Symptoms
Description
In Symptoms, Catherine Ocelot turns her attention to the marks left by words, to what makes us ill and what helps us heal, and to the small inner voice we too often learn to ignore. Through a series of interconnected vignettes, the book explores mental, physical, and emotional health with tenderness, curiosity, and humour.
Like plants entwined in a greenhouse, these stories overlap and echo one another, revealing the invisible threads that bind us to the people who pass through our lives. With dialogue and drawings that are at times funny, at times poetic, Symptoms examines how our relationships—whether nourishing or toxic—shape both body and mind. Dreamlike and deeply human, this graphic novel traces the subtle inner movements that change us.
Winner of the 2023 Prix BD des Collégiens!
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Persons
Writer and artist Catherine Ocelot is the author of the books Talk Show, Art Life (winner of the 2019 Bédélys Québec Award), and her most recent work, Symptoms, which won the 2023 Prix BD des Collégiens.Her lyrical comics have appeared regularly in ELLE Québec and ELLE Canada, exploring our relationships to the body, beauty, and inner life, and she is also the author of Human Nature and Portraits, an ongoing comic strip series for the Montreal newspaper La Presse. Originally from Quebec City, Catherine Ocelot now lives in Montreal with her daughter and their small dog.
Helge Dascher has for 25 years translated texts with a dynamic relationship to images. A background in art history and literature has grounded her translation of over sixty graphic novels, many by artists who have broadened the medium's storytelling range. Her translations included acclaimed titles such as Julie Delporte's This Woman's Work (co-translated with Aleshia Jensen, Drawn and Quarterly, 2019), Sophie Bédard's Lonely Boys (co-translated with Robin Lang, Pow Pow Press, 2020) and Michel Rabagliati's "Paul" books (Drawn and Quarterly, Conundrum). Helge was the winner, along with Robin Lang, of the 2025 Sophie Castille Award for their translation ofThe Jellyfish by Boum. She also translates exhibitions, digital stories, and films, most recently Theodor Ushev's The Physics of Sorrow (with Karen Houle, NFB, 2019). A Montrealer, she works from French and German to English.
Robin Lang has been translating graphic novels for Pow Pow Press alongside Helge Dascher since 2017. Recently she was lead translator on Fruit Salad and The Adventures of Sgoobidoo by Cathon, and Lonely Boys by Sophie Bédard, winner of the 2021 Doug Wright award for best book. Robin was the winner, along with Helge Dascher, of the 2025 Sophie Castille Award for their translation of The Jellyfish by Boum. Other works she has co-translated include The Pineapples of Wrath by Cathon and the Almost Summer series by Sophie Bédard. Robin runs a cut-flower farm in the Eastern Townships during the growing season and translates from French to English in the winter. She thoroughly enjoys the intricacies involved in translating graphic novels and draws great satisfaction from helping these stories reach new readers.