The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1913: Tales from the Bay, 1995

For information on stopping the spread of COVID-19, and on what to do if you are quarantined, have a look at the World Health Organization site.

 

(Edit: as I was going over the information on this comic in my personal database, I realized it was published by Co-Ed Communications, sponsored by The Bay. I'll keep it as my "H" comic though.)

Given the year of its publication, and the publisher, I was fully expecting this comic to be waaaaayyyy more racist than it actually turned out to be. Though there's definitely some trumpeting of the triumphs of HBC explorers, the first story is actually of Thanadelthur, a Chipewyan woman who fostered peace between her people and the Cree, and helped the HBC to further its trading territories. The comic was published as a learning aid for schools, to there's even caption boxes asking readers to look into the characters and languages more. Which, being the eternal student, I did. Thanadelthur is a pretty fascinating figure.

The other two stories are of William Wales and his study of the transit of Venus, and of George Simpson, a governor of the HBC. Neither story mentions Native Canadian people, really, though a little bit of research into Simpson shows that when he brought his English wife to Canada, native women who had married traders and HBC employees were no longer allowed in "society." Unsurprising, really. The British really were the worst a lot of the time.

The art is excellent all the way through, utilizing graduates of various well-known Canadian art schools, and there's definitely a desire to elucidate the fascinating history of the Hudson's Bay Company in North America, despite leaving out some of the more egregious things the company did during that time. Again, at the time this was published, settler Canada was just starting to publicly come to terms with its treatment of the Indigenous people who were here before us. I like to think that in the 25 years since this comic came out, we've made great strides in that area. Though, really, not great enough.

H is for the HBC

A Canadian institution

Blankets, pelts, and firearms

And now? Restitution?

More to follow.

Further Reading and Related Links

Finding decent representations of Indigenous peoples in comics is tough. Surprisingly, a Marvel Two-In-One annual from the 80s is really quite excellent.

And if you'd like a bit more Canadian history, The Halifax Explosion is worth a read. If, I suppose, one can find a McDonald's Happy Meal comic about Canadian history just kicking about ;D.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Days 1432 - 1438: Transformers Generation 1, 2002

'Bout time I got back to this, yeah?

Here's what I've been reading for the last week:

 

 

There was a pretty amazing uproar when this series came out from people who decried the idea that children's toys, and their concomitant narratives, shouldn't be made all gritty and dark. Which, to be fair, is what happens here. The first couple of issues are pretty bloody, which is a bit off-putting given the source material. But the interesting thing is that the narrative is literally about that very thing. A shadowy group takes control of the Transformers and uses them to carry out clandestine attacks. The heroic warriors of yesterday become assassins. Was this a clever anticipation of the push back to the series, or just wild coincidence. Yes to both, probably.

This is a good series. The art is unbelievable, capturing the cartoon-era characters' likenesses with startling accuracy. The story is...okay. It could be I'd been out of touch with the characters for too long when it came out, and certainly now, but it didn't really touch me. It was fun, and lots of things blew up, and there were cool battles (though, now that I think about it, not a lot of transforming - mostly robot battles), but that's about it. It read like the first few Michael Bay films watched. Entertaining, but not life-changing. Which is not a criticism. I love a good bit of entertainment.

As I was reading through, I noted on my Instagram (@giantcomicbox) that the story is slow to get going. We see only shadowed robots, and I got the feeling that it was the beginning of a much longer series. Perhaps the second act of the series picks up speed.

I'm curious to see what happens with the characters in the sequel series, so maybe when that big lottery win happens, I'll go pick up the trades.

Onward.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1286: Nocturnal Emissions #4, March 1994

This, apparently, was the last comic published by the ailing Vortex Comics. It's quite different from the anthology title that started the publisher more than a decade previous.

Ms. Smyth's art is chaotic and psychedelic, and reminds me very much of Ron Rege's work. I'm not sure what was going on in the story of drug dealers and others, but the comic was visually quite striking. I'll keep an eye out for more of Fiona Smyth. I like the way she sees the world.

