Showing posts with label comic. Show all posts
Showing posts with label comic. Show all posts

Friday, November 15, 2019

Recommended! STRANGELANDS written by Magdalene Visaggio and Darcie Little Badger; art by Guillermo Sanna; Cover by Dan Panosian

Native teens! Go to the Humanoids site and get copies of the comic series, Strangelands. They're written by Magdalene Visaggio and Darcie Little Badger. The art is by Guillermo Sanna, and Dan Panosian did the cover.

I've read the first three...


.... and definitely recommend that you add them to your comic and graphic novel collection.

Here's info about the series:
Two strangers find themselves inextricably tied together by inexplicable superpowers. Fighting their connection could mean destroying the world.
Opposites attract? Elakshi and Adam Land aren’t married. In fact, a month ago, they were perfect strangers, dwelling in lands foreign to one another. But now, they’re forced to remain by one another’s side, for their separation could mean the planet’s demise. Their greatest challenge is to stay together — even if they have to tear the world apart to do so.
See that? Elakshi and Adam's last name is Land. A hint, maybe, about who they are and how and why they have the powers they have--and don't want? I'm intrigued!

Right now in the series they're at a lodge in Colorado where they can rid themselves of these powers. Adam doesn't like the decor of the "Wild Saints" lodge. In this passage, he's glaring at a dreamcatcher, and says:
 ... all this Indian kitsch brings back terrible memories of paper teepees and chicken feather headdresses. Trust me. You do not want to be the only Apache kid at summer camp.
From that passage, we know that Adam is Apache. One of the writers, Darcy Little Badger, is Lipan Apache. I think the first writing of hers that I read was in 2016 when I read "Né le," her space travel story in Love Beyond Body, Space and Time. (If you don't have that book, get it!).

And of course, get this new series, Strangelands. 

Monday, May 02, 2016

Theo Tso's CAPTAIN PAIUTE (is awesome!!!)

Among the gems of 2015 is Theo Tso's Captain Paiute: Indigenous Defender of the Southwest.



Captain Paiute is published by Native Realities. As you can see by the cover of this comic, Captain Paiute is a superhero. An Indigenous superhero, that is! A Paiute one. Already we have so much good going on!

Theo Tso is Paiute. He created Captain Paiute because the Native characters he saw in comics were sidekicks, mystics, or shamans who spoke in that ridiculous TV style (like when Tonto tells the Lone Ranger how he found him in the pilot episode: "Me hunt here in canyon often." and "Me help Kimosabe." and "Here hat. Me wash in stream, dry in sun, make whiter." and "Here gun, to kill bad men."and "Kimosabe, me help you fight outlaw.")

To develop Captain Paiute, Tso drew on what he knows, about his own nation. Depictions of Native peoples also figured in his thinking. You can listen to him talk about that in an interview he did with A Tribe Called Geek. Stereotypes of Native people include the monolithic image of Indians as nomadic peoples who live in tipi's. Some nations did--and do--use tipi's, but some--like the Paiute's--were farming communities and had different kinds of homes. Another dimension of that monolithic image of Native peoples is that Native peoples of today are dancers, or artists. Some are, but we are far more than that... as Tso tells us!

By day, Captain Paiute works for his tribe as a water hydrologist. After high school, he went to college where he studied science. It was in his lab that he realized he had powers:



See that beaker with sulfuric acid? It spills on his hand, but his hand heals. He realizes, then, that he has powers. Those powers were given to him when he was a child. Both his parents were killed in a car wreck. He survived. In that moment, he was chosen by Pah, the Paiute Water Spirit, to be the one who would help the Paiute people fight the harm that were going to come.

With his parents gone, he lives with his grandfather. From that grandfather, he learns Paiute history. By reading Captain Paiute, kids can learn that history, too.

On the cover, that is water coming forth from Captain Paiute's hand. To him--but to everyone--water is precious. It should be used carefully. From the interview at A Tribe Called Geek, I gather that the coming stories will be about caring for the environment.

I love what Tso has done with Captain Paiute. 
I highly recommend it! 
print copy for $3.00 or a digital copy for 99 cents.    

