It Doesn’t Add Up: Mental Illness in Paul Hornschemeier’s Mother, Come Home

Abstract

Gross argues that Hornschemeier’s comic presents, through its two main characters, David and Thomas Tennant, two different ways of dealing with trauma: trying to logically reason through it and sublimating trauma into fantasy. Neither approach helps the traumatized characters to heal from their trauma, but Gross argues that Mother, Come Home presents the act of writing this comic as the act that liberates its supposed author, Thomas Tennant, from his trauma. Gross also points to Mother, Come Home as an important work of graphic medicine for its depiction of trauma from a sufferer’s viewpoint and for its depiction of how the world looks to an individual experiencing trauma.