Darryl Cunningham, author of the brilliant Psychiatric Tales and Supercrash, is featured on the Rethink Mental Illness blog, talking frankly and positively about how creating comics helped him through difficult times.
Rethink Mental Illness aims to help millions of people affected by mental illness by challenging attitudes, changing lives.
Darryl was training to be a mental health nurse when his own depression and anxiety meant he had to give up his studies. He started to draw his experiences, aiming to create comics which would help people understand mental illness. As regular readers of downthetubes know, the comics became a huge sucess, and were eventually published as a book, Psychiatric Tales.
“All through the time I’d been working on the wards I’d been keeping a diary, with a vague idea that the material would make a book someday,” he writes. “I began to draw up these events into comic strips, posting them online on my blog, and on Open Diary, and LiveJournal.”
The strips look at common mental illnesses like depression, bipolar disorder, and schizophrenia, and attempt to explain and de-stigmatise them – and the positive response to his work eventually led to publication by Blank Slate in the UK, Bloomsbury in the US and Canada, and there have since been French and Korean editions, too.
“I would say that drawing these strip have changed my life for the better,” says Darryl. “… So I would say if you suffer from depression then anything creative will be good for your mental health.”
Darryl will be speaking about comics and mental health at a free event in Leeds, organised by Thought Bubble on Wednesday 11th November. Click here for details.
The article is a smashing little read, and if you’ve ever struggled with inner demons as a creator, or know someone with mental illness, it’s an uplifting read that includes some examples of Darryl’s Psychiatric Tales work.
Darryl has recently been enjoying huge and dwell-deserved success with Supercrash : How to Hijack the Global Economy, published by Myriad Editions. He’s one of the speakers at Post Capitalism 2015 this coming Friday in Leeds, a symposium to re-think crisis, culture and politics at Leeds Beckett University, organised by Dr Katy Shaw and featuring Paul Mason (Economics Editor, Channel 4 News), Dr Stephen Kinsella from the University of Limerick, Professor Alex Nunn of Leeds Beckett University, Dr Peter Knight from the University of Manchester and Professor Nicky Marsh of Southampton University.
Supercrash has been translated into French, Dutch and Greek, and Korean and German editions are in progress.
• Read Darryl’s article here on the Rethink Mental Illness web site
• More about Darryl’s work on his blog: http://darryl-cunningham.blogspot.co.uk | You can follow him on Twitter on @acmedarryl
• Read my review of the original edition of Psychiatric Tales here
- About the Author
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The founder of downthetubes, which he established in 1998. John works as a comics and magazine editor, writer, and on promotional work for the Lakes International Comic Art Festival. He is currently editor of Star Trek Explorer, published by Titan – his third tour of duty on the title originally titled Star Trek Magazine.
Working in British comics publishing since the 1980s, his credits include editor of titles such as Doctor Who Magazine, Babylon 5 Magazine, and more. He also edited the comics anthology STRIP Magazine and edited several audio comics for ROK Comics. He has also edited several comic collections, including volumes of “Charley’s War” and “Dan Dare”.
He’s the writer of “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.
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