Popular and hilarious web cartoonist and illustrator Gemma Correll has just released a new graphic novel about her lifetime struggle with anxiety and depression, which at times has been quite severe. Anxietyland is a heartbreaking and crushingly honest memoir, but also very funny and hopeful.
ANXIETYLAND by Gemma Correll. Copyright @ 2026 by Gemma Correll. Reprinted by permission of Gallery Books, an Imprint of Simon & Schuster, LLC.ted with the permission of Gallery Books
As the book progresses, it rotates among three storylines/formats: a recent time when Gemma checked herself into a Partial Hospitalization Program; her entire past, when she suffered from panic attacks, crippling anxiety, agoraphobia, depression, and alcohol abuse; and humorous comics ironically portraying her struggles with her symptoms as thrilling and frightening amusement park attractions. And so: Anxietyland.
Excerpted from ANXIETYLAND by Gemma Correll. Copyright @ 2026 by Gemma Correll. Reprinted by permission of Gallery Books, an Imprint of Simon & Schuster, LLC.
I spoke to her about her achievement with this book, and asked her if it was difficult to be so brutally honest about her life. Her comics have always commented humorously about anxiety, but this book reveals very specific and private autobiographical details. She said:
“I was always conscious that I make a lot of comics about anxiety, but I’ve never gone that deep into it. When anxiety is talked about, whether it’s through comics or of any medium, it’s usually quite surface-level. It’s a whole spectrum, and you see one end of the spectrum quite a lot, but I really wanted to show the different types of anxiety and the different levels that you can get to. And yeah, it’s kind of been in the back of my mind for years, but I wanted to write this. And it’s a little nerve-racking because I haven’t told anyone really. There’s gonna be people in my family that that don’t know any of this stuff until they read it in this book. …
It’s not very pretty. You know, parts of the book are like pretty embarrassing and it does worry me a little bit that people who just know me for making funny comments get to see this. But on the other hand, at this point, I just really want to tell the whole truth.”
Excerpted from ANXIETYLAND by Gemma Correll. Copyright @ 2026 by Gemma Correll. Reprinted by permission of Gallery Books, an Imprint of Simon & Schuster, LLC.
And yet, as difficult and brutal as the book can get, with bouts of anxiety and depression so severe the walk down the hall of her own apartment from her bedroom to the bathroom can become an insurmountable obstacle, it’s a very funny book. I asked Gemma if it was hard to find the humor in her anxiety.
“It wasn’t difficult, because once I started writing the book, I was very much outside of it. You know, not completely, never maybe completely outside of it. But I was outside of the most intense episodes. And I always just think that there’s humor in everything.”
Excerpted from ANXIETYLAND by Gemma Correll. Copyright @ 2026 by Gemma Correll. Reprinted by permission of Gallery Books, an Imprint of Simon & Schuster, LLC.
I was saddened by how little information she had about anxiety and depression throughout her childhood and even young adult life, and therefore how she struggled with symptoms that she hid from others and couldn’t even name for herself. In our conversation, I asked whether she thinks that there’s more information available about mental illness now, and whether her book is an example of how a frank account of anxiety could help people. I was struck by her hope that a book about anxiety in comics form can be particularly helpful.
“What I wanted to do, partly, with Anxietyland was to use a visual language to explain the way that I was feeling. I think that if I’d seen something like that, it might have helped a lot more because a lot of the language around mental health can be quite quite dry, a little wordy. And it’s really hard to sort of identify sometimes with just black-and-white in front of you in textbook symptoms. And then if they’re not spoken about in real life and that’s sort of all you have to go by, you’re like, ‘Oh, that doesn’t really apply to me.’”
I find that fascinating, because a unique thing about her book is that she uses evocative and effective visual metaphors, which may be an entryway for people who can’t relate to a dry list of symptoms.
Excerpted from ANXIETYLAND by Gemma Correll. Copyright @ 2026 by Gemma Correll. Reprinted by permission of Gallery Books, an Imprint of Simon & Schuster, LLC.
Anxietyland is an emotionally rich, funny, entertaining, and captivating read for anyone. And for people struggling with anxiety, and for the people in their lives, it may be a wonderful new way to help understand and explain the devastating, complex, and mysterious symptoms they are grappling with.
You can purchase Anxietyland at your local bookstore, or online, including here.
PREVIOUSLY: I have to mention that Anxietyland echos another great, brutally honest, insightful, and funny memoir on mental health struggles: Comedian Gary Gulman’s Misfit, which I wrote about here. Gary even has a blurb on the back of Gemma’s book.
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