More to come...

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1285: Vortex #9, May 1984

Ty Templeton's "Killing Dragons" has an excellent denouement, which I won't spoil here just in case anyone ever wants to go out and track this issue down. It's a thoroughly satisfying ending to a story.

The other standout for today is Dan Day and Jim Waley's "Ashes to Ashes, Dust to Dust," a grim tale that very nicely encapsulates what it was like to live in the last years of the Cold War. I try to explain to people younger than me that the rhetoric of the day was that we'd all likely die within the decade from a nuclear war. As the 80s grew old, the possibility of it loomed less direly, but it was still there. That was a dark decade, which is perhaps why it's having a bit of a renaissance these days.

No more Vortex, unfortunately, but a couple of other comics from the publisher. More to come...

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1284: Vortex #8, April 1984

1 - Trina Robbins' "Queenie Hart" is so. Good. Will have to start reading more Trina Robbins.

2 - Steve Leialoha's "Corrective Surgery" was really weird, and beautiful, and off-putting, and great.

I'm going, it seems, to have to track down the rest of the series. These last few days of comics have been some really wonderful science fiction, and that's not one of my favourite genres to read. But these stories are, importantly, very varied. I never feel like I'm reading an entire anthology book of the same story over and over again. Some are funny, some are serious, and some are just weird. It's easy to see how something like Vortex grows out of the undergrounds, and publications like Andromeda. In some ways it's like the undergrounds "genre-fied" in the late 70s. Something like this title, or Andromeda, are the science fiction bastions, the sex of the undergrounds is focussed in the adult comic industry, publishers like Fantagraphics give a home to the more literary parts of the underground.

Having these kinds of specific venues for specific genres is great, but there's also something to be said for genres feeding off one another, and that's something that is lost in this diversification. Or, at the very least, it's something that becomes more muted.

More to come...

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1283: Vortex #5, September 1983

How about we read some independent Canadian science fiction from the early 80s?

Okay.

Vortex is a cool series. Beside the fact that so many big names cut their teeth here (Ty Templeton and Ken Steacy in this issue alone), the stories are thoughtful and entertaining, well-written and well-illustrated. The addition of ads for the comic shops I used to frequent as a young one is a lovely pinch of nostalgia added to a satisfying read.

In today's issue, the standout story for me was "T-Wreks" by Ken Steacy. The cover up there does a nice job of emblematizing the tale, and the story itself spoke to a younger version of me that had very similar fantasies as the narrator of this story. I still see construction vehicles as stand-ins for dinosaurs. And when I finally learned to drive one, it was just like what driving a dinosaur would be like. Well, it was to me.

I'm going to stick with this series, and with some of the others published by the similarly-titled publisher. I anticipate enjoying them a great deal.

More to come...

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1254: Vortex #2, 1983

I recently picked up Fogel's Underground Price and Grading Guide v.1, as I'm getting a bit more into the undergrounds, and I'd like to know a bit more about what I'm getting into. The guide is quite liberal in its definition of "underground," and tends to include the comics that are more commonly known as "alternative" within that definition. Which I don't mind, of course. I like to watch evolutions of genres, which this feels like to me.

Vortex is a title I expected to be included in the guide, but wasn't. It's predecessors, such titles as Star*Reach or Andromeda are there, but for some reason Vortex is not. The publisher, also named Vortex, is represented by, at least, Howard Chaykin's Black Kiss. All this said, the task of tracking independent and small press comics is nigh impossible. Let's leave it at that.

This issue was fun. One of the stories continues from an issue of Andromeda that I have, so I'll have to go back, and then also see if I have the rest of the story in any subsequent Vortex issues. This series is one of those that I see all the time in dollar bins and such, but never really had much interest in - I have a contentious relationship with science fiction. My favourite sci-fi writer used to Robert J. Sawyer. His books are still utterly brilliant, but I made the mistake of reading a couple of his speeches from conventions, and he came across as a really narrow-minded kind of guy. His thoughts on religion and its place in human existence sounded, to me, much the same as Richard Dawkins's view. This, to me, was a strange point of view for someone who crafts stories for a living to have. I think we need to believe in stories. It's just when we start mistaking them for reality that the problems begin.

