Just before the artist Matt Freedman left New York for Boston in the fall of 2012 to undergo treatment for adenoid cystic carcinoma— a rare form of cancer that by the time it was diagnosed had spread from his tongue to his neck and lungs—his students and colleagues at the University of Pennsylvania presented him with a blank sketchbook. He resolved to record his thoughts and experiences, four pages a day, for the next seven weeks. For Freedman, who created the comic strip Free Associates for the Reader from 1978 to 1991, writing and drawing seemed the best and most familiar way to express himself and organize his thoughts and maintain a veneer of normalcy.
The drawings themselves reflect Freedman’s state of mind: at first, they’re sketchy and raw; as the book progresses—and as he began to depend on the book as a distraction from the pain and from bigger problems—they become more intricate and elaborate.
While he was working on the sketchbook, Freedman never expected to show it to anyone. But the words and pictures turned out to be more lucid than he’d thought, even when he was creating them. He passed it on to a few friends, and then his art dealer, who turned it into a show at Studio 10, a gallery in Brooklyn, in the spring of 2013, where it caught the attention of an editor at Seven Stories Press.
by Matt Freedman (Seven Stories Press)
