This is also another aspect of why it’s great this book exists – for other people like Forney who’ve been diagnosed and are looking for a book to tell them it’s not the end of the world.

There are a lot of scenes set in Forney’s therapist’s office as they spend months and months figuring out the best combination of drugs for her, and work through her various concerns but unlike another book that followed this route – Are You My Mother? by Alison Bechdel - the theory and science side of her illness doesn’t overwhelm the book.įorney finds comfort in reading about other artists who were allegedly bipolar like Van Gogh, Hemingway, and Sylvia Plath, all of whom troublingly committed suicide, but also produced some of the greatest art in the world. The book follows her diagnosis and its impact on how she views herself and her family and friends’ reactions, to her concerns about how the treatment of her moods with a kaleidoscopic cocktail of drugs will affect her creativity and work. Ellen Forney is crazy – literally! A comic book artist diagnosed with bipolar disorder, a mental condition that sends her moods shooting from one end of the spectrum – soaring higher than high with happiness and manic energy – to the other – skull-crushing depression and immobility – with unerring suddenness, Forney has created an honest and engaging comic book of her experience living with the illness in Marbles.

Marbles forney