I usually review comics and graphic novels that are available for purchase, but this time, I’m covering a graphic novel that you can’t buy. And I’ll get to that in a moment.
Glenn Hustler, an indie comic artist from Leeds England, has written and drawn “We’ll Get Through It”, “One family’s story of survival, following the unimaginable.”
The ‘unimaginable’ is that a loved one, Glenn’s future father-in-law, died by suicide after a severe bout of mental illness.
Hustler’s account of the suicide is handled in such an effective documentary style. It’s relayed through the words and images of family and friends of the deceased, as they describe the man’s good points, his personality, and of him being ‘the life of the party’. The irony, of course, is their having to grieve a life lost too soon.
Hustler doesn’t let the topic or black and white drawing treatment become maudlin, however. The drawings are quirky, with a human touch. The lettering is strong and clear, the message too: this person had a full life, but when the symptoms of mental illness began to emerge, there seemed to be no clear-cut solution for treatment. The medical help was bureaucratic and ineffectual, and the father-in-law-to-be seemed to descend into his own thoughts.
It’s a bracing, touching examination of the factors around mental illness, with the sad echoes of the lingering effects that a suicide has upon the living.
Hustler wrote and drew the graphic novel as a fundraiser for Andy Mans Club. It raised over £250 on the Ko-Fi fundraising platform. He has made “We’ll Get Through It” available for FREE now at his Ko-Fi link:
https://ko-fi.com/album/Well-get-through-it-A0A44TLJM
Glenn Hustler has other work on his Ko-Fi also: Please visit to sign up to read the “Recovering Our Stories”, Six Reclaimed Stories of Addiction and Recovery”. The first chapter is free, the subsequent chapters are available to supporters:
https://ko-fi.com/album/Recovering-our-stories-D1D44TTN1
In his words, Glenn is “a comics artist focusing on non-fiction projects. Currently working on “the betrayal” which tells the story of everything from Shamima Begum to Jeffrey Epstein.”
Newsdesk