Then this will happen after the last thing that happened because I didn’t do this or that. I chose this page, because I am guilty of creating snowball scenarios. As a reader, we too were witnesses to what a person who might be facing a battle as strong and real as Katie’s was. But the length of the book was full of weighted details of what Katie experienced, felt and witnessed.

We also witnessed a traumatic encounter with a self-help guru during her long road to recovery, which felt long because the book is 500 pages. Throughout the whole book, we are invited along into her beginning of hiding toast, which grew into an obsession, a hospital stay and her mental health professional visits. In these three panels, Katie gives us a look into her tumult. Throughout the book, Katie gives a glimpse into what it is like to fight against her demons and her struggles. People with addictions are engaged with a constant battle with themselves, whether it is with alcohol, smoking, gambling or pornography. Green allows the reader in to show how her struggle with anorexia has affected her. Lighter Than My Shadow is Katie Green’s illustrated experience with a mental disorder (anorexia in this case), and the battle within herself. As a reader, you wonder if she will ever find peace and take control as she tries in the three panels. The use of colored paper in this panel and throughout the whole book adds to the dreariness of Katie’s struggle. As she is lying down, her bones are sticking out of her, depicting that she is wasting away.

The colors used on this page are a constant reminder of the dreariness that her eating disorder is making her sick. In the last panel, she takes control, her hand rests on her head and she begs her mind to shut up and let her sleep. It starts off as an innocent mental to-do list, but in panel two, her thoughts overwhelm her. In the first panel, Katie is lying flat on her back, and her thoughts invade her, robbing her of much needed sleep. Throughout the book, she shifts between her use of light beige, grey and muted green.

Green’s utilization of a light colored paper gives the book an increase of weight. In these three panels, she uses black and grey with a grey colored background. Throughout the book, her use of color seems to describe her and her mood. The speech bubbles of her thoughts are easy to follow, for as you go down each panel, her thoughts get heavier, and seem to worsen.

She draws herself with simple lines, no mouth, for her mind is doing the talking. These three panels have the reader descending into Katie’s nightmarish, creation of scenarios that keep her relentlessly awake. I chose to analyze a comic page from Lighter Than My Shadow by Katie Green.

Lighter than my shadow