Thom Ferrier's new collection of graphic narratives, Disrepute, was recently published by Graphic Medicine Press. While the book may not be easy to find, it is well worth the effort. But be forewarned: this doctor-centric collection is neither the melodrama of Rex Morgan M.D. nor the droll silliness of New Yorker cartoons. In Ferrier's capable hands, the doctor's dark, angry and complicated inner world emerges. His comics are full of the stuff that doctors think about privately but do not dare say in public. It is about the insecurities that come with being uncertain, the exhaustion of being on the receiving end of others’ constant expectations, and the dark thoughts that (some) doctors have about death and dying. In short, it is about life itself, written and drawn by someone who has seen and experienced a fair slice of it as an experienced rural general practitioner.

Ferrier is the nom de plume of Ian Williams, a British physician/artist who founded the Graphic Medicine website devoted to the growing field of comics and medicine (http://graphicmedicine.org). Williams enjoyed art at an …