Spotlight
Suicide and Comics
By Hervé St-Louis January 31, 2009 - 14:39
Comic books, for many religious, health and social welfare
organizations, have often been seen as an ideal medium to reach a younger
audience about targeted messaging. When existing comic book properties are not
licensed to deliver the message, communicators often fall back on custom
original comic books that can be easily deployed in the youth demographic
target area.
A problem affecting many youth as well as adults is suicide.
Just like other health and social welfare issues, the comic book has been used
to prevent and sensitize suicide in youths in the past. The question about
using comic books to combat suicide is whether there is any evidence that they are
a successful vehicle to prevent it in youths and possibly other groups.
According to social work professor Richard Ramsay, of the University
of Calgary and the president of LivingWorks Education, a company specialized in
producing suicide prevention material and training, there has been little
projects using comic books in the past, although video games has been
considered as a possible means to communicate to youth about suicide. The deployment of suicide-preventing communications
in video games was deemed expensive, although the idea of creating an interface
to discuss suicide with video games was appealing. However, in 2006, there was a comic book sponsored by health services in the Canadian province of British Columbia released for Canadian First Nations youths called
Darkness Calls.
The
Darkness Calls project, created by Vancouver
aboriginal animator Steve Sanderson was a single issue comic book aimed
at aboriginals youth using mixing Cree heritage and folklore with modern super
hero adventure, in a quest to prevent suicide. In the comic book, Cree
trickster and hero Wesakechak combats another Cree mythical creature Weetigo,
re-imagined as the voice that prompts young aboriginal kids to commit suicide.
In the story, the two mythical creatures, updated as modern super heroes and villains,
fight for the life of a young Cree boy.
Is using folkloric character updated as modern super heroes
and villains is not as effective as just using standard super hero lore to
effect suicide prevention? For example, wouldn’t it be more useful to use a
marginalized group, like mutants, as defined in current comic book culture and
series such as Marvel Comics’ X-Men as a fictional marginalized group that can
stand for any minority groups such as young aboriginals or even gays? It seemed
to this author that using Cree characters, that it was a top down attitude
where Gods walking amongst humans fought for their souls. Mutants, being a
group that can stand in for Goths as well as Jews, seemed more appropriate. Professor Ramsay argues that using groups such
as mutants as symbols of marginalized groups maintain their marginalized
status, although they can promote greater resiliency and help overcome ostracization.
Professor Ramsay adds that group attitudes matter as much
because mobilizing against an ostracized group is easy. Attitudes need to
change with the peer pressure network and systemic conditions that encourage
specific risk groups, like aboriginal and gay youths to commit suicide in the
first place. Perhaps, this author thinks, comic books addressing suicide
should aim for more than risk groups and start educating people who interact
with potential suicide victims.