Illness and (hyper)masculinity in 'HIMM' comics from the USA

Area of Science:

• Graphic Medicine and Pathography
• Sociology of Masculinity
• Health Humanities

Background:

• The representation of masculinity in autobiographical health comics is an underexplored academic area.
• Existing literature often overlooks the specific ways male cartoonists depict their experiences with illness.

Purpose of the Study:

• To analyze how North American male cartoonists portray illness in their graphic narratives.
• To examine the relationship between depicted ill health and sociological understandings of male behavior.
• To explore the concept of hypermasculinity in relation to male illness experiences.

Main Methods:

• Analysis of three specific graphic medicine texts: John Porcellino's *The Hospital Suite*, Matt Freedman's *Relatively Indolent but Relentless*, and Peter Dunlap-Shohl's *My Degeneration*.
• Application of sociological concepts of masculinity and hypermasculinity.
• Focus on themes of bracketing, pain, vulnerability, and identity loss.

Main Results:

• Male cartoonists utilize distinct visual and verbal strategies to represent physical and emotional suffering.
• These comics provide a non-medicalized, subjective lens on male illness experiences.
• The analysis reveals connections between illness and (hyper)masculinity through phenomenological representation.

Conclusions:

• Health, Illness, and Men's Masculinity (HIMM) comics offer crucial counter-narratives to biomedical discourse.
• These graphic texts visualize the subjective experience of male illness, highlighting aspects of pain and vulnerability.
• The study contributes a gender-oriented understanding of the intersection between illness and masculinity.