Thus, I tend to read little sci-fi because I was disillusioned by one of my heroes. Which I should just suck up and not let it ruin an entire genre for me. Look at that! Instant online therapy. Perhaps a week of science fiction comics....?

More to come...

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 866: Anime Tentacle Monsters, May 2017

An amusing little indie comic about a girl who is attacked by tentacle monsters whenever she gets embarrassed. And, contrary to what you might thing, it's actually a relatively wholesome comic.

I picked this up at the Panel One festival in June, because there was simply no way I could pass up a comic called Anime Tentacle Monsters, especially as it was just sitting there on the table, looking all innocent and stuff. Mr. Lalonde's art and storytelling are excellent, the style of the comic erring just this side of North America in its manga-ness. The characters, especially our focal character Annie (or Amanda, if you're a jerk), present that level of cuteness that is required of the more...um....salacious tentacle monster manga, but actually manage to stay clothed and unmolested (for the most part) throughout the short tale.

There's a website for the comic, and I'm not sure if this is an ongoing series or just an amusing one-shot. As of right now, the site simply contains the word "Soon." I'm totally on board to find out just what is coming soon.

I'm going to stop now, before the puns take over the post.

To be continued.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 863: Crash and Burn #4, 2017

I am literally on my way out the door. This comic was every bit as amazing and spectacular as yesterday's comic and the volume 1 graphic novel. If you're looking for something cool to read, if you like a good space adventure (and things start getting odd in this issue. I think they're on some kind of amusement park planet), go check out the comic. Or buy it. I'm on board, a fan, they've got me til they stop making comics.

Okay, gotta go!

To be continued.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 862: Crash and Burn #3, 2016

As I had hoped in my review of the first collection of Crash and Burn, I was able to pick up the next couple of installments at June's Panel One Festival. And it's just not enough!! The story continues to intrigue, though today's comic is far more action oriented than character oriented. This is not to say there isn't character development here, but much of it focuses on our focal character, Cora, and the things she's had to deal with in her life. A new character, a metahuman, is also introduced, a potentially disruptive influence on the group, and someone who, apparently, was not on the ship (officially) when it crashed.

Oh, and there's a giant insect.

But what really grabbed me about today's issue was a single moment where the metahuman, Ash, who is described in the official notice as "Highly Persuasive," is attempting to beguile Cora. Cora's response: "I'm Ace." And then she moves on and that's it. But this is a highly significant moment. I noted in my earlier review that there was all kinds of queerness going on in the series. It's called a queer space opera, for goodness' sake. But asexuality is one of the more invisible queer identities, little talked about or acknowledged even within the community. As someone whose child identifies this way, I'm sensitive to depictions of Ace people in media, as they're generally quite negative or clownish. If you need an example, look at someone like Sheldon Cooper from Big Bang Theory. I remember at one point my son saying he wasn't going to watch the show anymore as he'd come to realize that much of the humour that came from the character of Sheldon was laughing at his asexuality, and not at the sexualities of any of the other characters in the show.

And, sadly, I can't think of a positive depiction of Ace people in media. Perhaps the most recent incarnation of Jughead Jones in Archie comics, where he's been specifically identified as Ace. Though apparently the Riverdale creators decided not to carry that over into the show. All of which is to say that seeing a badass lady in charge who is also asexual in this comic was amazing. Amazing.

We'll see where the story leads us tomorrow, though if you can't wait, do have a look at the Crash and Burn website and give the comic a read. And maybe buy something from these two wonderful creators.

To be continued.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - The Weekly Graphic Novel: Week 46 - Crash and Burn v.1

I picked up the first graphic novel collection of this series at the Calgary Fan Expo this year as I walked around the artists alley and saw a banner proclaiming a "Queer Space Opera."

