Tarraq : in the shadows

This thesis is a script for a fictional Indigenous horror graphic novel accompanied by demonstrative artwork that includes finished inks and thumbnail layouts. This graphic novel explores intergenerational trauma through the life of Saali Kulluarjuk. The story is split into two parts. Part One follows her life from childhood into adolescence when her father begins to sexually abuse her. Part Two moves beyond her short life when she dies and becomes Tarraq, a powerful Inuk goddess of shadows, who learns to use her power by enacting vengeance against her human abusers. This project draws from a combination of lived experience, and research into traditional Inuit mythology and shamanism. Research into the layout and narrative of comics was also necessary for this project. I gained much insight from the work of Scott McCloud and the UBC Graphic Forms courses taught by Sarah Leavitt and Taylor Brown-Evans. With inspiration for panel layout and watercolour backgrounds from work such as Fabien Vehlmann and Kerascoët’s Beautiful Darkness and the emotional tone of Phoebe Gloeckner’s The Diary of a Teenage Girl, I aim to shed light on sexual abuse in Inuit communities while integrating elements of Inuit mythology with contemporary Inuit life. I also wanted to contribute to the genre of Indigenous horror, to include distinctly Inuit stories that represent Inuit as modern changing people, to break away from stereotypes of us as fur-clad hunters who live in iglus and travel by dog-teams.Arts, Faculty ofGraduat