This week’s Free Thing comes from the world of comics.
Priya’s Mirror is the second part of the ongoing series of Priya’s Shakti, an intriguing tale that merges Hindu mythology with stories of women in contemporary India. As the creators of the book say, the comic book intends to “shatter the taboos around gender based violence through art, education, and a strong identifiable female character who is a rape survivor and superhero.”
The first comic was not only a milestone of content with its strong feminist tale of survival, but also technologically. Readers could pair up the comic with the Blippar mobile app for their phone or iPad and unlock new digital content as they read rather than later downloads.
Priya’s Mirror continues this story. While researching stories of acid attacks in New Delhi, India, writer Ram Devineni and artist Dan Goldman found that their experiences mirrored similar stories they had heard while researching Priya’s Shakti. That story arose from the brutal incident in 2012 of a gang rape/murder of a New Delhi woman. The stories told by acid attack survivors were almost identical to the stories told by rape survivors. Thus arose the idea for the Priya’s Mirror.
We highly recommend it, and we appreciate its creators using the Creative Commons license so that you may share it freely and widely.
Other versions are available from the Priya’s Shakti website.
