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This inaugural volume in the Graphic Medicine series establishes the principles of graphic medicine and begins to map the field. The volume combines scholarly essays by members of the editorial team with previously unpublished visual narratives by Ian Williams and MK Czerwiec, and it includes arresting visual work from a wide range of graphic medicine practitioners. The book’s first section, featuring essays by Scott Smith and Susan Squier, argues that as a new area of scholarship, research on graphic medicine has the potential to challenge the conventional boundaries of academic disciplines, raise questions about their foundations, and reinvigorate literary scholarship—and the notion of the literary text—for a broader audience. The second section, incorporating essays by Michael Green and Kimberly Myers, demonstrates that graphic medicine narratives can engage members of the health professions with literary and visual representations and symbolic practices that offer patients, family members, physicians, and other caregivers new ways to experience and work with the complex challenges of the medical experience. The final section, by Ian Williams and MK Czerwiec, focuses on the practice of creating graphic narratives, iconography, drawing as a social practice, and the nature of comics as visual rhetoric. A conclusion (in comics form) testifies to the diverse and growing graphic medicine community. Two valuable bibliographies guide readers to comics and scholarly works relevant to the field.

Pediatric obesity is an escalating global health concern with profound physical and psychological impacts, both in the short and long term. The EU-funded initiative, \"Fight against Pediatric Obesity: from a Predictive Tool for Type 2 Diabetes and Cardiovascular Disease Risk to Healthy Educational Programs\" (PODiaCar), seeks to address childhood obesity through a comprehensive, multidimensional strategy. A key component is a cartoon titled Grandma Wilma’s Tales , created to promote healthy lifestyles among young children and their families. Targeted at preschoolers and early primary school students, the cartoon uses an “edutainment” strategy, blending education with entertainment, to keep children engaged while they learn. The story follows a young boy named Vitto and his dog Buzz as they discover the dangers of poor diet and inactivity and the benefits of a healthy, balanced lifestyle. By using simple language, engaging visuals, and relatable characters, the cartoon informs and motivates children to make healthier choices in everyday life. Its design focuses on accessibility and appeal, helping children absorb important health messages in an enjoyable way. This initiative highlights the power of visual communication and storytelling in health education. Teaching children about balanced diets and active living from an early age can build a strong foundation for lifelong wellness. Supporting and sharing projects like PODiaCar at national and international levels is essential for developing future public health strategies and encouraging innovative, child-focused educational approaches.

Objectives This randomized crossover clinical trial designed to evaluate the impact of visual and auditory distraction techniques on pediatric patients’ anxiety, pain perception, and behavior during dental treatment. The study specifically focuses on children, aiming to determine whether distraction methods can effectively reduce anxiety levels, alleviate pain experiences, and improve cooperative behavior in a clinical setting. Method and materials Children aged 4 to 9 years receiving routine dental care at the Pediatric Dentistry Clinic, Istanbul Medipol University, were randomly assigned to Group 1 (distraction first, then tell-show-do) or Group 2 (tell-show-do first, then distraction), with a two-week washout period before switching interventions. Anxiety was assessed using the Venham Picture Test and pulse rate, pain perception with the Sounds, Eyes, and Motor Scale during local anesthesia and the Wong-Baker FACES Pain Rating Scale during treatment, while cooperation and behavior were evaluated using the Houpt Scale. Statistical analysis was conducted using Mann-Whitney U, Student’s t-test, Paired t-test, and Wilcoxon test, with the significance level set at 0.025 using the Bonferroni correction. Results Sixty-eight patients (37 female, 31 male) with a mean age of 6.69 ± 1.08 years completed the study (Group 1: n  = 32, Group 2: n  = 36). The cartoon-assisted distraction technique did not significantly reduce anxiety compared to the tell-show-do method. A non-significant reduction in pain perception was observed during local anesthesia with distraction. However, this technique significantly reduced self-reported pain during treatment ( p  < 0.025) and improved child cooperation and behavior. Conclusion Cartoon-assisted visual and auditory distraction can alleviate pain perception and improve behavior during pediatric dental procedures. However, it does not appear to reduce dental anxiety or pain perception during local anesthesia. Integrating this technique with the traditional tell-show-do approach may enhance the pediatric dental experience. Trial registration The trial was registered at ClinicalTrials.gov, number NCT04927754, 06/01/2021.

This inaugural volume in the Graphic Medicine series establishes the principles of graphic medicine and begins to map the field. The volume combines scholarly essays by members of the editorial team with previously unpublished visual narratives by Ian Williams and MK Czerwiec, and it includes arresting visual work from a wide range of graphic medicine practitioners. The book's first section, featuring essays by Scott Smith and Susan Squier, argues that as a new area of scholarship, research on graphic medicine has the potential to challenge the conventional boundaries of academic disciplines, raise questions about their foundations, and reinvigorate literary scholarship-and the notion of the literary text-for a broader audience. The second section, incorporating essays by Michael Green and Kimberly Myers, demonstrates that graphic medicine narratives can engage members of the health professions with literary and visual representations and symbolic practices that offer patients, family members, physicians, and other caregivers new ways to experience and work with the complex challenges of the medical experience. The final section, by Ian Williams and MK Czerwiec, focuses on the practice of creating graphic narratives, iconography, drawing as a social practice, and the nature of comics as visual rhetoric. A conclusion (in comics form) testifies to the diverse and growing graphic medicine community. Two valuable bibliographies guide readers to comics and scholarly works relevant to the field.

As scholars debate the most appropriate way to teach evolutionary theory, Constance Areson Clark provides an intriguing reflection on similar debates in the not-too-distant past. Set against the backdrop of the Jazz Age, God—or Gorilla explores the efforts of biologists to explain evolution to a confused and conflicted public during the 1920s. Focusing on the use of images and popularization, Clark shows how scientists and anti-evolutionists deployed schematics, cartoons, photographs, sculptures, and paintings to win the battle for public acceptance. She uses representative illustrations and popular media accounts of the struggle to reveal how concepts of evolutionary theory changed as they were presented to, and absorbed into, popular culture. Engagingly written and deftly argued, God—or Gorilla offers original insights into the role of images in communicating—and miscommunicating—scientific ideas to the lay public.

The decades just before and after the founding of the American Public Health Association in 1872 saw an efflorescence of political cartooning and caricature in national-circulation weeklies. Part of the political and social critique that cartoonists and their editors provided the public focused on needs or opportunities for preventing illness and accidents. This paper presents a small selection of editorial cartoons that agitated in support of public health activities over 4 decades. The goals are to illustrate several concerns that rose to national prominence in that era, to examine the kinds of imagery that newspapers and magazine editors offered their readers, and to observe how frequently the public was encouraged to see politicians and commercial interests as responsible for preventable health problems. This discussion focuses exclusively on propagandistic images, leaving aside the reportorial depictions of events in the news and the neutral illustrations of methods and machines in scientific and technical publications.

An essay on 18C satirical images of the medical profession showing that their visual language is an important and revealing historical source. The portrayal of medicine is marked by violation and violence; sex and medicine coalesce; death stalks the living. Political caricaturists appreciated the potential of the body's ambiguous status and political anatomy became a favourite trope: the politically powerful were commonly depicted as sacrilegious dissectors or even cannibals; taxation offered a prime medical metaphor; the physicians' victim/patient was commonly John Bull.