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There is a world, invisible to many, of terminally ill people being cared for full time by a loving family member or friend. These caregivers are living with burdens and pressures that even regular visitors can miss. Stan Mack (Stan Mack in Sandra Lee Fenster's (2000), 'When a Comic Is Taken Seriously,' The New York Times) Care and labour are inextricably linked, particularly in the context of chronic illness, as caregivers often bear emotional, social, financial, and psychological burdens that can lead to negative consequences. While several studies have examined the physical and psychological impacts of care labour on caregivers, the felt experiences of caregiving (such as fear, guilt, and disappointment, among others) have not received adequate scholarly attention. The present article seeks to closely read selected sections from Sarah Leavitt's Tangles: A Story About Alzheimer's, My Mother, and Me, a graphic memoir about Alzheimer's caregiving, to bring to light the complex visceral experiences of unpaid caregivers. Although Tangles is an autobiographical narrative, it also serves as a means to re-examine the conventional notions of care that undervalue and disregard the lived experiences of caregivers. The article investigates how comics medium facilitates the representation of affective forces that shapes the lived experiences of caregivers. Further, the article also examines how exploring such affective realms render a nuanced understanding of care and caring relation. In doing so, this essay not only characterises care as an assemblage of bodies, discourses, performances, and affective relationships, among other things, but also underscores the cultural significance of graphic medicine in critiquing the traditional notions of care. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As an existential practice, predicated on human interdependencies and labour, care attains remarkable significance in sustaining the life of the ill/disabled and is an indelible part of families and healthcare. Families, medicine, and institutional caring centres (such as old age homes, hospices among others) justify their commitment to care through emotional and practical/ technical approaches towards illness/disability. COVID-19 pandemic has just made human interdependency and significance of care exceptionally visible through laying bare the inevitable physical and social vulnerabilities. However, in the contemporary neoliberal society that favour autonomy and efficiency, care is overlooked, undermined, undervalued, and often linked with vulnerability and precarity. Graphic caregiving memoirs drawn by caregivers themselves are ideal sites for re-imagining, validating, depicting and reconceptualising experiences of care. In this email interview graphic artists Susan MacLeod, Simon Grennan, Ernesto Priego and Peter Wilkins reflect on care, the wide range of issues concerning its practice and suggest an alternative perspective towards caregiving. In Part A titled Of Comics and Care the authors respond to generic questions about their interest in comics, works, life, among others. In Part B titled What was I expecting? Compassion? Validation? The authors respond to questions related to their respective graphic narratives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ageing, an inevitable biological process, is often oversimplified, subjecting elderly individuals to both positive and negative sociocultural stereotypes. Elderly individuals are stigmatised as passive, suffering and asexual, while simultaneously being expected to embody an active, successful and productive approach towards ageing. Departing from these narrow perceptions, this article draws examples from Zidrou and Aimée de Jongh's graphic narrative Blossoms in Autumn to provide a nuanced perspective on the ageing process. Using the affordances of comics, this essay examines how Blossoms in Autumn addresses unarticulated aspects of ageing, including changing bodily features, sexuality and intimacy, among others. In so doing, this essay challenges the unilateral perceptions of ageing., Competing Interests: Competing interests: None declared., (© Author(s) (or their employer(s)) 2024. No commercial re-use. See rights and permissions. Published by BMJ.)

Looking beyond anthropocentric care relationships reveals nuanced levels of interdependence among human and non-human entities. Attention to these heterogeneous inter-relationships illuminates the subtle and visceral affective intensities among diverse participants, including humans, objects and the environment, among others. The interdisciplinary field of graphic medicine foregrounds these entanglements through comic affordances, challenging the predominant notion that care belongs only at the scale of human beings. This article analyses selected sections from graphic medical narratives such as Brian Fies's Mom's Cancer , Sarah Leavitt's Tangles and Joyce Farmer's Special Exits to illustrate how objects become a source of care for humans during illness, thus becoming care objects. Furthermore, using the affordances of comics, this essay examines, how the selected sections of the abovementioned graphic narratives portray the often unnoticed/overlooked affective entanglement between the sufferers and objects. In doing so, this article underscores the inter-relatedness between humans and non-human entities within the context of caregiving., Competing Interests: Competing interests: None declared., (© Author(s) (or their employer(s)) 2024. No commercial re-use. See rights and permissions. Published by BMJ.)