<< 75.1 Fall 2025
Comics

To Kill a Bear

by Audrey Odang
A thirty-panel comic. Comic titled: “To Kill a Bear.” Panel 1: A girl looks at a bear head mounted on a wall over the girl’s head. The title “To Kill a Bear” over the mount.
Panel 2: The girl looks at papers she’s holding in her hands while sitting next to other young girls in matching uniforms. The narrator says, “She wonders, many many times in her life, how it would feel like to kill a bear.” Panel 3: The girl turns her head with a non-diegetic exclamation point near her head. The narrator says, “Her parents did it once.” Panel 4: The girl looks down to her right side as another girl’s head is in the panel. The narrator says, “Her grandparents did it often.”


Panel 5: An older woman (her grandmother) with glasses looks toward the reader’s eye view with a bear's head mount and three pictures on the wall. The narrator says, “Although in the end their advice would boil down to the same line of thought…” The old lady says, “Don’t bother trying to learn. It will be a different experience. Once the bear strikes your body will simply tell you to kill it.” Panel 6: The girl is entering a bus. Two others are sitting in bus seats. The narrator says, “After all, she has never seen a bear in her life.” Panel 7: The girl is looking out the window. The narrator says, “She lives in a metropolitan city. She never has to worry about bears here.
Panel 8: The girl is walking up stairs in a building. The narrator says, “She could sleep peacefully at night because bears don’t climb stairs nor take the elevator.” Panel 9: Close-up image of a ceiling fan. The narrator says, “But sometimes, when her fan spins too slowly and she could feel herself sweat in the hot, humid night,” Panel 10: The girl looks outside a window. Various buildings can be seen. The narrator says, “When she looks out the window to the dimly-lit street where addicts and adulterers walk past,”
Panel 11: The door is wide open, and a bear is roaring with its mouth open. A non-diegetic “BAM!!!” is along the right side of the image. The narrator says, “... She wonders if her door will be slammed open by a bear.” Panel 12: A close-up image of the girl's face with her arm across her mouth and a penknife in her hand. The narrator says, “A penknife would probably not be enough to kill a bear.”
Panel 13: The bear has its mouth open and is on a bed with the girl. Cotton is spread across the bed and in the air. The narrator says, “She would need something bigger, heavier,” Panel 14: The girl’s body is shown from a low angle. A blue and white container in her left hand and the penknife in her right. The narrator says, “Like a tub of bleach,” Panel 15: The girl hits the bear in the head with the blue and white container. A non-diegetic “POW” is behind her. The narrator says, “To swing onto the bear’s head, again and again,”narrator says, “After all, she has never seen a bear in her life.”
Panel 16: The bear is lying on a rug with its mouth closed. The girl’s legs and the container are also in frame. The narrator says, “Until it collapses onto her dusty rug.” Panel 17: Half of the girl’s face, from her eyes up, is in frame. She is holding a knife above her head. The narrator says, “Then she would take out her penknife again, if she still has it on her,” Panel 18: A close-up image of the bear's eyes. In the bear’s eye’s reflection, the girl has her arms raised. The narrator says, “And strike the creature on its head so that the blade would pass through its skull, into its brain…”
Panel 19: A close-up of the bear’s hair. Non-diagetic tears in the page cut through the image and the following two panels. The narrator says, “And it would forget all about its past life, and how to reason, and everything it had studied for its GCE O-level exam,” Panel 20: The bear is lying on the carpet with its eyes closed and mouth open. Papers are spread around the bear’s body. Panel 21: Another close-up of the bear’s hair. The narrator says, “So that the last four years of life it spent cramming would amount to nothing.”
Panel 22: Close-up image of a window with the sun shining through. The narrator says, “And in the morning,” Panel 23: The bear’s head is visible with a blanket covering the rest of its body. The door to the room is halfway open with a middle-aged woman’s (mom’s) body in frame. The narrator says, “When her mother opens the door to see a figure still asleep under the blanket,” Panel 24: Close-up image of the mom and the halfway-open door; her mouth is open. The narrator says, “She would comment on how it’ll grow up to be worthless if it does not spend every second of its life working its hardest,”
Panel 25: Close-up image of the bear’s head. Its nose and eyes are visible over the blanket. The narrator says, “And that five seconds of interaction will stick with the bear forever,” Panel 26: From a backside view, the bear looks toward the room’s windows. The narrator says, “Causing it to relentlessly chase achievements and glory and validation,” Panel 27: Close-up image of the bear’s head from a backside view. Buildings are visible through the window. The narrator says, “So that by forty it has nobody that it loves and nothing that matters in its life and die of grief.”
Panel 28: The girl’s grandparents look at a red frame with a bear's head mounted and two pictures on the wall. The narrator says, “If she reveals this plan to her grandparents, they would probably just stare at her in confusion. Maybe, they will laugh at it.” Panel 29: Close-up image of the grandma’s face, from nose to forehead. Her left eye is shown through her glasses. The narrator says, “But maybe, they will commend her for it.” Panel 30: The girl is sitting upright in her bed. A building through a window and her curtain are behind her. The narrator says, “Because when the bear struck, her whole body would have told her to kill it, and she would have done it.”

Audrey Odang is a Singapore-based, Chinese-Indonesian writer and comic artist. They received their BA in Arts & Humanities from Yale-NUS College. They are passionate about Southeast Asian narratives, humor and the strange, and the intersection between text and images. Visit Audrey on Instagram @audoddraws

FROM Volume 75, Number 1

Related

Photograph of art installation that features a room full of windows and chairs all made out of cardboard.
Issue 75.1, Fall 2025

Robert Morris Story
Comics by Joel Holub
Photograph of art installation that features a room full of windows and chairs all made out of cardboard.
Issue 75.1, Fall 2025

Parasomnia
Comics by Mariah Gese
Photograph of art installation that features a room full of windows and chairs all made out of cardboard.
Issue 75.1, Fall 2025

The Story Begins With Hana
Comics by Parisa Karami
Issue 73.2, Spring 2024

Beach Soliloquy
Comics by MCK