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Published December 8, 2024

The Accident

A cartoonist remembers the strangers who helped her after an accident, and what she wishes she'd told them.
Page 1 of a 6 page black & white ink comic called The Accident. Panel 1 shows a young woman carrying some food as she is about to cross a zebra crossing in a northeastern neighbourhood of London. Down the hill in the distance, a car turns the corner looking ominous. The caption reads: “Eight years ago today, in a pedestrian crossing one evening in London…” Panel 2 is dark, a frantic scribble of black on black. The caption reads “i was hit by a car” Panel 3 shows the woman up close, lit by the car’s headlights. She appears nervous but resolute. The caption reads: “I crossed without making eye contact, I was trying to be brave.” She thinks “Why do they have to get this close?” Panel 4 is a frenzy of large sound effects: BAMM, CHHH!!, Shreee, BEEE, Hey!!. The caption above them reads: “i don’t remember this part” Panel 5 shows an imagined scenario of a car and a crash test dummy pedestrian. Over three frames, the crash test dummy walks in front of the car, is hit by the car with its head impacting the windshield and lastly is thrown by the car into a heap on the road. The caption reads: “So I’m not sure what happened…” Panel 6 is black on black with the caption “I lost consciousness”Page 2 of a 6 page black & white ink comic called The Accident. Panel 1 has only black in scribbles on a black colour wash. Panel 2 is the same as Panel 1 with the caption “I couldn’t see” In Panel 3, the edges of some speech bubbles appear in the darkness but we cannot read them. The caption reads: “I couldn’t move” In Panel 4 in the darkness, the speech bubbles become clearer, showing different voices and fragments of speech that’s cut off. They read “-going to be okay”, “-here’d the driver go!?” and “He dro-- away--” The caption reads: “I heard voices around me” In Panel 5, the voices become larger and sound effects of car horns appear in the dark scribbles. The voices say: “-u’re going to be okay”, “The guy -st dro – away”, and “Calm down someone’s been hit”. The caption reads “I felt someone take my hand” In Panel 6 the caption over the darkness and car horns reads “They persisted:”. A calming voice says “Can you hear me? We called an ambulance” The final caption on the page reads “But I couldn’t answer”Page 3 of a 6 page black & white ink comic called The Accident. This page is entirely composed of panels of dark scratches and sfx over dark ink washes, while the main character struggles to see or move. In Panel 1, the caption reads: “The driver returned” and one voice says “he’s come back”, while another more panicked voice says “--was… I was just parki--”, “is she alright?!” In Panel 2 he continues: “she… she ran out into the road!” and the caption says “but I still couldn’t move or speak” In Panel 3 the caption reads “I couldn’t defend myself” In Panel 4, a new voice argues with the driver now: “No she didn’t!” to which the driver stammers “but she…” “She was just walking in the crosswalk, and you didn’t st-” In Panel 5 the caption reads “’It’s okay driver…’ I thought” In Panel 6, the dark background humms with words and the sounds of angry traffic. The caption reads: “I had been hit on a busy road. I could hear cars and trucks idling all around me” In Panel 7, a voice says “-called an ambulance, okay?” The caption reads “Finally I could move a little. I told the person who was holding my hand:” and in a shaky and small voice the protagonist says “i’m sorry…” The kind voice replies “oh no, hey, you’re--”Page 4 of a 6 page black & white ink comic called The Accident. In Panel 1, the dark and harsh background lightens. The kind voice says “you have nothing to be sorry for” while in the background sirens ring and voices babble: “-ere they come”, “I’m g-- need”. In Panel 2, the voices of the police officers and EMTs speak broken instructions. Above this, the caption reads: “The medics and police took over, but all I’d said to the person who’d held my hand and the person who had defended me was ‘i’m sorry’” Panel 3 shows the dark scribbles becoming shapes at last, something like a face and some trees appear, lights blinking around. The caption reads: “My vision began to return as I was being loaded into the ambulance” Panel 4 shows the panels of the interior of the ambulance, medical devices and wires full of mystery and import. The caption reads: “I’d been at a free cooking class and a lady on the course had been walking behind me and saw the accident. Panel 5 shows broken glasses, splayed books, a phone and a pen, scattered on the asphalt. The caption reads: “She’d gathered all my things that had been thrown across the road. She sat with me in the ambulance, calling my roommate and my boyfriend” Panel 6 shows th vague shapes of some people and the panels of the ambulance. Their voices crowd the panel. The medic asks “Do you need the painkiller?” and the cop suggests “Oh yeah, take the painkiller.” The main character shakily responds “uhmm… I don’t know” to which the medic replies “Does it hurt now? Because it’ll hurt a lot more later”. The main character concedes “Oh okay… yes please”Page 5 of a 6 page black & white ink comic called The Accident. Panel 1 shows a “golf-balled” windshield which is cracked in a web pattern from the impact of the head on the glass, square in the middle of the window. The captions read: “The driver had been unlicensed and uninsured. He gave a false address to the cops and wasn’t seen again.” Panel 2 shows an almost Trump-like figure with a big angry grimace and brows knit with fury driving a car as the headlights shine alarmingly around. The caption reads: “I bore him no ill will but hoped he’d consider driving school. I was left with nightmares” Panel 3 shows vague scribbled figures the shape of the main character moving in the dim light and surrounded by flashing headlights. The caption reads “And, on brisk late summer evenings, my body remembers.” Panel 4 shows paths and roads in patterns with the caption “And though I thank everyone who helped me from the bottom of my heart: the NHS workers, the cops, my boyfriend who took care of me, my understanding colleagues, and riders on the Tube who gave me their seat when I couldn’t stand…” Panel 5 returns to the black scribbles on black, with the words of the supportive people who came to the scene of the accident. The caption reads “What I think about most when I look back on that day are these people”. The many different voices in the background comfort and defend the main character. The caption in Panel 6 says “I didn’t get their names of see their faces and all I’d said to them was ‘I’m sorry’” while in the background the voices are helpful and supportive.Page 6 of a 6 page black & white ink comic called The Accident. In Panel 1, the main character is older now and looks out a busy Tube window, into the darkness. The caption reads: “So I say now: Thank you” Panel 2 shows her leaving the Tube carriage with the caption: “I could not see you, but I felt your hand and knew I was safe” Panel 3 shows her riding up a long escalator, out from the underground. The caption reads: “I could not speak, but I heard you be there for me” In Panel 4 she walks out of crowded turnstiles with the caption “I look at faces in the crowd and wonder if it’s you” In the final panel she walks out onto the pedestrian crossing at Finsbury Park tube station, looking up into the night sky as cars wait for her to cross. The caption reads “I know you’re out there and in that, I know I’ll be okay.”

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