Dumb - Living Without A Voice back

"So the doctor said you have to stop talking altogether?
"Whoa, really?
"So how long will it be?
"Oh yeah! Are you still hosting New Year's if you can't talk?
"Ha ha, of course you are.
"You're not going to stop doing anything, are you?
"Of course not! Why would you?"

The other half of this conversation, Georgia Webber's responses, were scribbled down on paper...
I left those out to give you the full effect of how Georgia has to interact with the world at large. For after seemingly straining her voice through over-use, she's been advised that six months without talking at all is the best remedy to resolve her particular painful issue.

Here's the publisher's own scribblings to oh so quietly tell you a little more...

"Part memoir, part medical cautionary tale, Dumb tells the story of how the author copes with the everyday challenges that come with voicelessness. Webber adroitly uses the comics medium to convey the hurdles she faced as well as the fear and dread that accompanied her journey to regain her life. She learns to lean on the support of her close friends, finds self-expression in creating comics, and comes to understand and appreciate how deeply her voice and identity are intertwined."

That she does. Aside from the obvious day-to-day problems not being able to speak would create, which Georgia experienced, not least it necessitating her giving up her job and seeking welfare assistance to be able to survive financially, Georgia also conveys extremely well the deeply unsettling emotional effects of such a malady. From the general anxiety and depression it caused her, to even being plagued by doubts and uncertainties that her voice would ever return to its full functionality, it made her question whether she could be the same person without it.

Told in bold strokes of black and grey against a white background with additional lashings of bright red, including for all the speech and thought balloons, which was particularly striking, this is an art style which is impressively detailed yet seemingly remarkably casual in nature. You can vividly see Georgia's tension displayed in the style itself at times, not just in her facial expressions.

A wonderfully candid and affecting first-hand account of a particularly peculiar illness that I suspect no one could possibly begin to imagine how it would feel unless they experienced it themselves.