Elliptical testimony: substituting, masking, and omitting images in graphic medicine

The unique affordances and multimodality of the comics medium has been celebated in the literature of graphic medicine for its ability create innovative visal meaphors that help show unique and often difficult to express experiences of illness and disease. While acknowledging the importance and continuing relevance of that work, this article considers what effects might be created when those working in the comics medium decide that not showing a key aspect of the story world is a more compelling way to reveal the truth of the condition they wish to talk about. This form of storytelling, in which an important gap or absence is part of the diegesis, I refer to as 'elliptical testimony'. Considering three different strategies for creating meaning through absence I look at substituting in Spellbound by Bishakh Som, masking in I'm a Terminal Cancer Patient, but I'm Fine by Hilnama, and excluding in And Now I Spill the Family Secrets by Margaret Kimball.