Where do you stand on mental illness in webcomics?

[Anime_Bolt]

how to you feel. are they needed?

[minerrale]

If represented properly, yes. If you don't know much about them and try to portray it, it can easily slip down the "I tried to do god but ended up adding to the stigma" slope.
In other words, by all means yes, but be careful ^^

[Pandastrophic]

I think it's important to represent them accurately. I write about mental illness in my comic and my readers seems to appreciate that it's realistic to their own experiences, that they can relate to it and feel they're not alone.

are they needed?

I'm not sure what you mean by needed? do you mean are they needed to be included in comics?

[punkarsenic]

are they needed?

yes. it is fundamental to the definition of the term 'webcomic' that mental illness is a core element of the story. if your webcomic is not at least 33% percent about mental illness then you are not making a webcomic and will be booted from tapas.io

jk jk im not sure what u mean by needed. i think mental wellbeing is an increasingly common part of life, and that should be reflected in fiction. even if a story doesnt include anyone with a distinct condition, stories often deal with conflict and life-changing events, and an understanding of mental wellbeing can help create more realistic and well rounded characters and reactions.

[lartianmartian1]

If it comes from personal experience, than YES!

If the person researches the heck out of it, and/or knows people with mental illness and gets their blessing, then go for it!

If mental illness is not crucial to your story? You don't have to do it! That's fine! Write/draw whatever you like. Depicting mental illness for the sake of it won't help anyone, least of all yourself.

People with mental illness deserve a chance to be normalized and portrayed with care, even in a silly webcomic that might only get a couple hundred subs. Because that one silly webcomic can mean a lot to a mentally ill person down the line.

[Sean]

I don't know how I feel about mental illness in webcomics in general but I have specific feelings to particular webcomics that portray mental Illness that I can somehow empathize or relate to.

are they needed?

They're not exactly needed if the story doesn't require it.

[racarter]

I mean if you want to include it, fine. It’s not a huge deal to me either way, it’s just another part of the story.

[indagold]

I mean if it fits the story and is well written sure although I keep seeing those shitty Me_IRL comics that glorify/romanticize mental illness I wish we could do without. Having a disorder isn't cute and quirky and these type of stories aren't needed.

[crayon_witch]

Not every webcomic needs mental illness as a theme, but we absolutely need proper depictions and discussions of mental illness in comics in general.

Representation is so important, and how something is depicted in media is in turn internalized into our society. Missteps can have very severe consequences, such as the spike in suicides after 13 Reasons Why. Or how the stereotype of the mentally ill monster in horror movies creates stigma against psychosis and other “scary” mental illnesses.

Proper depictions can encourage understanding and acceptance of a previously misunderstood minority. And in the case of mental illness, often it is important for sufferers to understand that they aren’t alone and what they’re going through is normal. It can be an important step to getting help.

[lil-sea-salt]

I think it's fairly difficult to get right if it's more severe mental illnesses like schizophrenia or a sensory deprivation type of illness. To evoke that type of feeling without turning people away is difficult.

If it's anxiety or depression . . . I think it's something a lot of people relate to so it's not uncommon to see utilized.

I'm actually writing or have been attempting to write about child trauma and I think Coraline is an interesting example where the children who watched it loved it because it was an adventure but the parents were disturbed and horrified. I think that's so interesting in that it evoked the different responses. People say the characters in Winnie the Pooh symbolize different mental illnesses as well. Honestly as a kid, I never really noticed that it was exposing me to that. But, I think it did help me to be a better person and more open to when i was exposed to mental illness in my teenage life.

[Zushi]

I think mental illness is fine in comics as long as it is portrayed in a way that does not glorify/romanticize it or make it "sensational".

While I think researching the disorder can be ample enough to write a character with mental illness well, sometimes it leads to lacking in the thought process/ feelings of that comes with that mental illness as it is difficult to understand and convey that aspect unless you experience it yourself, or you have heard numerous experiences from others.

