Name: Marbles
ISBN: 9781592407323

Ellen Forney

An artist describes her bipolar disorder diagnosis and her struggles with mental stability while discussing other artists and creative people throughout history who were also labeled as “crazy” including Vincent van Gogh, Georgia O'Keeffe and Sylvia Plath. Original. 40,000 first printing.

Mania, Depression, Michelangelo, & Me : a Graphic Memoir

Marbles

B Sai Sushma

I love that the author goes into the intricate details to detail her life living with the disorder. Much of what I knew about Bipolar, was from a Community Mental Health Course. So this easy to understand comic, with episodes, bits and pieces of the author's real life, and a certain romanticisation of the disorder, makes a really comprehensive-enough read for me to understand. It also comforts me that the author stayed strong and resolved to find answers to her questions not only about herself and her disorder, but also about it's implications in creativity. The art is soothing to the eyes and I found the structuring really interesting because there seems to be a story in the visuality of the comic as well.

Jeannette Ordas

Loved this graphic novel a whole lot. My MIL suffers from bi-polar disorder and so I could relate to much of what Forney wrote about. It also put into perspective just how different the US and Canadian medical system is. If Forney didn't have a doctor as a mother who could pay for her expensive prescriptions or expensive treatments & therapies, who knows where she'd be. Recommended.

renee badenoch

This was an incredibly important book for me. Even though I thought the writing was just okay, the content of it--dealing with bipolar disorder over the course of over a decade--was something I had never read about before until this memoir. Ellen's honesty with how difficult it was to find the right balance of medication was very encouraging for me; sometimes mental health doesn't get fixed right away, and it's encourage to find a memoir that's so frank about how difficult it can be. I also really appreciated Ellen debunking the myth that creativity for people with bipolar disorder only comes during manic phases. 

I'd been a fan of Ellen Forney ever since she drew the illustrations for Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, and this book made me appreciate her even more. A final note--I love how the drawing style changes within the book with some drawings being hyper-realized, and others being simplified, cartoonish, or written with a heavy ink, sometimes mirroring Ellen's own mental state.

Maggie Gordon

After 4 years, I decided it was time to pick this intense memoir of mental illness up again. In this graphic novel, Ellen Forney tells the story of her diagnosis as bipolar, and the years following as she struggled to get her condition under control. It's an insightful, deeply personal journey through a very difficult process, and one that I am immensely grateful that Forney decided to share. She does not shy away from revealing how her behaviour hurt her life, and the difficulties she went through to try and find a better balance. If you have struggled with mental illness, this narrative will likely feel familiar in at least some respects (Forney does acknowledge her privileges in concerns to treatment), and if you have never experienced this type of health issue, hopefully it teaches you some empathy.

Marbles Mania, Depression, Michelangelo, & Me : a Graphic Memoir

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