In children's and YA literature, we know that comics and graphic novels are a growth area. We know that there's momentum, too, to provide children and teens with work by Native people and people of color.
With that in mind, I hope that representatives from large and small publishers will head to Albuquerque in November of this year for
Indigenous Comic Con. The list of special guests includes people who are very popular in Native circles. That means their work resonates with Native people, which means their work is legit. People within the industry who pay attention know that we love the
1491s! And,
Arigon Starr! They are among the special guests for the conference.
Indigenous Comic Con is being organized by
Native Realities publishing. People often ask me to recommend a publisher who they can count on for authentic and accurate books about Native peoples. I'm usually hesitant to recommend one because some who publish books that I recommend also publish books that I find problematic. Native Realities is the one exception. So far, I haven't seen anything from them that is problematic.
Lee Francis is a key figure at Native Realities, and a leader in the comic book genre. He, and the work he does, was featured on PBS News Hour in 2015. Here's an excerpt:
Most (all?) publishers tell us they want diverse voices. With this post, I'm looking at publishers and editors who proclaim their interest in Native voices. Indigenous Comic Con is an opportunity to meet Native writers and bring their work into greater visibility.
Register (get your tickets). An early-bird three-day pass is $45. Look at all the things you can do while there!
Attend Indigenous Comic Con. Get to know Native people there who are creating terrific comic books, videos, and games.
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.
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. FINDINGSCongress 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.
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.
