill for Marvel UK, Babylon 5 Magazine, Star Trek Magazine, and its successor, Star Trek Explorer, and more. He also edited the comics anthology STRIP Magazine and edited several audio comics for ROK Comics; and has edited several comic collections and graphic novels, including volumes of “Charley’s War” and “Dan Dare”, and Hancock: The Lad Himself, by Stephen Walsh and Keith Page.
He’s the writer of comics such as Pilgrim: Secrets and Lies for B7 Comics; “Crucible”, a creator-owned project with 2000AD artist Smuzz; and “Death Duty” and “Skow Dogs”, with Dave Hailwood.
Categories: British Comics, Comics, Creating Comics, downthetubes Comics News, downthetubes News, Other Worlds
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