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Published December 19, 2025

Sorry I Had To Make This Comic Even Though It Will Make You Feel Uncomfortable

Years after a sexual assault, I sometimes feel like a broken record.
‘Sorry I Had To Make This Comic Even Though It Will Make You Feel Uncomfortable’ is drawn with sparse, scratchy black ink. Bene is depicted as a white person with short curly hair. This comic contains references to sexual assault.
Panel 1 shows a hand holding an iPhone, about to make a on Instagram that reads “trigger warning!” The caption reads, “five years today since I went public about being assaulted by a boy in a band and their manager said she’d sue me if I told. And all my friends went into meltdown mode, no idea what to do. And I couldn’t sit for a week cause the bruising inside me was too bad.”Panel 2 continues, “And I started to faint in the hospital when I had to go in for an STI check at the rape crisis centre, which for some stupid reason is located in the Canberra Hospital Emergency Department and the triage nurse asked me very loudly to EPLAIN WHY I WAS THERE, and Amy had to hold me up as I began to slide down the welcome desk and onto the floor (love that girl.” The panel shows Bene collapsed on the floor, with her friend Amy standing behind, arms around her.In Panel 3 Bene sits on a couch, alone and thinking. The caption reads, “still think about it sometimes. All the time. Most days. Today more than other days. This month more than other months. This year less than other years.” InPanel 4 Bene lies across the backseat of her car. She has the look of doom in her eye. The caption reads, “still can’t go to shows, still get panic attacks the bands play. Still hide in my car, or the bathroom, or the train, or the dark corridors of my mind when the feeling of doom sets in (If you wonder where the women in music are, they are probably hiding in their cards round the corner from the show.”In Panel 5, two hands reach towards each other, close but not quite touching. The background is dark and scratchy. The caption reads, “still miss the life I used to have. Still never want to go back. Still the miss friendships that never quite made it back right, even though I love them, even though they love me.”In Panel 6, Bene is driving, her eyes angry and bulging. In the backseat is a man with slicked back hair. The caption reads, “still get quiet in the car when my friend tells me, ‘I just don’t think we should cancel people I’m not the sort of person that can’t separate the art from the artist. Don’t you agree Bene?’”Panel 7 shows a drumkit in a room festooned with fairy lights, a handmade banner that proclaims, “DIY 4 EVA”, and a sign that says “SAFE SPACE”. The caption reads, “still think I’ve never been happier than when I was dancing in my sister’s living room and some shit band was playing, shouting about their emo feelings and I was shouting right back. And everyone I loved and needed was next to me. And I though safe spaces were real because we had declared it so.”Panel 8 continues, “and Phoebe would dance with her pregnant belly out and Amy and I would make punch and I knew Jamie was the best musician in the world even if she only played to 12 people in the backyard, because her voice was so beautiful and her lyrics made me cry, still do, every time (love that girl). Still miss it every day. Still never want to go back.” In the panel Bene and her friend dance hand in hand, they are smiling and the fairy lights sparkle behind them.Panel 9 shows Bene with her head in her hands. Black, angry lines radiate from her. The caption reads, “still think maybe I made it all up in my head sometimes, even though I know I didn’t.”In Panel 10, someone is playing guitar in the same loungeroom as before. We can’t see their face, only their legs, and their guitar pedals. The banners have fallen to the floor, crushed under their feet. The caption reads, “still think it would be easier to have made it all up than for it to be real and my life to have changed irreparably, irreconcilably, because I got horny one night and asked a boy to come round. A boy in a band that was going somewhere. A boy in a band that sang about feminism and refugees. That kind of boy. That kind of band.”In a mirror of the previous Panel, Panel 11 shows Bene from the legs down. She casts a long shadow across the page, and the background is dark, with intense black linework. The caption reads, “still get a thrill of fear every time I go home.”Panel 12 reads, “still think about all the ways I have been complicit in other people’s suffering.” Bene holds her hand to her head, looking perturbed.Panel 13 reads, “still think about the chasms of self-hatred this has opened in my heart.” There is no image; black lines swirl around the text.Panel 14 shows Bene in the car again, her body turned towards the back seat. The caption reads, “still feel proud for leaving, still feel proud for saying no. Still feel proud for doing what I did, even if it looked crazy, even if I was crazy for a minute there.” Bene says, “Actually I don’t think you can separate the art from the artist and why do we put the shame on the person who is doing the cancelling? Put the shame where it belongs: on the person who has committed the crime.”In Panel 15, Bene is back on the couch, alone. She is hugging her legs in close to her, and cat paws can be seen reaching up from the corner of the panel. The caption reads, “still feel ashamed to make a comic about it. Still want to throw up when I try.”Panel 16 continues, “still think you’ll all hate me when you read this. Still think I’m a broken record, who’ll never play a record again.”
Bene moves to lie down on the couch, and the cat has joined her. The final panel shows Bene and the cat, curled on the couch. Bene looks sad, but the cat is smiling, and she is holding him. The caption reads, “still think about it sometimes. All the time. Most days. Today more than other days.”

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