By Nigel Maxwell

Graphic comic sheds light on Marlene Bird’s assault

Jan 30, 2015 | 12:01 PM

A four-page graphic comic tells the story of Marlene Bird, the woman who was badly beaten and burned in Prince Albert last June.

Graphic journalist Dan Archer was contacted last year by Duncan McCue, a reporter with CBC National.  The two had attended to Stanford University together.  McCue told Archer that he wanted to tell a different side to the horrific story of Marlene Bird.

“There wasn’t really an angle that allowed Marlene to tell the story through her point of view, it was all very much putting her in the third person,” said Archer.

The two men visited Bird last December at her home in Timber Bay, Sask.

“We stayed like five days with her, and her partner Patrick, and were able to really get a sense of her life, her friends and so I think she knew that we weren’t just some sort of drive by, tell us your horrible story, and then we’ll jump on the bandwagon,” said Archer.

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Archer would draw pictures of Bird in his sketchbook, and then show the pictures to her. He said this helped gain Bird’s trust. She was at the time feeling overwhelmed by the media attention.

The project, start to finish, took about a month and a half to complete. Archer said he enjoys taking this approach to news.

“In a lot of ways I feel drawing the subjects and bringing the subject to life can really create a stronger sense of empathy between the reader and the interviewee, and I also feel like it’s a way of putting the reader in a subject’s shoes in a way that traditional media can’t,” said Archer.

Archer realizes that there may be some people who feel that putting Bird’s story in a comic is in poor taste.

“There’s nothing in my approach that is any way making fun or light of what’s happened, and in a lot of ways I see art and the responsibility of artists, as well as journalists, to engage with the first reality around them,” said Archer.

Archer who has done previous work on the issue of missing aboriginal women, and human trafficking said Bird’s story was by far one of the top cases of brutality, nightmarish horror that he has seen humans do to each other.

The 35 panels in the comic include an animated video. The video tells Bird’s story of the assault.  She talks about being out with friends drinking, then suddenly getting hit.  Her attacker used a board with a nail in it. The attacker proceeded to sexually assault her and then dumped a flammable liquid on her, before lighting her on fire.

The comic is free to view online.

Archer said he hopes his work will help raise awareness about the issue of addictions and violence against women.

nmaxwell@panow.com

On Twitter: @nigelmaxwell