With depression and anxiety, it is probably a little easier to write about as it is a pretty common illness that a lot of people relate to and share their experience about so there are ample resources for research. However, it can also indirectly feed into stigma if the character portrayed having this illness also has a "bad" life as it can reinforce the belief that something bad/traumatic has to occur in your life to be reasonably depressed. Basically the "rich/pretty/privileged people cannot be depressed " viewpoint.

My comic deals with mental illness, namely depression and anxiety and most of my content writing that comes from my own personal experience (being clinically diagnosed, having crisis, and pretty much gone through all levels of care and treatment including hospitalization plus other things) as well as the experiences of others that I have heard shared throughout my years in treatment. Many of my readers found the comic extremely relatable and some people who didn't really understand about depression said it was pretty eye opening and changed their thoughts on some things. In general, my readers were thankful for me writing this story and are glad it's pretty popular (i'm reaching 200k soon) so that it can maybe spread some form of awareness in media.
So I think when done right, mental illness in a comic can really help the demographic it is talking about and even help those who don't understand mental illness to maybe develop some form of understanding and compassion.

[unknown_user]

1. I don't like when fiction spreads misconceptions about real existing things in general, and incorrect depiction of mental illnesses is certainly the particular case of it. For example, authors of some popular movies mix up Schizophrenia and Dissociative identity disorder. If viewers don't know beforehand that those are different illnesses and don't have especially critical thinking, they easily start to mix up them too. Such a things even may lead to mass delusion and form a myth sometimes.
   But I appreciate if author is spending some time, researching the topic, which they want to include in their creation. So, if author understood mental illness and depicts it correctly in their creation, I see nothing wrong in it.
2. I don't like the conception of "insanity" as a justification of arbitrary illogical actions of the character (especially if character is a villain). Mental problems can play role in characters behaviour, but I don't like when they replace their motivation completely. (By the way, actually "insanity" is something very vague and even doesn't mean any certain kind of mental problem. So this term is almost meaningless in reality.)
   "-Why he want to destroy the world? - He is insane" - I'm sick of such an "explanation". ¯_(ツ)_/¯

[phen]

Go forth. Make it, explore it, find your foothold, do research, use personal experience to your advantage and if you don't have that, get out there and talk to people with experience (be courteous, be kind, respect boundaries). It really shouldn't be a "you're on thin ice, mister!?" topic because as sucky as it is to suffer mental illness, it's amazing when addressed in webcomics by small, independent creators.

Of course, there are oceans of horrible representation in media but that's largely due to shareholders and too many producers/editors' hands in the dough.

My advice to anyone who's hesitant to keep going on their comic on this topic: It's important, even if mistakes are made, be open to change, open to information -- if you're concerned about others' reactions, it's 100% okay to keep it personal. You don't have to share your webcomic about any topic that makes you feel uncomfortable posting -- just keep creating! You'll figure out where you're going, what it's about, where your interest lies in time.

[Wumbl]

Same answer I give to "______ needed in webcomics?"

Webcomics are stories. Some stories contain mentions of certain subject matter. They shouldn't touch the subject matter if they don't know anything about it. If they do their research there's no reason why they can't. It's not really that complicated.

Mental illness isn't something "needed" it's just something you can choose to write about if you want. You don't need neuro-divergent characters if you don't know how to write them yet. On the other end mental illness should NOT be a gimmick. Nobody likes an "oooooh I'm so InSaNe with some unnamed CuRayZee disease haha stabstab" portrayal or another "they're special because they're autistic look at my special autistic babey" portrayal. Neuro-divergent people don't like being patronised. I don't wanna see it, and I'm neuro-divergent. We want to be seen as normal people, not "precious babies" or "crazy yandere nutcases".

If you're writing a mentally ill or neuro-divergent character do your research and don't make a goddamn caricature out of it. That's all you have to do. It's no different to writing a character from another country or a character with an ability you don't have.