Jaj – Haida Comics
cartoonist: Michael Nicole Yagulanas
Publisher: Douglas and McIntyre
Publication date: May 2023
In the acknowledgments of Michael Nicoll Yahgulanas Jaj: Haida Comics He concluded by saying, “All mistakes should be blamed on me. If there are too many, please remember that this is just a comic book. I hope the author and you, the reader, can forgive me for focusing more on this little comic book than most.” Small tongue-in-cheek moment. This is just a comic book review after all.
“It’s just a comic book” is a phrase I’ve heard many times from students, friends, comic readers, comic creators, and once while walking by the book section at Target. I’ve heard it said about other arts too: it’s just a book, a movie, a play, a painting. At its worst, it means a judgment, a dismissal of critical thinking, “This is just ____. You’re taking this too seriously.” At its best, I think the purpose yes Ouchas in “relax. It’s just _____.” In the latter, the phrase is meant to show that there are bigger things in the world besides this work of art. We can turn our attention to something more pressing and serious. thing. I think that’s probably true. I also think that art is really the most powerful way to connect, to see, to understand other human beings.
I’ve used this phrase myself. That’s what it means every time. After reading Ouchis not a phrase that comes to mind. Calling it “just a comic book” feels uncomfortable, like my kids putting ice cubes in a perfectly warm cup of cocoa on a cold day. That didn’t feel quite right, because it wasn’t until minutes into the book that I lifted my chin and asked a provocative question: “Where’s the totem pole?”
Jaj – Haida Comics Tells the story of the Masset Haida people and their first contact with John Adrian Jacobson. Ethnologist employed to collect “cultural objects” for the Humboldt Museum in Berlin. But this is a simplification, as the book covers the relationship between the Haida (and other Aboriginal people) and the British, particularly the brutal war crimes of the British deliberately spreading disease in Aboriginal communities. It also follows characters like George and Verba, who play different roles in Jacobson’s narrative and the wider history of the area. To give a fair summary of the book, this review would require far too many words, since Yagulanath also places the stories he tells in the history of political movements, Jewish resistance to germ warfare, and the view of war as a rich In the criticism of people’s tools for acquiring wealth. This is one hell of a comic book by any standards.
There’s also a stunning blend of art throughout the book. Yagulanath uses a range of styles from cartoon to abstract to depict different characters, time periods and emotional registers. Just the thick black lines between the images (more on that later) and the intense red coloration of the disease are shocking. Every color on every page seems to have been chosen to highlight and complement the image he created. The blue of the ocean or the blue of a body being pecked by birds is slightly different. Each choice gives the reader time to pause and consider the page or panel.
The images also have depth that takes time to understand. On pages describing the environmental damage caused by colonialism’s expansion, readers can see portraits of Ohiyesa, Dr. Charles Eastman, and Tatanka Iyotake, and Sitting Bull features a large map-like image listing the dates of traumatic events for Aboriginal people in the north. American history. The connection between text and image is not immediately obvious, but over time the gravity of historical trauma permeates the reading experience. It’s nothing short of a comic book.
The most striking part of it Ouch But that’s the way it’s designed. Originally, the work was an eight-meter-square mural commissioned by the Humboldt Museum in Berlin, Germany. While I wasn’t able to do this, you can take two books and recombine the images to reflect the original mural. As such, the pages are sometimes part of a larger whole, with the thick black gutter often being the clue that an image connects to other images. While this doesn’t detract from the reading of the book, it adds an extra layer of meaning to the pages. Reading it in order gives you a story and somewhat linear narrative, while matching certain pages to others later in the book (especially those that happen to be above or below another page) , providing readers with an extra layer of intertextuality to discover. This is honestly one of the most fascinating parts of comics to me. The reader must piece together some pages into larger parts and thus become an active participant in the meaning of the comic, which makes Ouch Not just telling a linear story. Comics, as a medium, is particularly suited to this type of discovery and works in its own right as a form, whereas other types of art would be labeled more experimental in order to achieve the same purpose.
The level of interaction and incredible achievement Jaj – Haida Comics Really gives us an insight into the nitty-gritty of comic books. While working within the formal constraints of genre presents its own challenges, the way Michael Nicole Yagulanas transforms a physical mural into a book-length conversation surrounding history, identity, and human existence is simply captivating. Breathtaking. This book begs you to take a moment to appreciate it, like a work of visual art in a museum. It also challenges you to make connections between things that may seem unrelated at first. This book requires you to read comics. It seems like a simple activity, but it shows you a greater inner meaning. Ouch Makes me wonder just how many universes these comics and their little boxes can hold. How much depth can something as simple as a comic contain?
Conclusion: If you have seen the mural in person, please purchase it and send me a photo of the mural
Jaj – Haida Comics Now Available
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