Abstract
The subject of rape and sexual abuse in comics is a sensitive issue, especially for its visual content. Using Hemavathy Guha’s “Asha, Now” (from the anthology Drawing the Line: Indian Women Fight Back (2015) by Priya Kuriyan et al.) and Pratheek Thomas and Rajiv Eipe’s (illustrator) HUSH (2010), this chapter discusses how in these comics the visual metaphor and the visual rhetoric help in bridging the “gutter” (space between two panels), breaking/breaching the barriers of silence through the “meaning-making material practices” (Foss 2004, 305). While the former unveils Asha’s experience with sexual abuse inside the house and the difficulties in living in such an atmosphere, the latter revolves around Maya, a victim of child sexual abuse, stalked and abused by her own father. The scopophilic desire inside the House causes psychological trauma which a child does not want to share even with the family. The prime motive for illustrating these agonizing narratives is to give a voice to sexually abused girls as these reports are hardly lodged as criminal cases. Within the postulates of childhood studies and comics studies, this chapter explores the nuances of sexual oppression inside the house and incestuous abuse which are depicted in these select Indian graphic narratives.