And check out Tso's Facebook page. He's got a sneak peak at the second issue. See that owl? For Paiute's owls signify death. Owls, then, figure in Captain Paiute's vulnerability.

Update: May 3, 2016
Tso submitted a comment. I'm copying it here, for your convenience:
Thank you for the kind write up! Check out www.warpaintstudios.net for more information and comics and where I'll be at to buy other issues and merchandise!

Sunday, June 08, 2014

Arigon Starr's ANNUMPA LUMA--CODE TALKER

Comic book fans! Keep your eyes peeled for INC Comics. INC is Indigenous Narratives Collective. First up from INC is Arigon Starr's Annumpa Luma--Code Talker, published in 2014



If you follow national news about American Indians, you're probably familiar with the Code Talkers. Yesterday's New York Times ran a story about Chester Nez, a Navajo code talker who served in WWII. Mr. Nez passed away on June 4, 2014. Because of the sensitivity of the work they did, code talkers could not tell their families what they did. In recent years, those restrictions have been lifted.

Starr's comic reaches back to World War I. In Annumpa Luma, she deftly provides readers with a solid chunk of history. The comic opens with Choctaw soldiers in the trenches. They're talking Choctaw to each other... and the idea of their language as a code begins to take shape. They wonder if anyone will be open to their idea, because in government boarding schools, they were punished for speaking their language. Meetings take place, a test is devised, and the code is implemented. This is all conveyed through the perspective of Corporal Solomon Louis. His reunion with his wife, when he returns home, is heartwarming.

On the final pages of her comic, Starr lists the names of the Choctaw soldiers, and says that in 2013, the Choctaw Code Talkers received the Congressional Gold Medal of Honor. Below is a screen capture of part of the congressional record from 2004 (and the full text specific to the Choctaw Code Talkers), when legislation regarding the code talkers was first introduced.