How does one pass up such a thing?

A brief chat with Ms. Larking convinced me that this was going to be a comic that I would love. The artwork and story are thoroughly intriguing, as is the setting, Earth on the verge of an intergalactic war fuelled by the political intrigues of the Ornos, a theocratic, bird-like alien race. The comic is also nicely multi-medial, in that there's a soundtrack one can purchase that includes themes for many of the major characters and such. I like this idea of telling a story in a number of different modes.

What really sold me, though, was that first reading. It's nice to talk to a creator, and to hear their enthusiasm for a project. That passion can often be the lynch pin in one taking a chance on a comic (or album, or book, or artwork), but it's really that first experience of the comic that puts proof to the pudding. And there's definitely proof here.

First, and foremost, the diversity of representation in this comic is marvelous. The Ornos have a system of gender and sexuality all their own, but even the humans appear to come from a society that has finally (finally) accepted that there is no difference, no hierarchy, to the vast range of gender and sexual orientation in our culture. The characters also hail from all kinds of ethnic backgrounds, a characteristic shared by the Ornos and their different feather colourings. Again, these things are presented in a completely positive and unprejudiced way, allowing us to experience a story about characters whose defining features spring not from who they want to sleep with, or what they look like, but who they actually are. And race and sexuality are only a part of that.

Second, the story is just great! I can't wait for the Panel One festival in June so that I can hopefully pick up the next chapter of the story. I don't want to give too much away, but the basic premise is that a delegation of Humans and Ornos, ostensibly tasked with keeping peace between the two races, crashes on a planet and is forced to work together to survive. There's other intrigues and mysteries abounding, but that's the gist of the first volume. The characters, aside from the diversity I mentioned above, are remarkably well-realized, evincing all kinds of emotions throughout the course of the tale, and acting quite consistently in the chaos of the disaster that befalls them. In this, I mean that when we're introduced to the characters, they're in a relatively stable situation, and we see them perhaps at their most relaxed (well, with the human characters at least). But once the disaster occurs, the behaviours of each of these characters flows naturally from relaxed to responsive, and nothing about it seems out of character. This is an important thing to notice in narratives - it's easy to set up a character and then turn them into an action hero once the story calls for it, regardless of whether or not that jibes with the set-up of the character. This is not something that Crash and Burn suffers from.

Alright. That's enough gushing. Pop over to the site and give it a read, and then maybe grab a copy of the comic if you need to have that material copy in your hands.

Onward!

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 803: The Halifax Explosion, 1997

Back to the random comics from the second quarter of the alphabet, and a little slice of Canadiana, today.

The explosion at Halifax in 1917 is one of the major events of Canadian Twentieth century history. As a country that was tightly linked to England but separated by such a great distance, the horrors, at least the conventionally destructive ones, of the First World War seemed very distant to citizens of the country. But this disaster, as the comic says, was "the biggest man-made explosion in the world until the atomic bomb was used in the Second World War." I can't imagine the devastation, and the comic only manages to hint at it. But it must have shown the people of the East Coast, at least, that regardless of how far away the war seemed, the possibility, or even probability, of the destruction in Europe affecting North America was high.

Though based on a historical event, one that most Canadian school children know the outcome of, the comic manages to build a nice bit of suspense as it progresses. We see heroic and foolish actions, and the course of history that inexorably draws us to the climactic two-page spread of an enormous explosion. Rather than depict the disaster from a distance (as one might see a mushroom cloud depicted in a comic), the artist and writer instead choose to place us within the inferno, able to see shards of buildings and blossoming fireballs and little else. It's a rather visceral rendition, one that puts the reader in the center of a horrific accident, and serves to make this historical promo comic, traditionally a sort of boring genre, quite engaging.

Oh, and I should mention that, yes, it's a promo comic, and was distributed with McDonalds' Happy Meals in the late 90s.

