Blogger Jen Creer recently shared with us that Funky Winkerbean creator Tom Batiuk is weaving a breast cancer storyline into his comic strip. It seems he's not alone in his creative endeavor. The website MyBreastCancerNetwork is also pairing cancer and comics -- but with a twist.

These strips are personal. You get to be the subject. Just tell your story -- you can be the patient, the survivor, the loved one -- and illustrator Dash Shaw will craft your journey into a breast cancer comic strip to be featured on this site.

PJ Hamel, MyBreastCancerNetwork expert patient and author, was the first to have her story documented in this fashion, five years after she did battle with the disease. Here's just one excerpt of her journey, as told in her words and Shaw's illustrations.

Marisa Acocella Marchetto is a self-proclaimed "shoe-crazy, lipstick-obsessed, wine-swilling, pasta-slurping, fashion-fanatic, single-forever, about-to-get-married big-city girl cartoonist with a fabulous life." Until she receives a breast cancer diagnosis and her world is turned upside down. But with grace and style and a bit of wild spunk, Marchetto takes on 11 months of treatment -- often attending chemotherapy appointments in rainbow pumps -- and she emerges victorious. This fun-loving Manhattan girl is no cancer victim -- she is a cancer vixen.

Cancer Vixen: A True Story is Marchetto's story -- a powerful comic-book memoir of one woman, a cartoonist for The New Yorker and Glamour, who at the age of 43 encounters the dreaded depths of breast cancer. A woman who cartoons her way through personal crisis. A woman who marries her prince charming. A woman who is now living happily ever after.

Evelyn H. Lauder, Founder and Chairman of The Breast Cancer Research Foundation, says "Marisa's willingness to share her experiences in such an honest, personal way is an incredible inspiration -- whether you have experienced breast cancer or love someone who has endured its many challenges."

Cancer Vixen is a must read. And for a must-see teaser that will keep you wanting more, click here.

Comic-Con International in San Diego is an event where comic book, comic strip, science fiction, gaming, and movie people and fans mingle.

I am not there -- although it sounds like fun. For The Cancer Blog readers, I can tell you someone who is there -- Brian Fies creator of the comic Mom's Cancer. He appeared as a Comic-Con featured guest panel speaker.

In 2004, Brian Fies mother was diagnosed with incurable lung cancer. Fies created a serialized web comic strip called Mom's Cancer, as a way to express and come to terms with the emotional issues of watching his mother struggle with the challenges of facing life and death with cancer. He made the comic freely available for reading by anyone interested. Mom's Cancer wasn't advertised, but when it comes to the internet, if it's good, it creates its own buzz.

That is what happened to Mom's Cancer. It created enough buzz that it gained a large readership following and won the 2005 Eisner Award for Best Digital Comic. Mom's Cancer went on to become a book published by Abrams Books for those who like to hold a hard copy of a publication in their hands. Fies blogs about all-things related to Mom's Cancer and his daily life -- and he did mention in his blog that he is attending Comic-Con, however, he does not appear to be blogging Comic-Con live. But Fies promises to blog photos and stories about his Comic-Con experience when he returns home ... a vicarious way for us to attend this year's 2006 Comic-Con.

Miriam Engelberg, was diagnosed with breast cancer when she was 43 and decided to chronicle her breast cancer journey in a series of comic strips that have now been collected in the book, Cancer Made Me a Shallower Person: A Memoir in Comics. Engelberg, mother of a then four-year-old, used cartooning as a way to cope with the shock of diagnosis, surgery, chemotherapy, support groups, and a second cancer diagnosis. The reviewers like her and the way she handles the subject matter of being a cancer survivor, and the readers all seem to love what she has done in cartooning the perils and reality of being a cancer patient and cancer survivor. Some of the reviewers describe her book as "a fusion of the deadly serious with the absurd, in the finest tradition of black humor." Some of the readers describe her book as a fresh look at how someone's life changes with a cancer diagnosis -- an inside humor for survivors -- funny, heartbreaking and totally relatable and a refreshing take on living with cancer. If you find value in humor as a healing tool, or simply enjoy humor, visit Amazon's page for more information about her new book. They are selling it with Mom's Cancer, another cartoonist's take on the experience of cancer.