Focussed on mental health awareness, the new UK small press comics anthology Over-Inkers debuted recently with a first issue theme of “strength”. Full disclosure first. Over-Inkers is edited by Broken Frontier’s own R.E. Burke but given the subject matter, its ethos of bringing people together, our own commitment to documenting mental health-related comics, and the artists involved, it doesn’t seem inappropriate to give this collection the coverage it deserves. It’s also a charity anthology with the proceeds going to Blood Cancer UK.
Themed autobio anthologies are at their strongest when their curation looks to include not simply a diversity of approaches to the form but also a variety of perspectives as well. Camilla Braceschi and Julian Payne’s ‘The Strength of Missing Home’ (below), for example, is a dreamy, rhythmic, visual essay on homesickness as a resident of another country. Payne’s sophisticated page constructions, playing with the passage of time through deft panel placement, ably reflecting the earnestness of Braceschi’s words. Alternatively, K. Mielczarek/Weird is the Best’s ‘PHQ9 & Gad-7 – Brave’ has a raw honesty, detailing the artist’s mental health struggles with a reminder that sometimes the greatest strength is in simply acknowledging our problems and taking the steps to ameliorate them.
In ‘Feck, I Met My Nemesis in Chemo’ Judy Powell gives a wordless representational take with individual sequential panels being set on a wider background of medical paraphernalia, allowing the reader to interact with the story on a directly emotional level. Kes Whyte’s ‘Leaving’ (below) is also a story that we connect with intimately through its use of visual metaphor, as Whyte’s stripped back imagery powerfully communicates the necessity of letting go and moving on from an abusive relationship. And in ‘This’ Holly Curcio also uses metaphorical sequentials to express themes of vulnerability and self-image in a story that takes the reader back to the less pleasant aspects of childhood interactions.
Burke’s own ‘Resistance’ uses careful subdued colour choices to bring us into the intensity of a panic attack and a mental health episode, while Hatiye Garip’s ‘Corona Diary – Bloom’ is another “silent” tale that tackles what, for many, will have been the most difficult ordeal in their lives to summon up the strength to cope with. Finally, Eliza Wolfson’s ‘Now and Then’, depicting the experience of a sibling with an incurable degenerative condition, is perhaps the strongest entry in the book. A neatly structured and appealingly cartooned short, its shifting timelines ably capture its message of finding positivity in the shared.
Behind a striking Emma Evans cover, Over-Inkers is a strong and admirable collection of personal testimonies. There’s a comparative dearth of UK small press anthologies with open submissions at the moment which makes this a doubly important new platform for the self-publishing comics community.
Camilla Braceschi, Julian Payne, K. Mielczarek, Judy Powell, Kes Whyte, Holly Curcio, R.E. Burke, Hatiye Garip, Eliza Wolfson • Self-published, £12.00
Review by Andy Oliver