To be continued.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 802: Daughters of Knights #1, 2017

The last of my individual comics from the con today. Everything else is a graphic novel. I had a lovely chat with Mr. Rosia at the con about comics and community. He's a proponent of Panel One, a loose conglomerate of local comics creators who share resources and support in order to produce wonderful art. They've got a festival coming up on June 3, if you happen to be in the Calgary area.

Today's comic is the first of five parts, and I'm intrigued by the story thus far. A medieval setting, accusations of witchcraft, and a final 6 pages that are definitely amongst the creepiest I've seen in comics in a long while. I'm going to focus on these last pages today, because they gave me a rather Lovecraftian vibe. The story tells of a young woman with a facial deformity who is accused of witchcraft, but blames the deaths for which she's held accountable on a demon. It's unclear whether or not the demon is real, even in the last pages where things definitely seem to take a turn for the supernatural.

What's Lovecraftian, at least to me, about this section is that though the art definitely depicts particular images, the precise things that are happening, especially on the last page, are not shown in full - we're left to use our imaginations to really get a sense of what's going on, and we all, I think, know that what we imagine is always going to be worse than reality. I'm not kidding when I say that this sequence creeped me out. But what's interesting to me is that while the story can definitely be read literally, there's something about it that also speaks to me metaphorically. What kinds of demons might someone with this kind of deformity harbour within them, especially given the treatment she's likely to have undergone in a relatively unenlightened time? Was it an actual demon that was responsible for the crimes she's committed, or something more subtle? I suppose, in the end, the answer is that it is a demon - where it comes from matters little.

One other thing I quite liked about the comic is that, even though she's been taken captive, Seraphine, our focal character, refuses to take any shit from her captors. Couple this with a mysterious other lady that watches the caravan cart Seraphine away, and I think we've got the potential for a couple of strong female leads in this comic. In the wake of Marvel's recent blame of falling sales on diversity, this is a very, very important thing for us to bear in mind.

I'm hoping there'll be a second issue out by the time the Panel One Festival rolls around, but if not, Mr. Rosia has a few other works out that I'll be very, very happy to pick up.

To be continued.

The Glenbow Museum Celebration of Albertan Editorial Cartooning, May 2015

A quick note before I let the pictures speak for themselves. I approached the Glenbow Museum a number of times for permission to post these pictures to my blog, and on none of those occasions did I so much as receive a response, let alone permission. That being the case, I feel like I've done my due diligence, and that if a collection is owned by a public institution, then the public ought to be able to see it by any means necessary. That said, the display ended ages ago, so I'm not taking anything away from the Museum by posting this stuff. Enjoy! (Sorry for the blurriness of the photos!)

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 507: Prison Funnies #2, 2003

This was an utterly bizarre comic. I was really glad, upon opening it up, to see that there was a recap feature on the inside cover. Then I read it. It seemed to be recapping a comic from Tolkien's worst nightmares, and certainly, aside from a single sentence at the end, was not talking about Prison Funnies #1.

Many people are familiar with Chip Zdarsky from his acclaimed title Sex Criminals which, I admit, I've only read the first issue of. It was funny and clever, and if I weren't so terminally poor most of the time, I'd probably read it on the regular. But for me, Mr. Zdarsky is the mastermind behind the most recent iteration of one of my favourite comics characters, Howard the Duck. HTD has been handled by many writers and artists over the years since his creation by the great and mighty Steve Gerber, but until the Zdarsky/Quinones version of the last two volumes of the title, none have really come close to the satire and intelligence of the original version. I could wax poetic here about HTD, but I'll save that for another time. We're here to talk about Prison Funnies.

