Hope Nicholson

"Moonshot is a project that is a thrilling new collection that showcases diverse aboriginal representation in comic books. This is an anthology of stories about identity, culture, and spirituality told by writers and artists from a range of communities across North America including many creators that identify as Métis, Inuit, Dene, Anishnaabe, Cree, Mi'kmaq, Caddo, Haida, Sioux, and Suquamish, among others" -- Foreword.

The Indigenous Comics Collection

Moonshot

Maggie Gordon

Moonshot is a collection of speculative comics about Indigenous people, mostly by Indigenous people. As with all collections, there are some fantastic pieces and some weaker pieces; however, two things stand out to me the most. The first is the use of speculative fiction and Indigenous themes. It's wonderful to see stories of Indigenous people in the future since they are so often wrongfully thought of as peoples stuck in the past. Secondly, the art in this volume is gorgeous. There are some truly talented Indigenous artists out there, and this is a book you should want just for how pretty it is. Glad I supported the Kickstarter for this and excited for volume 2!

"MOONSHOT The Indigenous Comics Collection Volume 2 brings you even more original comic book and graphic novel stories, written by Indigenous authors from across North America."--Back cover.

Fraser Simons

Wow, way better than the first one. There were at least 4 stories that I considered to be completely perfect and a great marriage to the form of comics. Two duds, but the overall quality is staggeringly better. And the resolution was better, though still not exceptionally high dpi for whatever reason. Or maybe it was exported and then scrubbed for lower file size. Regardless, glad I kept reading. Excellent stuff. And on paper, of course you wouldn’t have that issue. Printers require a set high dpi (300) to print anything.

Fantastic concept that is a bit of a weird experience reading via the backer PDF files. They’re not exported correctly; some are clearly higher resolution than others. I imagine the newer digital release on comiXology would have fixed that but the files I’ve had for years now, finally getting around to them, are like this. 

The collection itself does what it sets out to do. It’s highly eclectic and doesn’t have a western centric lens, and the stories, overall, probably about 3/4 of them I quite liked. Similar to short story collections, there’s some great ones and some that I didn’t get out of and didn’t like the visual style of, either. But I have all 3 collections, so I’m hoping it gets more refined as we go, and that the export is better. I’m reading it via a PDF reader and made sure to specify sizing it as it’s supposed to be and via single pages at a time, so it’s disheartening that the compilation isn’t unified in terms of dpi and ratio.

Leafling

When I first heard about this project, I was both very excited and kind of nervous. I had never before read short fiction in comic form. I didn't really have any idea that it was possible to tell an entire story within ten pages of panels. But this collection showed me how much can be pulled off. And it taught me an amazing wealth of things about the indigenous cultures of North America.

The stories range from visiting the origins of folklore, to seeing these stories' modern impact, to brilliantly imagined futuristic sci-fi stories blended with folklore. It continued to surprise me throughout, and the artwork is absolutely stunning. Between every few stories there's a 1-2 page spread featuring an unrelated work of art that often took my breath away.

Obviously it's hard to judge an anthology of stories written by different people. There are some that really stood out, and there were some that were just ok. A number could've used more pages to really develop. There were probably more anthropomorfic animal characters than I normally would've liked to read about, but that's sort of to be expected if some of the stories explore tales related to local wildlife. And there's one story that I just didn't understand at all. All of that being said, the good stories and the incredible artwork were both fascinating enough to make up for them.

A few of my favorites:

Vision Quest: Echo - In a beautiful collage of a limited number of images, a young deaf girl explains the importance of storytelling to her family and culture. She learns how storytelling is possible through images. I probably cried the first time I read this one.

The Qallupiluk: Forgiven - This one isn't technically a comic. It's a short story with an accompanying illustration every other page. It is SO CREEPY. The Qallupiluk is a creature from Inuit legend that comes from the deep Arctic ocean. It's kind of shapeless, with spines and fins, that can morph into other forms. In this story a young Inuit girl makes the mistake of approaching the creature in the water.

Ue-Pucase: Water Master - A futuristic story about two space travelers visiting another planet, this is based on Muscogee Creek story"The Young Man Who Turned Into a Snake." I loved the blend of space travel, modern dialogue, and what turns out to be startlingly real folklore.

Ayanisach - This one may be my very favorite, but it's hard to decide. An old woman teaches her grandson how to tell the story of their people. It starts with what sounds like folklore, then reaches into modern day and explains how an apocalypse of sorts went down. Extraterrestrials were involved and their people had to fight back. The protagonist goes on to tell the story to his young friends in the city, because the retelling of stories is what will teach others in the future.

There's been a long, long history of Indigenous peoples having their culture appropriated in mainstream media. Especially when it comes to comics, indigenous characters are often turned flat and one-dimensional; caricatures that are either foolish or barbaric. Their stories/traditions are blown out of proportion to comic levels and/or completely misunderstood. There is rarely any amount of respect involved when appropriating these stories and ideas. With this collection of comics, indigenous peoples are taking space that they deserve to create and tell their own stories. And they are damn good.

Full review: Outlandish Lit

Moonshot The Indigenous Comics Collection

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