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Cooklin – World on Fire
Note: as has been the case for all of Cooklin’s books that I reviewed from CXC this year, they’re not technically listed under available comics at their website. But since I bought the comics a few months ago, and since Cooklin didn’t seem to be running all that low, I’m thinking that if you check in with them then you can probably get your own copies.
Hey everybody, it’s the review after the disclaimer! Ugh, this is why I so rarely use paragraphs here and prefer to just ramble. Trying to make blog posts “formally correct” is a job for a fool. In case this is the first comic of Cooklin’s that you’re reading about here, a quick explainer: they conducted many interviews with people who have clinical depression and/or other forms of mental illness and then released these comics to raise awareness. The interviews were anonymous, so don’t worry about spotting anybody you know. Honestly, I saved this one for last because of that title, as it’s something I’ve always wondered about: how do you treat/deal with your depression when the world is, objectively, terrible? The story here is familiar, in that they had a relatively uneventful upbringing, right up until the point (in high school) that they started being more aware of the events of the outside world, which naturally led to more depression. They tried talking to their parents or just hoping for a better world, but people didn’t take their concerns all that seriously. As has been the case for all of these minis that I’ve read, there’s not much here about tips to help deal with this kind of depression, but that’s probably tricky in its own right. Treatment is complicated, and it’s possible that offering a few quick bits of advice in a mini comic is maybe as problematic as offering bad advice. I’m still hoping for a collected edition or maybe a regular old book with all of their interviews and the conclusions Cooklin drew from them, but who knows. I’ll find out at CXC next year maybe? This one is somewhere between $5-8, so check with the creator for details…
