The Forbidden Planet International Blog Log

Tom Humberstone – the British small press artist better known to readers as The Vented Spleen, creator of the excellent Art School Scum – took part in 24 Hour Comics Day at the weekend and has posted the results up on his website for all to see. Actually Tom not only met the challenge and succeeded (well done, Tom, it isn’t an easy thing) he decided to use the resulting comic to tell a very personal story as Tom describes growing up and living with Crohn’s Disease.

(“Everything you never wanted to know about Crohn’s Disease” by Tom Humberstone)

It isn’t a self-indulgent tale or a plea for sympathy (I wouldn’t have expected that from Tom anyway) and, to his great credit he makes clear that however much pain, suffering and embarrassment his condition may have caused him (and can still cause him) he’s more than well aware there are folks out there having to cope with worse. Perhaps it isn’t quite Al Davison’s Spiral Cage, but I still found it intriguing, honest, touching and – as anyone who has read Tom’s work before might expect – quite darkly funny in spots too. I’m not going to say much more on it because the work speaks better for itself, so you should go and read it. Tom tells me he is also taking part in the Illustrated London Noise Event (part of Comica) this Friday where he will be doing a DJ session and drawing some of the folks there in the bar of the ICA.