Friday, April 26, 2024

PICTURE STORIES FROM SCIENCE "Fighting Germs with Germs: the Story of Vaccination and Innoculation"

This comic tale from the 1940s explains the benefits of vaccination in such a simple, graphic way...

...that even a regressive Reich-wing anti-vaxxer like RFK Jr could understand!
(Note that the Near Eastern people in the third panel are supposed to be suntanned/light brown, but colorists of the time had problems getting the correct CMY color combination!)
Written by Morris Nelson Sachs and illustrated by Don Cameron, this never-reprinted story from EC Comics' Picture Stories of Science #2 (1947) was told in a straightforward manner, taking info from encyclopedias and school textbooks and visualizing it for kids.
And, yes, that's the same EC Comics who, in the 1950s, produced...
...but, in the 1940s, were doing educational comics like this...
When the wholesome stuff didn't sell, they changed the company name from "Educational Comics" to "Entertaining Comics", took a different approach, and the rest was history!
Ironically, after the whole "comics cause juvenile delinquency" mania of the mid-1950s which almost destroyed the comic book business, EC made one more stab at doing adult-oriented, "quality" comics...
...and...
Both failed within a year!

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and/or
The First Newsstand Comics Dedicated to the Medical Profession!
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Friday, April 19, 2024

Behind the Operating Theatre AMERICAN SPLENDOR: ON THE JOB! "Veterans' Rights"

We presented an X-Mas-themed tale from this one-shot title HERE...

...and here's another story of one man's crusade against the Veterans' Administration's bureaucratic incompetence!
There's a lot more to medicine than the stories about doctors, nurses, techs, and ambulance drivers handling life-or-death situations!
There are the stories about how the whole hospital/doctor's practice is kept operating by the people the patient doesn't see...or even know about...like file clerks!
Written by Harvey Pekar and illustrated by Frank Stack, this story from Dark Horse's one-shot American Splendor: On the Job (1997) is part of Pekar's multiple award-winning, long-running, autobiographical underground comic series American Splendor.

After doing a stint in the Navy, Harvey spent most of his adult life as a file clerk at the Veterans Administration Hospital in his native Cleveland, working there (even while, beginning in 1976, writing American Splendor) until his retirement in 2001, at which point, the slice-of-life comic series and related projects became his full-time gig.
He passed away in 2010 from an accidental overdose of antidepressants while dealing with a third diagnosis of cancer.
(He had already successfully-overcome the disease twice.)
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Visit Amazon and Buy...
Best of American Splendor
(which contains this story and others from "On the Job")
Or
American Splendor: the Movie
Paul Giamatti IS Harvey Pekar!
(Not available on blu-ray? WHY???)
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Friday, April 12, 2024

SURGEON X "Path of Most Resistance" Chapter 4: Blood, Sweat and Fears Conclusion

We Have Already Seen...

In 2036, while dealing with a blackmailing asshole who needs medical treatment the government won't allow, Dr Rosa Scott aka Surgeon X, and her sister, Dr Martha Scott, are discovering previously-unknown information about their mother!
Meanwhile...
What is his connection to Rosa and Martha's mother?

You Gotta See It to Believe It...
Next Month!

In the meantime, go...HERE
(And yes, I'm as surprised as you are that the site is still up almost a decade later!)

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Friday, April 5, 2024

SURGEON X "Path of Most Resistance" Chapter 4: Blood, Sweat and Fears Part 1

When Last We Left Surgeon X in the Near-Future...
Read this newspaper page carefully, since all three featured items give clues about what's about to occur!

Never a dull day in the near future, where life has become one big ongoing pandemic!

Some Answers and a Couple of New Questions...
Next Week!

In the meantime, go...HERE
(And yes, I'm as surprised as you are that the site is still up almost a decade later!)

Please Support Medical Comics and Stories
Visit Amazon and Buy...
TPB Containing the Complete Mini-Series
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XMas in the Emergency Room WITHIN OUR REACH "Home for Christmas"

Our Yuletide Tale Involves a Hospital and Terminal Illness... ...but there's no involvement by the patients with a doctor or other medi...