Using a popular format--comics--Starr and INC Comics shine a bright light on a little known piece of history. I look forward to seeing what else they give us. Order your copy of Annumpa Luma for $5.00 from INC.


~~~~~



Here is part of the U.S. Senate's Congressional Record for June 7, 2004. CHOCTAW CODE TALKERS is highlighted in the image to the right because it is what I was searching for in the record. Sioux, Comanche, and Sax and Fox code talkers in the Act were recognized for service in WWII. If you click on the link above for the congressional record, you can read the entire act. Because I'm writing about Starr's comic, I'm providing the entirety of what TITLE III says.












SEC. 301. FINDINGS
Congress finds that--

(1) on April 6, 1917, the United States, after extraordinary provocations, declared war on Germany and entered World War I, the War to End All Wars;

(2) at the time of that declaration of war, Indian people in the United States, including members of the Choctaw Nation, were not accorded the status of citizens of the United States;

(3) without regard to this lack of citizenship, many members of the Choctaw Nation joined many members of other Indian tribes and nations in enlisting in the Armed Forces to fight on behalf of the United States;

(4) members of the Choctaw Nation were--
(A) enlisted in the force known as the American Expeditionary Force, which began hostile actions in France in the fall of 1917; and
(B) incorporated in a company of Indian enlistees serving in the 142d Infantry Company of the 36th Division;

(5) a major impediment to Allied operations in general, and operations of the United States in particular, was that the fact that the German forces had deciphered all codes used for transmitting information between Allied commands, leading to substantial loss of men and material during the first years in which the military of the United States engaged in combat in World War I;

(6) because of the proximity and static nature of the battle lines, a method to communicate without the knowledge of the enemy was needed;

(7) a commander of the United States realized the fact that he had under his command a number of men who spoke a native language;

(8) while the use of such native languages was discouraged by the Federal Government, the commander sought out and recruited 18 Choctaw Indians to assist in transmitting field telephone communications during an upcoming campaign;

(9) because the language used by the Choctaw soldiers in the transmission of information was not a European language or on a mathematical progressions, the Germans were unable to understand any of the transmissions;

(10) the Choctaw soldiers were placed in different command positions to achieve the widest practicable area for communications;

(11) the use of the Choctaw Code Talkers was particularly important in--
(A) the movement of American soldiers in October of 1918 (including securing forward and exposed positions;
(B) the protection of supplies during American action (including protecting gun emplacements from enemy shelling); and
(C) in the preparation for the assault on German positions in the final stages of combat operation sin the fall of 1918;
(12) in the opinion of the officers involved, the use of Choctaw Indians to transmit information in their native language saved men and munitions, and was highly successful;

(13) based on that successful experience, Choctaw Indians were withdrawn from front line units for training in transmission of codes so as to be more widely used when the war came to an end;

(14) the Germans never succeeded in breaking the Choctaw code;

(15) that was the first time in modern warfare that the transmission of messages in a Native American language was used for the purpose of confusing the enemy;

(16) this action by members of the Choctaw Nation--
(A) is another example of the commitment of Native Americans to the defense of the United States; and
(B) adds to the proud legacy of such service; and
(17) the Choctaw Nation has honored the actions of those 18 Choctaw Code Talkers through a memorial bearing their names located at the entrance of the tribal complex in Durant, Oklahoma.

SEC. 302. CONGRESSIONAL GOLD MEDAL.

The Speaker of the House of Representatives and the President Pro Tempore of the Senate shall make appropriate arrangements for the presentation, on behalf of Congress of a gold medal of appropriate design honoring the Choctaw Code Talkers.






Wednesday, May 21, 2014

Arigon Starr's SUPER INDIAN

If you're Kickapoo author/illustrator Arigon Starr, you gotta be dancing every time you pick up Super Indian and read what Charlie Hill, one of the best Native comedians ever (sadly, he passed away a few weeks ago), had to say about Super Indian:
"Great Scott! The long awaited indigenous super hero has arrived."
If you never saw Charlie Hill perform, those words probably don't move you the way they do me. His humor was perfect. His voice as he told jokes and stories? Perfect.

In Super Indian, Starr's own wit shines. From minute details in the art to the words on the page, I found a lot to like about Super Indian.

Starr opens with a jab at those who create The White Man's Indian. By that, I mean prose riddled with "ancient" and "proud" and "noble" and "fierce" and "sacred quest" and "mystical knowledge." Those words and more are on the very first page, but they're there to tell you that you will not find that guy in Super Indian. Instead, we have Hubert Logan who, as a boy, "attended a birthday party for the local bully, Derek Thunder." At that party, the boys "consumed mass quantities of commodity cheese tainted with "Rezium," an experimental element developed by Government Research Scientist Dr. Eaton Crowe."

My guess is that most readers of AICL are going "huh?" because they don't know what commodity cheese is, but I guarantee that Native people on reservations know exactly what that is, and they're laughing (like I was) as I read that part of the intro.

Cheese aside, Hubert is kind of like Clark Kent: a studious guy in glasses and braids. He works at the Leanin Oak Bingo Hall. "Leanin Oak" is another joke, by the way! It is a poke at a line of over-the-top greeting cards with bogus Native proverbs and the like. Hubert's alter ego is Super Indian. He's got some side kicks, and a dog, too that lends his own thread to the stories in volume one.

Volume one has three different stories in it. After introducing us to the characters we'll meet as we read Super Indian, we begin with "Here Comes the Anthro." It is a perfect opening. The art shows a scary looking anthropologist on the cover, about to grab Super Indian.

Yep--that title is another jab. This one is at the discipline that has been causing Native people headaches (to say the least) for a very long time. I gotta pause here, and drop in Floyd Crow Westerman's song, "Here Come the Anthros" so that you get a full sense of what anthropologists mean to Native people:



Starr's anthropologist is German. I think him being German is a jab at Karl May, a German writer who wrote a bunch of novels about Native people. Goofy ones, that is, that--unfortunately--people don't see as goofy. Starr clearly had a good time writing Super Indian. If you're Native or well-versed in Native life as-it-is (not as outsiders imagine it to be), you'll like Super Indian. One of the characters is a blogger! How cool is that?

Back in 2012, Indian Country Today published an interview with Starr. Check it out. It has good background info. Go to the Super Indian website. Order a copy of Super Indian, and if you're a fan of comics, keep an eye on the Indigenous Narratives Collective of Native American comic book writers and artists. Good stuff.

Published by Wacky Productions Unlimited in 2012.