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About the Sarah L Miles

Sarah L Miles is a writer of prose and comics, a comics journalist and a book reviewer.

She is also a competitive strongwoman, enjoys tabletop gaming and Lego building, renovating furniture and painting things any colour but white or cream. She spends too much time on the internet and / or listening to Taylor Swift, and has a minor coffee obsession.

She lives on the south coast of England with her partner, and an ever-expanding collection of houseplants and books.

The Script

Don’t Tell My Therapist

Sarah L Miles
Marvel method:

I spent most of the last year thinking about being dead. I don’t want to kill myself, per se. I would just like to not exist any more.

I know how I would do it as well, I have a plan.

I picture myself as Millais’ Ophelia, garlanded by flowers, water barely over the tip of my nose, graceful in death in a way that I have never been in life. 

Except that in the summer, when there are flowers, the neary rife barely has enough water to paddle your toes in, let alone to cover me.

 And in the winter, when the rains cause the levels to rise and the water rushes down to meet the sea, there are no flowers. A garland of Red Bull cans, plastic bags, and the occasional shopping trolley just doesn’t seem as glamorous. 

So I am still here.

Full script:

Six panels. Page divided into thirds. 

Panel one: one half of the top third of the page

A head facing away from the reader, in shadow, looking out of a window.

Caption: I spent most of the last year thinking about being dead

Panel two: one half of the top third of the page

The head is bowed forward, hands clasped either side of the head, just above the ears. Shoulders bowed.

Capton:  I don’t want to kill myself, per se. I would just like to not exist any more.I know how I would do it as well, I have a plan.

Panel three: one half of middle third of the page

Representation of Millais’ painting Ophelia, or something similar to that. Perhaps a more graceful and floral version, as remembered slightly wrongly by the narrator

Caption: Garlanded by flowers, beautiful and graceful in death in a way that I have never been in life. 

Panel four: one half of the middle third of the page

Millais’ painting merges into the next panel, to show a stream with little to no water, barely a trickle of water through the bottom. Wildflowers surround the banks, butterflies above, an idyllic scene

Caption: Summer  Flowers, no water.

Panel five: one half of the bottom third of the page

Same image as panel five, but the flowers are gone, replaced by bare banks and litter. There is plenty of water but it is clogged with detritus; drinks cans, plastic shopping bags.

Caption: Winter. Water, no flowers.

Panel six: one half of the bottom third of the page

Same as panel two.

Caption: So I am still here

Artists Notes

This strip was very much unexpected and powerful, to the extent that I’d decided early on that maybe Null Space wasn’t the most appropriate place for it. But, a few friends persuaded me that it deserved to be read and that if this project is about anything it’s about allowing writers to do anything they wanted. So here we are. 

As far as drawing it, I leaned heavier on the Marvel style script (because I’m lazy) and early on I decided the protagonist would be a blank on the page - a void - a visual trick I don’t think you can do in any other medium. We changed the “Neary Rife” because “Rife” is apparently a super specific localised Sussex word meaning a small river (which I assumed was a typo!).

Sarah and I did have a long back and fourth about it, but the hope is… well, maybe enjoy is the wrong word, but I hope it reaches you.