Form

== "I was drawn to comics as a way of talking about complex things such as relationships between indigenous peoples and settler society. I found manga attractive because it is not part of the settler tradition of North America (like Archie or Marvel comics for example), insofar as manga has roots in the North Pacific as does Haida art." == Michael Nicoll Yahgulanaas (2008)

First Nations culture is built on a narrative tradition, where roles are subscribed to both storyteller and listener (Ridington, 2001). Each telling of the story represents a re-creation of the original as each unique storyteller and listener brings themselves to the process. Ridington suggests that present-day First Nations artists continue to expand the re-creative process of story by through the use new settings and new media. I feel that comics as a medium seems particularly well-suited to First Nations narrative tradition. The comics reader must immerse him or herself in the work in order to create meaning. Think for example, of the concept of closure (McCloud, 1994, pp. 63 - 66). Closure requires the reader to play a very active role in the story.

Haida manga operates as a hybrid idiom or creative creole that invigorates Haida art.
Woo (2011), @http://www.asiancha.com/content/view/800/288/ == “Michael told us he wanted to do a graphic novel based on a traditional Haida oral tale, and because we were already huge fans of his art, we thought we couldn’t pass up the opportunity to do something special in terms of a graphic story,” ==

Images
Image: '[|Long House]' Retrieved from []. Found on [|flickrcc.net]