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CBG SATELLITES
The ADD Blog by Alan David Doane
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 PLEASE SUPPORT COMIC BOOK GALAXY BY VISITING OUR SPONSORS
Tales of Ordinary Madness
The world of the mentally ill is a shadowy one to most of us. We all
come into contact with many people with psychiatric difficulties in the
course of our daily life, but, barring the presence of outright bizarre
behaviour, we usually don't even notice. Mental illness is a great
unknown. Ignorance breeds fear, and fear breeds stigma, shame, and
marginalization. Mention the word "schizophrenic" and one of two things
will likely come to mind - someone with a "split-personality," or
perhaps a dangerous madman. But the fact is, you probably won't meet too
many schizophrenics, because many of them are so tied up in dealing with
their mental problems, and are so frightened by everyone else, that they
generally don't interact much with others.
Having spent several years working with people who live with mental
illnesses, I've had the unique experience of seeing the effects of
psychiatric problems up close. One experience I had will stick with me
for the rest of my life, and Tales of Ordinary Madness brought
back memories, and the accompanying waves of emotion, that I hadn't
faced since that time. Several years ago, over the course of several
weeks, I witnessed a young man turn from a gentle, inquisitive,
teddy-bear of a boy into a fearful, angry, and paranoid man, all because
of a change in medications. During that short period of time, he was
transformed from a curious, conscientious youth studying to get his
driver's license while struggling to hold down a part-time job, to
someone who spent his days stalking his apartment confronting the
characters that inhabited his nightmarish delusions. Late one evening, I
stopped by his apartment to check up on him, and to try to convince him
to go to the hospital for treatment. He was in a rough state; he was
unwashed, he hadn't changed his clothes in weeks, and his apartment
looked like a battle-ground. It took some convincing for me to persuade
him to let me into his apartment, but once I got inside, he treated me
as though I weren't there. And for him, I might as well not have been;
the world inside his mind was frightening enough without having to deal
with anything else. As I tried to soothe him and distract him from
whatever it was that was speaking to him, he spent most of his time
muttering under his breath at the empty chair next to him. After about
an hour of this, he finally got so agitated that he ran to his kitchen,
grabbed a large knife from the block on his counter, and began to slash
the air with it furiously. It didn't take me long to get outside the
door and on the cell phone to the police. Seeing him taken down by
several burly police officers brandishing stun guns was one of the most
surreal, disturbing, and emotional experiences of my short career as a
social worker.
I'm no longer in that line of work, and I have a great deal of
admiration for anyone who finds their life's calling in caring for
people who find themselves in this often-overlooked segment of our
society. Writer Malcolm Bourne has been there and done that, and he puts
his experience to good use in this intense and disturbing look at one
psychiatrist who does in fact see his grip on reality weakening, and
finally snapping altogether. We see his condition progressively worsen
through a series of four chapters, each of which centers on a specific
patient. The first, "Paranoid," centers on Robert, a paranoid
schizophrenic. The second chapter, "Moods," introduces Jane, who suffers
from severe depression. Chapter three brings on Mrs. Yogeswarren, who
has a pathological fear of dogs. And in the final chapter,we are
introduced to Eric, who suffers from a personality disorder. Throughout
these chapters, we see the doctor's deterioration, as he inserts himself
into the patient's tales (artfully recounted using a series of
flashbacks), as he begins to exhibit disturbing symptoms of his own, and
in the handwritten journal notes we read at the end of each chapter.
Despite the book's format, there is more here than four discreet stories
cataloguing various mental illnesses and their symptoms. Themes and
plots are nicely integrated, and the depiction of the characters makes
this something much more, and much greater, than the medical freak show
it could have ended up being. Mike Allred's inking of the characters
Bourne has created has made them believable, empathetic, and
finely-wrought. The designs of several pages in particular are nothing
short of brilliant; we see the world through the eyes of the doctor's
patients, we see their thoughts spiralling out of control, and we see
their worlds collapsing around them. I was particularly impressed with
Allred's designs in the first chapter, where we are introduced to
Robert, the young schizophrenic suffering from delusions and severe
paranoia. In various panels, we see through Robert's eyes - the police
peering through his window, the messages from the television, and even
the notes on the bulletin board all attack him in his delusional state.
The reader is pulled into Robert's thought world, and the effect is
nothing less than chilling. While Bourne's scripting is very well
executed, Allred's inks bring the power - his boldly painted lines have
a confident looseness to them that brings the characters to life.
My only complaint? The ending, which seemed to say, "We've run out of
room, so we better quit now." But I can't give that away, and Tales
of Ordinary Madness is a good enough book so that even a less than
satisfying ending doesn't take away from what is, overall, a very fine
effort by both writer and artist.
-- Jim Witt
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