Following the success of Icon Books’ print collection of Rachael Smith‘s online Quarantine Comix, the publisher announced that Smith’s 2017 self-published mental health graphic memoir Wired Up Wrong will get a rerelease January 20, 2022. The rerelease will feature an original new cover by Smith.

Wired Up Wrong

Rachael Smith tweeted,

Wired Up Wrong began life as a short 40-page minicomic. In 2017 Smith ran a Kickstarter campaign for an expanded edition with an additional 100 pages.

According to the original Kickstarter post,

Wired up Wrong is a collection of auto-bio comic strips that I (comic-creator Rachael Smith) made in an effort to better understand my own brain. The strips deal mainly with my struggles with anxiety and depression; some are lighthearted, some are potent, some are just straight-up advice. The cast of the comics includes yours truly, my [then-] boyfriend Adam, my cat Rufus, as well as [A] giant black dog called Barky who follow[s] me around, and two tiny game show hosts who live in my head. Yeah, it’s a wild ride.

I initially released Wired Up Wrong as a 40 page book with a small print run. It was a bit of fun. ‘Hey, a few people might get a kick out of this!’, I thought. The books sold out. Like, absurdly quickly. Andy Oliver, Editor-in-Chief at Broken Frontier suggested it was my most important work to date. People said it had helped them cope with their own mental health issues, or made it easier to help people they knew. It made people feel less alone. I thought I was making a personal book about my own experiences but it resonated with people all over the world. It had become a funny, touching, accessible way for people to better understand mental health issues. It was overwhelming. It was awesome.

More copies of the book were needed, obviously. But instead of simply reprinting the original 40 page book, I wanted to do something much more special.

Wired Up Wrong received a follow-up in 2019, also funded via Kickstarter, called Stand In Your Power. Both can be considered precursors to Smith’s 2020 Quarantine Comix.