Many of us have seen The Silence of the Lambs and thought, "What a creepy villain Buffalo Bill is!" A serial killer with a penchant for human skin should give you the eek. But if you listen to Hannibal Lecter's ramblings, you'll hear him say, "Billy hates his own identity." A man killing women and wearing their skin just to feel what it is like to be of the opposite sex shows a deep crisis of their own identity. A person isn't just how they look; they are the sum total of their lived experiences. Billy will never truly understand that because he has never lived the lives of his victims. Something that Priyanka is coming to realize.
Aditya Bidikar's In Your Skin #3 confronts Priyanka's identity crisis head-on. In a world full of hero worship, this issue actually shows that living the life of your favorite celebrity is not a bed of roses; it is full of thorns. The last time we saw Priyanka, she had taken over the body of actor Ayesha Sen along with her life. She left her insipid life for something greater, but that facade is beginning to crack. And as she drowns, she is taking Ayesha with her. Issue #3 is gory and brutal, but something isn't clicking into place as the story nears its end. It is as if it's waiting for something, and the violence is just a placeholder.
Stardom Comes with Consequences
Issue #3 picks up with both Ayesha and Priyanka both utterly enmeshed in each other’s lives, living deeper in each other’s skins than ever before – with all the horrors and discomfort that entails. While Priyanka struggles with the aggressions, political games and stresses of super-stardom, Ayesha faces full blown identity discord as she struggles to reconcile her new shape and body. There’s constant scratching and pulling at the skin suits for both these characters as the figures underneath struggle to find solitude in each other’s respective lives. And I do suppose all the murder and grotesque trails of bodies left in their wakes doesn’t help either.
Between the dead fiancés, predatory best friends, callous film directors and a Bollywood and fan ecosystem that continues to drive both women to the point of breaking, by the end of the issue there’s more death, horror and psychological damage than you can shake even a Garnier ad at. But by the end of this particular issue, one thing becomes clear: Ayesha and Priyanka cannot exist in each other’s lives the way they do, and in the end there will be a reckoning in the goriest fashion imaginable.
Will the Real Priyanka Please Stand Up?
In Your Skin #3 finally has no reason to treat Priyanka and Ayesha's stories as separate narratives. Like the caduceus, which depicts two snakes wrapped around a rod, their lives are now intertwined in a doomed fate. And so Aditya Bidikar takes a novel approach to the storytelling. He alternates between Priyanka and Ayesha as they spiral downward into vendetta and madness. But make no mistake: both characters are now extensions of Priyanka herself, with one holding onto her obsession with Ayesha's image and the other turned into a husk of her former self. So, the interesting question that arises is who is the real Priyanka? The Priyanka in Ayesha's body is taking one step forward and two steps back. She has finally tapped into Ayesha's talents as an actor, playing the scene she struggled with in the previous issue with such emotional perfection that even the reader will be fooled by her tears. Then, in the next few pages, she perpetrates a string of abominable crimes that will tarnish her idol's image forever.
What Priyanka does with Ayesha's life is the same as what a privileged person does when they do not have to work for their station in life. Priyanka looks down on everyone in Ayesha's life as if they are unworthy of her idol's attention. But she never had to live Ayesha's life or make the sacrifices to reach where she is now. She is simply an invader, enjoying the fruits of someone else's labor. She abhors anyone close to Ayesha. Whether it's her fiancé, Riyaan, or her producer, Kamal, she thinks of everyone as a leech who has found success by exploiting her. In a way, this Priyanka is perhaps what Ayesha felt in her deepest, darkest moments, held back by her restraint to act on it. And that unpredictability without that inhibition is what makes her scary.
Meanwhile, the Priyanka left behind with Nachiket fails to recognize her own skin, and this is where the identity crisis kicks in. Her desperation is understandable, but that hardly makes her a compelling character. While I can feel some intrigue in Ayesha's change of personality, there is absolutely nothing that helps me connect emotionally with this new Priyanka. Bidikar tries to turn her into a tragic character, but there has simply been no character development over the course of the three issues to warrant that. Sure, she was a victim before, and remains so even now (ironically by herself). But with her no longer seeking validation, she seems stripped of a crucial aspect of her personality that motivated the character.
