Roger Casement and narratives of post-colonial resistance

How can an illustrated narrative of post-colonial resistance be made in a way that appeals to a mass consumer audience? What compromises, adaptations or omissions are needed to produce a 125 page mass-market graphic novel? Can, or should, complex conflicts be embodied in one individual’s narrative?

My first graphic novel, the Trial of Roger Casement, was published in 2016 and depicted the last year in the life of Roger Casement: a man whose life and legacy has been fought over for more than a century. Casement's journey took him from a loyal foot solider of British imperial rule to an exposer of the horrors of the colonial project. The publication of his 1904 Casement report exposed the brutality of Belgian capitalistic-imperialism in the (then) Congo Free State, and later of private companies in the Upper Amazon. Casement was executed in 1916 after a failed uprising for independence in Ireland.

Casement fought to resist inattention of the beneficiaries of colonial rule to it's true horrors, yet even at the time his work as an anti-colonial activist generated more sound than action, with human-rights abuses by private companies for the purposes of resource extraction still common.

My paper addresses the questions, ambiguities and ethics of creating a graphic novel adapting
Casement's life and work. What compromises and exclusions were made to fit the narrative within the given format, and to fit within a conventional three-act dramatic structure? Can an exploration of Casement's sexual identity be adequately explored alongside his work with indigenous people to expose atrocities enacted in the name of colonial capitalism? Are these choices worth making to engage audiences with larger narratives of decolonisation?