Seeing pain, trauma and anxiety: the visual politics of credibility in the Really Strange series.

Abstract

Steve Haines' and Sophie Standing's Really Strange comics (Pain is Really Strange (2015), Trauma is Really Strange (2015) and Anxiety is Really Strange (2018)) blend graphical narrative with medical science to tackle phenomena often deemed 'invisible' or medically perplexing. Using a visual medical humanities lens, the article situates the Really Strange series in the context of graphical medicine and explores how visual and narrative strategies can both democratise medical knowledge and inadvertently reinforce certain 'regimes of proof'. A core focus is the credibility problem surrounding chronic pain, psychological trauma and anxiety, subjective experiences frequently met with doubt because they evade direct visual proof. The comics confront this problem through a visual politics of credibility, borrowing imagery and conventions from scientific discourse to substantiate knowledge and validate personal experience. It is written for medical humanities and graphical medicine scholars, clinical educators and practitioners interested in communication, psychoeducation and the ethical problem of credibility in relation to pain, trauma and anxiety. Its purpose is to show how comics can help readers understand, discuss and teach invisible forms of suffering that are often difficult to verify through conventional biomedical means. The article also proposes graphical medicine literacy as an extension of visual literacy: the ability to read comics not only as accessible illustrations but as layered medicovisual texts that shape how illness, evidence, testimony and care are understood.