Cara Bean: Here I Am, I Am Me
Above is page 204 from Here I Am, I Am Me, Cara Bean’s book about mental health for young readers from Workman Publishing.
Panel Breakdown:
Page Title: Depression and Stress
Panel 1: There is a blue, moonscape-like desert environment with the main narrator (Bean) trapped underground in a pit with teeth that contains Depression (a cyclops cloud) and lightning bolts.
Panel 2: A small dog approaches by following its nose. Stars appear in the sky.
Panel 3: The dog pulls apart the top of the pit like a blanket and Bean crawls out, saying thanks.
Panel 4: Depression speaks to Bean below from the pit commanding, “You get back in.” The dog watches with
concern.
Panel 5: The bean is back inside the pit with depression hovering over. The dog is barking up above.
Panel 6: Close up of Bean looking sad, against backdrop of Depression.
Cartoonist’s thought process:
Cara: This page comes from the Depression chapter in Here I Am, I Am Me. It is an adaptation from a page in a
minicomic that I created many years ago called Snake Pit. I wrote Snake Pit for adults who work with youth,
but in Here I Am, I Am Me, I shifted my presentation of the information to talk directly to a younger audience.
I use a lot of recurring symbols in Here I Am, I Am Me as a kind of shorthand. I chose the sparse, desert
landscape with cool (mainly purple) tones as a way to reflect a somber mood. The symbol that I use for
Depression is a huge scribbly cyclops cloud which features prominently throughout the chapter. On this page,
it traps you in a pit with teeth. I also use lightning bolts as a symbol for stress throughout the book.
I have a dog named Raisin who makes an entrance into my book on this page. In real life, she has been my
companion for the creation of this project and lifts my mood all the time. On this page, she tries to help Bean
get out of Depression’s hold.
Throughout the book and specifically on this page, I speak to the reader in two voices. One of the voices that I
am using is the invisible “voiceover” narrator (VO) at the top of the panel providing information about the
relationship between stress and depression. The other voice I am using is from Bean, the yellow narrator, who
expresses through word bubbles her vulnerabilities inside of the page’s panels.
The VO peacefully guides the reader through a basic understanding of depression while Bean struggles to get
out of the Depression pit. As Bean and Raisin negotiate Bean’s release from the Depression pit, the VO
explains how Depression can appear with or without triggers and can make it hard to get help.