Part7

Rod with a prod

Artwork by Mads Horwath 30 August 2024

Comic
Serial

Panel 1 of a 10 panel comic. A person wearing white and their friend are having a conversation. The friend says "Your skin looks amazing! How did you get yourself to stop compulsively stress picking?". "Thanks I had help!" They reply. "From whom?" The friend asks.

In panel 2 a character appears wearing a baseball cap and holding a cattle prod. Beside them are the stylised title words "Rod with a prod!" And the strap-line, "The short term solution to compulsive skin picking!"

In panel 3 Rod is now in close up so we see their face and the end of the cattle prod. From outside the frame comes the voice of the person dressed in white saying, "Why try to address why I pick my skin to cope with stress when I have Rod?"

In panel 4 Rod joins the two friends and the person in whites says "I'll show you how it works.

In panel 5 they start to pick at the skin on their forearm and say "So as I begin to pick..."

In panel 6 Rod immediately strikes them to the floor, the blue streaks of electricity from the cattle prod crackling into their arm.

In panel 7 Rod strikes again, his victim out of frame but the blue lightening strikes of electricity still rising up.

In panel 8 Rod raises the prod about to strike yet again.

In panel 9 Rod slams the cattle prod down again causing even more zigzag lines of electricity.

In panel 10 finally we see the person in white, laid out on the floor, covered on red lumps, cuts and bruises, their hair standing up. "Brilliant" they exclaim.

Rod with a prod. © Mads Horwath for Wellcome Collection.

About the artist

Mads Horwath

Mads on Instagram

Mads Horwath is an American cartoonist living in London. You can find their work in The New Yorker and Financial Times. Mads has lived with dermatillomania since they were a kid and got scars from a poison-ivy rash.