New Voices and Indigenous Creators

Focusing on work by Native American creators, the new Native Realities Press has released several titles that demonstrate the variety of comic art that contemporary Native American artists are producing. Publishing both anthology volumes and serial publications—in print as well as in digital formats—this press is committed to disseminating "stories [that] have long been coopted, unheard or ignored." Their current catalogue also provides a quick—though by no means exhaustive—overview of the many topics, issues, and visual styles employed by Native American comics artists, as well as the various social issues these comics address. With an equal commitment to aesthetics and social justice, Native Realities Press is publishing exciting work that will appeal to all readers of comics as well as readers interested in contemporary Native American narrative arts.

Edited by multimedia artist Arigon Starr (Kickapoo), Tales of the Mighty Code Talkers, Volume One collects short vignettes by Starr, Lee Francis IV (Laguna Pueblo), Weshoyot Alvitre (Tongva), Kristina Bag Hand (Sicangu Lakota/Cherokee), Roy Boney, Jr. (Cherokee), Johnnie Diacon (Muscogee), Renee Nejo (Mesa Grande), Jonathan Nelson (Diné), Michael Sheyahshe (Caddo), and Theo Tso (Paiute). Although many readers will be aware of the Navajo code talkers in WWII, this collection reminds its readers that many tribal nations served as code talkers and in other important capacities for the US armed forces in both World Wars as well as the war in Korea. In one respect, then, this volume serves as a much-needed addition to the simplified general understanding of Native involvement in American military history. Additionally, this volume presents a diversity of artistic visual styles, from Arigon Starr's Golden Age aesthetic in "Annumpa Luma: Code Talker" to the more abstract and monochromatic visual palette in Roy Boney. Jr.'s "We Speak in Secret" and Jonathan Nelson's "PFC Joe." The volume concludes with a short history of the code talkers penned by Lee Francis, Jr., founder of Native Realities Press, along with a selected bibliography and filmography and a sample pedagogical exercise. In this regard, the volume is designed for classroom use and reflects the press's interest in education as well as entertainment. In her editor's note, Starr comments that this volume came out of her annoyance with the motion picture Windtalkers (2002), one of many popular depictions of Native Americans that manages to sacrifice complex storytelling along with historical accuracy. Tales of the Mighty Code Talkers counters such movies by giving Native artists the chance to tell stories that create complex Native characters in a variety of visual storytelling modes.

Such complexity and diversity are much more prevalent in the first volume of the Native Realities Anthology, which includes examples from all of Native Realities' print and digital offerings, as well as teaser art for their forthcoming titles. The volume opens with a sample from Jonathan Nelson's The Wool of Jonesy, a wordless, black and white narrative presenting the mundane actions of Jonesy, an anthropomorphic sheep. In both style and subject matter, Jonesy is reminiscent of many "slice of life" manga series, episodic narratives whose purpose is to document the everyday events of common individuals. This story stands in sharp contrast to the selection from Jon Proudstar's (Yaqui/Mayan) Tribal Force, an action-packed superhero comic...