In a way, the characters have remained stagnant. And so has the story. I like that Ayesha's narrative is where the plot looks to make progress, while Priyanka's narrative is what grounds it in emotion. That adds a contrast like different values of the same color. Bidikar even cleverly introduces Nachiket's soliloquy as a narrator, gluing the scenes together. Nachiket, as a character, has not also made much progress. But Bidikar’s attempt to make him seem meek and amenable feels contentious to me as not too long ago he took advantage of a woman’s vulnerability. His saving grace maybe he understands consent, but he remains an enabler, who’s looking out for his own gain.
In Your Skin #3's main focus seems to be the shock value it creates through body horror. I will give credit where it's due: Bidikar really finds the best moments to punctuate the story with gruesome violence. They are quite literally my favorite moments in the book. But the credit for that may not be entirely his.
The Art Gives the Horror Its Own Language
Not all battles leave visible scars; some leave their mark on the psyche. In the case of In Your Skin #3, there are both. You would think that the artwork would take care of the physical wounds and the words would take care of the psychological ones, but SOM does both with equal deftness. If some of the gory moments in the book have permanently seared onto my brain, then the credit goes to his incredible pencil work. I mean, he does look like he's having fun exploring human anatomy in ways that not all comic books would offer. Not all stories show characters flaying their own skin with childlike curiosity (as ridiculous as it sounds). Kudos to Bidikar for giving SOM the artistic freedom to depict Priyanka's alienation in his own way, and it is absolutely gruesome. There is one entire splash page dedicated to body horror, and it is horrifyingly beautiful to watch. As a visual medium, the artwork has equal say in the storytelling, and SOM leaves his mark with authority.
Probably the biggest question that arose during the making of the book is how to portray self-harm and trauma that is not only not insensitive but also packs a punch. Whether it is the rage-filled storm fomenting inside Ayesha or Priyanka's unsettling decline in agency, SOM does a wonderful thing with the panels: he breaks them down into smaller ones, with each one gradually escalating the chaos. This is best seen in scenes where Priyanka has a mental breakdown, and the panels give a close look into her fractured mind. If you have dermatillomania, look away, because the panels of her peeling her skin off is not for the squeamish. But I also noticed some little things that SOM does in his artwork, certain subtle details that immediately say a lot about the characters. Kamal taking a creepy look at Ayesha, the disgusting look Priyanka gives to her own skin - all these simply elevate the storytelling.
Francesco Segala knows what he's doing with the colors. He intentionally uses muted tones to create shadows and uses warmer tones to give you a false sense of security. So that, when a scarlet streak of blood splatters across a page, the reader is compelled to stop and watch the violence unfold. I was pleasantly surprised to see Segala capture the different shades of brown in subcontinental skin tones. As a story set in Mumbai, this enriches the book's cultural experience.
The Fault in Our Flesh
In Your Skin #3 deals with the pitfalls of hero worship through the eyes of two poor souls. Or is it one soul sharing two bodies? It seems Priyanka's identity crisis is seeping into me as a reader, as I try to piece the puzzle together. Truth be told, I was expecting a climactic crescendo - an explanation to the mystical. But it seems the cacophony of Ayesha and Priyanka's internal screams have frightened the plot to a standstill.
Perhaps, I am focusing too much on the finger pointing toward the sky rather than on all the heavenly glory, as Bruce Lee had put it. For a moment, let's forget whether issue #3 has made much progress from the previous issue. What matters is whether we are truly understanding the pitfalls of hero worship - whether we are grasping at how comfortable Priyanka has become in Ayesha's skin and how uncomfortable she is now in her own. And yet, after all her lashes of anger as Ayesha, Priyanka is no less happy. Her own skin goes through a montage of her life in desperation, realizing the truth that she did this to herself.
Final Verdict: As In Your Skin #3 comes to a close, I would have really loved to learn more about Priyanka's inner demon, but, like our skin, we should appreciate the flaws inherent in things.