A graphic novel with a lot of humor takes on the unbearable experience of healthcare bureaucracy.

Bipolar Bear and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Health Insurance is a fable for grown-ups, a Kafkaesque trip into the labyrinth of American healthcare bureaucracy. This bitterly funny, 200-page adventure confronts the audience with a very sensible question: How is it possible that we expect people who are unwell to navigate the archipelago of the healthcare system?

Marina-based writer Kathleen Founds has had the story of Theodore the Bipolar Bear brewing for 13 years. "It began with a scribble," she says. She is also the illustrator for the project, without claiming much artistic background. "I just keep drawing until I think it looks OK," she explains.

Founds, who is bipolar, is the author of novel-in-stories When Mystical Creatures Attack! and teaches creative writing at Cabrillo College in Aptos. Just like Theodore, her adventure with the nastiness of the current insurance system that exposed her to "all the vice of the American economy" started with a gigantic bill she received when she sought help after giving birth.

"The bill was as much as monthly rent," she says. "I was horrified." Just like Theodore, Founds called the customer care number. After hours of investigation, she finally learned she had used an out-of-network provider.

"I was overwhelmed by the bureaucracy," Founds says. "There was no person to appeal to because they were just doing their jobs. I realized that any person with any type of mental health problems must deal with this.

"Writers are here to write about the hardest subjects," Founds adds.

And there was only one way to address the ridiculous dullness of the current experience Americans have with health care: "You can only laugh about it." Hence the child-like voice and funny illustrations.

While the Bipolar Bear starts as a normal bear – aside from swinging from "I'm the king of the forest" to "I'm berry, berry sad" way too often – he ends up a political animal, leading the fight for a single-payer system.

To follow this adventure and meet a snake framed for armed robbery and an owl buried in student loan debt after studying Victorian lit – well, you will need to read the book.

An author talk for Bipolar Bear & The Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Health Insurance: A Fable for Grown Ups by Kathleen Founds happens from 6-8pm Friday, Dec. 2. Downtown Book & Sound, 213 Main St., Salinas. 477-6700, downtownbookandsound.com.