Comics creator Keezy Young's Sunflowers is an intimate graphic journey spotlighting her mental illness. "Most people think mania is fun," she opens. "It is, sometimes," she admits. Her bipolar disorder encourages "good ideas... and the energy to carry them out." She socializes, cleans, shops, explores becoming Catholic. She skips her day job to "do this important work of saving the world with [her] comics." But the "euphoria" can't last, and psychosis sets in: "I feel insane... I try to remind myself of all the reasons I don't want to die." Eventually--that time stunningly, poignantly denoted by five black, blank pages--Young returns to "euthymia, the normal part, where I'm just like everyone else, (sort of)." Young has amassed numerous coping mechanisms--medication, meditation, "getting enough sleep (this is critical)"--but ever present is the raw fear that she "might not survive it [next] time." She shares her "very, very lonely" struggles because hiding is no longer an option.
Young (Taproot) nimbly fulfills the picture-is-worth-a-thousand-words adage with an intricate balance of blue, orange, and black illustrations overlaid with insightful, vulnerable text. She prominently places herself in panels (including her four-year-old self) but almost always with her face obscured, as if emphasizing that readers have a point of view as observers. That turning away also suggests her own unknowability as to when, where, and how her next episodes might strike. Young sets a lofty goal in the brief pages of Sunflowers: to create empathy "so that we can fight the hatred of [bipolar disorder] and misinformation about it together." She persuasively, powerfully succeeds. --Terry Hong