It goes without saying that this story is far from trivial. Stories such as these carry with them two challenges (in terms of creating a comic). Adapting this story to comic form carries two challenges.

First, any comic has to maintain the seriousness of the author’s experience – it can be humorous if it calls for it, but the gravity of the situation shouldn’t be watered down. In this particular instance, I needed to make sure that the experience of going through PTSD flashbacks came across as horrible, just as the author describes it to be.

Second, I need to refrain from actually showing some of the horrible scenes of violence, flashbacks, and other triggering effects. As much as it’s important to communicate the intensity of the situation, I can’t resort to actually showing the violence.

In particular, the panel depicting the violent movie scene was challenging. Initially I imagined showing a particularly bloody scene; while this obviously fails the second challenge, I also realized it failed the first. Why? Because no matter what I showed on the screen, it would not come across as seriously and horribly as the author experiences it.

So instead, I just wrote it out: “Your worst nightmare projected on screen.” I just let the reader imagine whatever that might be, and simultaneously allow that it could be a multitude of scenes. It’s a case where, for once, words are worth more than a thousand pictures!

(To see the comic itself, go here)