In 2003, the Santa Rosa writer and cartoonist Brian Fies learned that his mother had lung cancer that had metastasized to her brain. As he and his two sisters navigated the upheaval of her illness, Fies turned to comics, using the medium to process the experience and express his feelings.
The result, “Mom’s Cancer,” has since become a touchstone in medical education, used internationally to help doctors and nurses better understand the perspectives of cancer patients. The book also helped inspire the field of graphic medicine, a term coined in 2007 by the Welsh physician, artist and author Ian Williams after encountering Fies’ work.
“The book was an outlet, something I could do when I couldn’t do anything else, while she was going through treatments,” Fies said.
“Mom’s Cancer” began as a webcomic published between 2003 and 2005. It went on to win an Eisner Award at Comic-Con International in San Diego — the first time a digital comic had received the honor.
In 2006, Abrams Books published the work in print as a graphic memoir. A 20th-anniversary edition, released this month, includes 22 pages of new material. While the original volume ended with Fies’ mother in remission, the expanded edition recounts her relapse and death in 2005, just as the book was first going to press.
What began as a personal coping mechanism has had a wide-reaching impact. The book has been translated into seven languages, and Fies now lectures to medical professionals several times a year.
“‘Mom’s Cancer’ is one of — if not the most —widely taught work of graphic medicine and has been for as long as the field has been defined,” said Matthew Noe, a librarian at Harvard Medical School’s Countway Library. “It remains one of the comics I include today when I teach librarians about graphic medicine.”
MaryKaye Czerwiec, a nurse and cartoonist who has taught graphic medicine at Columbia College Chicago and Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine, said Fies’ work influenced her own books, including “Menopause: A Comic Treatment.”
“One of the very valuable things that panels of a comic give us is a window into the experience,” she said. “It helps nurses and medical students see the impact of their words and their behavior.”
The memoir captures the frustrations patients and families often face — a cycle of tests, referrals and shifting diagnoses, along with the physical and emotional toll of treatment.
“Patients and their caregivers are overwhelmed by this process that is routine to doctors and students,” Fies said.
The book, he added, offers medical professionals a rare view of how patients perceive their care.
“Mom’s Cancer” was Fies’ first published book. He later wrote “A Fire Story,” about losing his Santa Rosa home in the 2017 Northern California wildfires, as well as two science-fiction graphic novels, “Whatever Happened to the World of Tomorrow?” and “The Last Mechanical Monster.”
Fies is scheduled to speak about “Mom’s Cancer” at two events in Santa Rosa: at 7 p.m. on April 9 at Copperfield’s Books in Montgomery Village, and at 2 p.m. on May 16 at the Charles M. Schulz Museum.
Cartoonist Brian Fies marks 20th anniversary of ‘Mom’s Cancer’ graphic memoir
