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Public health is a multidisciplinary field that encompasses a wide range of activities and initiatives aimed at preventing diseases, addressing health disparities, promoting healthy behaviours, studying patterns, and improving the overall health of communities. Within this landscape, comics emerge as a dynamic tool for raising awareness, promoting healthy behaviour, enhancing understanding of public health messages, and effectively reaching diverse audiences, including those with low health literacy and language barriers. Notably, Meredith Li-Vollmer's Graphic Public Health: A Comics Anthology and Roadmap assumes a prominent role in this framework. Published by Graphic Mundi (an imprint of the Penn State University Press) in 2022, this anthology attests to the power of the comic medium to facilitate health communication while delving into a wide-ranging public health-related theme. This email interview with Li-Vollmer follows a tripartite structure. In the inaugural segment, titled 'The Artist,' Li-Vollmer offers a comprehensive exposition of her artistic processes. In the subsequent segment titled 'Comics and Public Health,' Li-Vollmer articulates the capacity of the comic medium to serve as a transformative agent in public health. Finally, in the concluding part, 'Graphic Public Health,' she deliberates on the core principles that shape her 2022 work on graphic public health. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The COVID-19 pandemic is undoubtedly one of the most significant bio-socio-economic crisis of the early 21st century. Amid the fear, anger, hope, anxiety, disorientation, and uncertainty of the times, Graphic Mundi published COVID Chronicles: A Comics Anthology (2021), and Distant Connections published a comic series titled The Lockdown Lowdown. COVID Chronicles, edited by Kendra Boileau and Rich Johnson, includes 64 mini-comics from 70 contributors and offers an insight into the various lived experiences of the pandemic. Similarly, The Lockdown Lowdown series comprising of two zines and a special issue (on women and COVID-19), features artists from diverse backgrounds and geographical locations (such as Europe, the USA, and China), exploring the challenges and possibilities within the new normal. Taking these cues, Kendra Boileau and Michael Green share their experience of anthologising COVID comics through an email interview. The interview is divided into two parts. In Part A, titled 'Suddenly our world changed completely,' Boileau and Green answer questions common to both of them, and in Part B, titled 'When can we give grandad a hug?' they answer questions specific to the anthologies in discussion while also giving the reader a peek into their creative/editorial processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]