Representation really does matter, and both comics and SF&F have gone some way — not nearly enough, and definitely not universally — to recognizing, embracing and addressing that truth. But I hope that those of us in those genre communities who have more privilege have also learned by now that the nature of representation, the who and the how of it, matters at least as much as the fact of it.
The representation of Indigenous people in comics and in SF&F alike has historically been … as someone who’s not Indigenous, I’m just going to say that my understanding is that on balance, and despite some notable exceptions, it’s been not great. Viewed most frequently through the understanding and expectations of white creators and readers, the depiction of Indigenous characters has often been profoundly stereotypical. And whether those stereotypes were entirely negative or partly positive, they were reductive and limiting. Of course, Indigenous people have always been telling their own stories, but which stories were able to reach a wider audience was heavily influenced by the expectations of, again, white publishers, reviewers, and readers — and that means that the works that broke through often focused on present or historical Indigenous trauma.
But Indigenous people are more than their pain. Indigenous creators shouldn’t have to perform pain to be considered worthy of our attention.
That’s why I was excited to hear about a comics anthology, with an all-Indigenous creative team, that focuses on the remarkable breadth of modern Indigenous cultures, that “celebrates the wide variety of modern Indigenous life in a collection of tales about Indigenous joy and success.” I was so excited, I backed the Kickstarter. I was excited about Indiginerds.
Indigenerds: Tales From Modern Indigenous Life
Published by Iron Circus Comics
Editor – Alina Pete
Cover Artist – Brit “Holoske” Newton
Proofreader – Abby Lehrke
Publisher | Editor-in-Chief – C. Spike Trotman
Print Technician | Additional Lettering and Design – Hye Mardikian
Contributors – Tate Allen, Milo Ira Applejohn, Ida Aronson, Jordanna George, Raven John, Gillian Joseph, Nipinet Landsem, Bianca “Binkz17” Martin, Em Matson, Rhael McGregor, Sam “Mushki” Medlock, Maija Plamondon, Wren Rios, Autumn Star, PJ Underwood, James Raymond Willier, Asia Wisely, Kameron White
First Nations culture is living, vibrant, and evolving, and generations of Indigenous kids have grown up with pop culture creeping inexorably into our lives. From gaming to social media, pirate radio to garage bands, Star Trek to D&D, and missed connections at the pow wow, Indigenous culture is so much more than how it’s usually portrayed. INDIGNERDS is here to celebrate those stories! Featuring an all-Indigenous creative team, INDIGNERDS is an exhilarating anthology collecting 11 stories about Indigenous people balancing traditional ways of knowing with modern pop culture.
The goals of Indigenerds are admirable, and of course that raises the question of whether the anthology hits those lofty marks.
Yes, on balance, it absolutely does.
Appropriately for a collection focused on demonstrating the breadth of contemporary Indigenous lives, the eleven pieces that comprise Indigenerds are diverse — in art style, in the aspects of modern life that they focus on, and in genre, including slice-of-life fiction, autobiography both overt and veiled, plus one where the depiction of a young Indigenous woman’s use of virtual reality to find peace and spiritual connection marks it as science-fictional.
Because of that range, not all the stories landed equally well for me. As is my usual practice, to avoid being unfair over matters that come down to taste, I’m going to focus instead on the contributions that I thought worked particularly well.
‘Missed Pow Wow Connection’, by writer and artist Kameron White, which opens the anthology, is a charming, romance-adjacent (but not romance trope-y) story about Aiyana, a young woman who meets a really cool woman at a pow wow. They talk, connect, and sparks fly. But Aiyana completely fails to get her number. It’s brief, straightforward, but works perfectly, and the ending, while not surprising, still manages to feel satisfying.
‘Amplification Adaptation’, by Em Matson and Ninipet Landsem, tells the story of the members of an Indigenous garage band who have all their equipment stolen just before a gig, but draw on deep connections with family and community to bounce back and make sure the show goes on.
‘Welei (I am fine)’ by Bianca “binkz17” and Rhael McGregor and ‘Bvlbancha Forever’ by Ida Aronson and Tate Allen both depict very different approaches to using contemporary tools and technology to help foster and preserve endangered Indigenous languages — while also building community and drawing strength from it.
And editor Alina Pete’s own ‘Dorvan V’, which closes the collection, engages with her own experience as a child and as an adult. Pete adeptly uses the frame of a Star Trek: The Next Generation episode she watched when young, that was in retrospect appropriative and used Indigenous trauma as fodder for the feelings of the show’s white protagonists, and contrasts that with her work as an adult, as a comics creator and Indigenous cultural consultant, creating speculative fiction with an Indigenous lens. It’s smart, critical, hopeful and perhaps the most nerdy story in Indigenerds, and that’s saying something considering that there are stories that focus on running an online review site, playing World of Warcraft, and taking an anti-colonialist approach to D&D.
(Star Trek, as a franchise, has a track record on Indigenous issues that has sometimes been dire. Which is a bitter irony, given Star Trek‘s stated values! The white-saviour-y story that Pete adeptly critiques in her piece isn’t even the most egregious example — that’s probably the Pretendian who got the job of reviewing Voyager scripts to ensure the character of Chakotay was accurate.)
Of weaknesses, there are noticeably few. As I said, I don’t want to be critical of contributions that I simply didn’t connect with; however, there is one element that I noticed in a few pieces, even when the writing and art were individually strong: The art is more illustrative than it is engaged in telling the story.
For instance, in the overall excellent ‘Airwave Pirates’, writer Autumn Chacon relates experiences from her life as an Indigenous activist and pirate broadcaster who uses radio to communicate Indigenous stories to Indigenous communities; how white power structures attempted to co-opt her; and how she escaped that trap to continue to be an independent voice. It’s a remarkable and inspiring true story — but it covers twenty years of Chacon’s life in ten pages! That’s a lot of ground to cover. The text is and has to be mostly straight prose narrative, rather than dialogue, as it jumps across years of time. PJ Underwood’s stylized, deliberately rough, mural and graffiti-inspired art is fantastic, but has to serve as a series of spot illustrations, depicting individual moments or ideas from the text rather than serving as an equal partner in the narrative.
That’s not unusual, in a collection of this nature, but I always feel that it’s unfortunate in a comics anthology. It’s absolutely not a fatal flaw, and the power and exuberance of the eleven stories more than makes up for any concerns about how a handful of the artists approach the medium of comics.
The closing words of the anthology, in Alina Pete’s ‘Dorvan V’, sums up Indigenerds‘s mission and its strengths simultaneously.
“I can’t wait to see what today’s Indigenous kids,
who have grown up seeing themselves on spaceships,
will write when they’re older.”
I very strongly suspect that many of those kids will have read Indigenerds too. It’s a joyous celebration that looks reality in the eye and says, “We can do better!” I recommend it.
Disclosures: I have no personal or professional relationship with the creators. I purchased my copy of the graphic novel for review via supporting the Kickstarter.
