Beth Dillon and Myron Lameman

[sanguinity]

Two short works, both 22-page, single-issue webcomics, both by Beth Dillon (Anishinaabe, Metis, Irish) and Myron Lameman (Beaver Lake Cree Nation).

11. The West Was Lost.

Native Steampunk, wherein Anishinaabe warriors -- led by the young woman who is our POV character, Nezette -- travel west to destroy an oil derrick.

The storytelling is non-linear and nearly wordless, with a heavy usage of references from traditional Anishinaabe stories. Consequently, it demands more than a single read, and even with multiple readings may yet be fairly opaque to readers who aren't familiar with the cultural referents.

The artwork is gorgeous. I keep coming back to look at the art again. There are some heart-stirring shots of Nezette in battle that particularly catch my eye, and I love the shots of the oil derrick in flames -- this particular act of resistance makes me very happy. (There are some later shots worth mentioning, too, but that gets into spoiler-territory, so I won't.)

I would very much like to see more set in this timeline.


12. Fala.

A Native rendition of Alice in Wonderland. I don't even begin to get all the references here, which hampers my experience of it, but the stuff that I do get, I like. As with "The West Was Lost," (and, for that matter, Alice in Wonderland itself) the work benefits from multiple reads.

Comments

[la-vie-noire.livejournal.com]

Wow. Things like these make me happy. Thank you!

[sanguinity]

Yay!

[alias_sqbr]

We can do webcomics? Sweet.

Those are good comics but a really annoying site (though I like the concept behind the publisher). To anyone else having trouble: click on the dialogue to make it readably big (you can also make it fullscreen, but I got bored of waiting for it to load)

[sanguinity]

Yeah, we can do webcomics. Print publishing seems to be a threshold that authors of color have a harder time getting across, so I'm not particularly inclined to give it a lot of weight in the comm. Other mods may have somewhat different positions on the why, but also agree that there's no strong argument for drawing a line between electronic and print.

I should have given a tutorial -- it bugged me first go-through, too. Did you find the bit where you can turn the speech-balloons off? If you want to see any of the panel art unobstructed, you have that option.

I find other all aspects of the site nearly impossible to use, I'm sorry to say. Things I know I saw once, I'm having a horrible time finding a second time.

[alias_sqbr]

I was thinking "I should do a post about webcomics!" then remembered I still haven't finished with the books I've already read :)

[oddmonster.livejournal.com]

I'm really glad you posted this review of The West Was Lost. I'd been despairing at ever finding some POC-driven Steampunk. I'll definitely be picking this up. Thanks!

[sanguinity]

It's a webcomic; I'm not sure that there's a print edition?

Yeah, I don't know of much. Monique Poirier, who is Wampanoag, has a story in Like Clockwork, a collection of erotic steampunk stories. (I haven't read the collection.) She's working on a novel, too -- I want to go poke around in that AU she describes. :-)

[oddmonster.livejournal.com]

Wow, embarrassment of riches. There's really nothing that doesn't say win about erotic steampunk nor a whole novel full of that AU...