Recognizing National Breast Cancer Awareness Month with Ziggy
In recognition of National Breast Cancer Awareness month on this first day of October, I am honored to have a guest post from Greg Walsh, the talented pr guy who works with Tom Wilson, Jr., the cartoonist behind Ziggy. As you’ll read, Tom is one of those people who witnessed breast cancer close-up through the loss of his wife. Anyone who’s been in his shoes, watching their loved one struggle and lose the battle to terminal disease will understand. The rest of us can certainly try. This is partly a plug, I admit, for Tom Wilson’s book, Zig-zagging from HCI, but even so, the message in Tom’s book is timely.
How does a man find new, original and humorous optimistic sentiments each day while watching his wife lose her battle with breast cancer? Ziggy cartoonist Tom Wilson reveals his story of love, loss and overcoming depression with the help of a character that millions of people smile at every day.
In Zig-zagging: Loving Madly, Losing Badly – How Ziggy Saved My Life Wilson takes readers along with Ziggy, through tremendous family tragedies, deep depression, and learning to live happily, meanwhile always being an inspiration to millions of everyday readers.
Much of Wilson’s memoir is centered on the journey he took with his young wife after she was diagnosed with breast cancer.
“Particularly in October, when there is so much focus on breast cancer awareness, I want to share with all of the other families out there, a personal experience about how breast cancer affected me and my life,” Wilson explains. “I don’t pretend to know what it is like to have cancer, but I consider myself a survivor because I watched it tear my life apart. My perspective is for all of the other spouses, sons and daughters, who deal with this disease when it moves into their lives.”
Like Ziggy, Tom Wilson has turned tragedy into a learning experience and readers can be inspired by the humorous healing touches throughout the book. Through the occasional appearance of Ziggy cartoons across the pages, the book deftly treats its readers to “comic relief” along Wilson’s occasional sad road.
Ziggy first appeared in newspapers in June 1971. Tom Wilson has drawn and written Ziggy since 1987, after the retirement of his father, the senior Tom Wilson, who first created Ziggy as a greeting card character. Now distributed through Universal Press Syndicate, a division of Andrews McMeel Universal, Ziggy is published in more than 600 newspapers, reaching 75 million readers daily, and maintains an online presence through www.Ziggyzone.com and www.uclick.com.
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