This was a fucked up comic, and I'm utterly, utterly proud to see that it came from a Canadian creator. The rest of the world might see us as those really polite people with the noisy neighbour to the south, but underneath we have a truly dark and disturbing layer. It's always the quiet ones, right? So as Diesel Pete makes his way through the penitentiary, seeking revenge for Tony's having been shot in the eye by an undercover cop (that's them up on the cover, playing one on one basketball), and Tony himself escapes prison with the brutal and bloody help of Escapio Leavingsworth (and don't worry if you're lost - me too, and I think that's actually a part of the comic's charm), we're treated to some of the foulest language I've yet to read in a comic, some of the strangest characters (who the hell is that guy with no skin that's Pete's cellmate?), and lots and lots of gay text and subtext. It's both charming in its genuine emotion and horrifying in its brutality.

What more can I say? Onward!

The 40 Years of Comics Project - The Weekly Graphic Novel: Week 7 - PostScript, The First and Second Collections, 2016

Of late, one of my favourite things to do at a comic convention is to wander the indie artist's aisles and pick up strange and interesting pieces. It's not a habit I've been in for much of my con-going life, which, in retrospect, I'm quite sorry for. I've found some really great pieces of art and of comics over the last few years at conventions, and I wonder how much I have missed at previous cons when my focus was on the boxes and boxes of comics for me to pour through.

(That said, one of my gripes with the Calgary Expo was that there was very little as far as boxes of comics to go through. I had to keep reminding myself that it was an entertainment expo, not just a comic con.)

PostScript takes up a relatively common narrative device of questioning exactly what is meant by "happily ever after" at the end of a fairy tale. Works like Castle Waiting and Fables take up just such a question as well, and what strikes me is that it's a question that can be taken up by numerous writers and the answers they come up with can be strikingly dissimilar, given the commonality of the source material. Which is a roundabout way of saying that PostScript offers a fresh take on what happens after the tales of the Three Little Pigs, the Gingerbread Man, and various other characters embedded deep within the collective unconscious.

Mr. Moogk-Soulis's art is adorable, and there's a danger in judging a book by its cover that one might think that all this collection is is adorable. But it's not. Sisyphus, the third little pig, continually tries to eat Ginger, his baked compatriot. The princess and the dragon have a strangely domestic arrangement going on, one in which she seems to hold the upper hand. The valiant prince is occasionally naked, and isn't really particularly smart. PostScript reminds us, in much the same way that the sadly short-lived TV series Galavant did, that while the fairy tale can certainly continue, its characters have to grow and adapt to the new status quo that's asserted after their gently traumatic tales.

As with many inaugural collections, we can see both the artist and the characters searching for their voices in this collection. I enjoyed immensely the interaction between the princess and the dragon, and look forward to seeing more of them in later collections. Sisyphus and Ginger have a strange and slightly unhealthy relationship, and I am interested to see how that develops. I'm not that interested in seeing the prince develop much more, but that's because I actually think he's pretty great just the way he is. His squire, on the other hand, is wonderful, and I can't wait to see more of him.

Comics to Check Out - Redcoat West, by Natalie Asplund

I'm part of a research project with Catherine Burwell of the Werklund School of Education at the University of Calgary (that's a lot of capitals), a project that focusses on young creators in digital and traditional media, and their relationship to intellectual property laws.

As part of the research for the project, I'm doing some interviews, and one of them will be with the creator of this comic, Redcoat West: A North West Mounted Police webcomic. I've just finished reading the first chapter, and it's really excellent.

I'm not super familiar with webcomics, but I'm trying to branch out. This comic pulled me in and kept me interested - it puts me in mind of Scott Chantler's excellent Northwest Passage series, though with a little more sci-fi. You should check it out.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - The Weekly Graphic Novel: Week 6 - Ihtsipatapiyoop [Creator], 2014

(I'm going to make a concerted effort to getting back to a graphic novel a week. Really oughtn't be that hard, but we'll see how it goes.)

It's not often (okay, maybe never) that one walks past a table at a comic convention and sees free graphic novels. So when it happens, I take notice. As I strolled down one of the artist alleys at this year's Calgary Con, I happened across Brian Batista's table, and was drawn in by his fantastic visions of Hindu deities. I picked up a print of Ganesha (Opener of Ways), and chatted with him for a bit about pop culture, the academy, and the lovely nuttiness of the convention. And then I had to double check and ask if the two stacks of graphic novels he had on the table were actually free.

