Olly Duke by the bridge at Camden Lock
A CARTOONIST and journalist who lived in a narrow boat in Camden Town has published a comic book documenting the highs and lows of his cancer treatment.
Olly Duke, 72, launched I’m A Chemo Freak after pitching it to staff at Mega City Comics in Inverness Street, who then worked with him on developing the story.
“Cancer is a bleak subject for cartoons so some of the stuff that I did for Chemo Freak was black humour, some of it was stupid, some of it was funny,” he said.
“It was just a mixture of everything because cancer is a mixture of emotions which you’ve got to deal with and sometimes you feel okay, even though you’re going through s*** and sometimes you feel like you’re going to die. Other times you feel as though the end of the world has come for you, personally and your life is on a knife edge.”
Mr Duke, who used to live in a houseboat called Cascade which he frequently moored at Camden Lock, created the comic’s sidekick of the main character, Ratso – a rodent who smokes cannabis and has a gang in New York.
He said: “When my wife and I went to the oncologist and he told me that the cancer spread to my bones that was just devastating and when he was talking to us, I looked at her face and her face just crumpled like in a cartoon. It just crumpled. I thought ‘Jesus Christ, I’ve got to draw that’.”
Mr Duke’s I’m A Chemo Freak
I’m A Chemo Freak, a desolate perspective on how cancer patients navigate through the health service, is illustrated by a freak show strip and Mr Duke said: “I think the NHS is a shambles. I think if you’ve got cancer in the UK, good luck to you. They’re just not funding the NHS. It’s as simple as that. They’re trying to privatise the NHS in effect. It’s just not working and it won’t work.”
A drive to portray cancer treatment in a different way to mainstream media, as well as a way to work through his own emotions, inspired him to make the comic, Mr Duke said, adding: “I did it because it was possibly good therapy for me and secondly I wanted other people to know what you go through when you’ve got cancer.
“There are people who write articles about having cancer and to be honest, it’s dreary, it’s lifeless really, there’s no life in it, there’s no humour, it’s almost, sort of pissy. With a cartoon you can get around that – you can be darkly humorous.”
Strips from Mr Duke’s book I’m A Chemo Freak
Mr Duke, now living in France, is in remission and he has got an appointment with the oncologist next Monday.
He said: “We’ll see what happens, I don’t know. It could start all over again, we don’t know. At the moment, I feel good.”
Proceeds of the book sales will be donated to Cancer Research. It can be purchased at Mega City Comics.