Mr. Batista works with the Urban Society for Aboriginal Youth, meshing education in art with traditional stories and knowledge to produce graphic novels. One of the products of this collaboration is the graphic novel Ihtsipatapiyoop, a tale of the power of art to create, and recreate, the world we live in. The story is told both in one dialect of the Blackfoot language and in English, providing a nicely fluid linguistic representation of the harmony that is sadly lacking between Indigenous and Settler cultures in this country. The variety of young artists on this book (Christian Boulet, Maria One Spot, Christiana Latham, Samuel Bighetty, Garry Geddes, Mitchell Poundmaker) manage to avoid the troubles often associated with an artist's jam, and demonstrate the ways that different perspectives and styles can mesh into a whole that is greater than the sum of it's parts. There are moments in the piece, marking the transitions from one artist to the next, where their art overlaps, and it's a technique that works remarkably well in the context of the tale. Also of note, from a technical vantage point, is the complete lack of panel borders in the work. Moments flow into one another, and this very simple erasure of one of the fundamental elements of graphic storytelling reflects a much more holistic world view. It also reminds us that, narratively, the whole of what we are seeing is flowing from a paint brush, and eschews boundaries in a way that only liquid can. Equally inspired by mainstream comics, manga, and traditional Indigenous art, the journey of the artist Sage to rediscover her world and her traditions reminds us all that the past, the present, and the future are fundamentally linked, and that we are all responsible for creating our own realities. While explicitly speaking to the concerns of Indigenous peoples here in Canada, and more broadly the world over, this message of self-creation is a vital one for everyone. We are all the artists of our own realities. It's easy to forget, and very often hard to remember. A graphic novel like this one helps remind us.

I have a couple more graphic novels produced through USAY, and they both include discs with recordings of Elders telling the stories upon which the graphic novels are based. I'm hoping to be able to find links to the recordings online somewhere once I get to those GNs. Have a look at both Mr. Batista's site and the USAY site for more information on this and other similar projects. A very cool story by some wonderful young artists.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 408: Alpha Flight v.1 #20, March 1985

As we creep into what looks like a set-up for a haunted house mystery, we're going to take a break from Alpha Flight for a bit. I can feel my ire rising, as I've noticed happening numerous times when I've spent too much time with a particular series. Which is fine, really. I don't mind leaving things on a cliffhanger (as this issue does!), and I think I'd like to get into the later letters of the collection and see what's in there.

What also appears to be happening in Alpha Flight is a consolidation of the team, potentially out on the West coast. I'm not sure how I feel about this. The dispersed nature of the team was one of the things I quite liked that distinguished it from its American counterparts. Shaman's ability to teleport would surely have made short work of the distances between members in an emergency situation, so the only reason I can see for putting the team in one place is to allow writers to engage with the soap opera-ness that similar team books of the time (New Teen Titans, Avengers, X-Men) demonstrated. Which is a pity, as I don't see this series having much in common with those others, and I quite like it that way. These are not necessarily friends - they are team mates, work friends, so to speak. I don't need to see how they react to one another socially.

Well, we'll see how that all works out once we return to Alpha Flight. For now, we'll move on, and see what else is hidden in the depths of the collection. Onward!

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 407: Alpha Flight v.1 #19, February 1985

For the life of me, I cannot figure out who ever thought that high heels as part of a superhero costume could ever work.

I almost feel like that's all I want to say about this issue. There's a neat time-travel story, the introduction of Talisman, and a nice little dedication to the City of Calgary in celebration of its centennial, but not much substance to the story. Considering the antagonist was one of the SEVEN GREAT BEASTS!!!!, it goes down fairly easily.

And again, high heeled superhero costume.

Well, I've said it before, and I will undoubtedly say it again - they can't all be winners. Though I did crack a smile when reading the last word in this issue: