Indigenous comics against settler time

This paper explores how Indigenous comics artists construct temporality not as an abstract, homogenous measure of universal movement along a singular axis, but as a multifaceted and shifting set of relations. This representation of temporality is set in neat contrast to settler societies’ portrayal of Indigenous people as backward and disappearing. Like other minority groups, Indigenous creators explore different modes of telling to recuperate a neglected past, educate the audience about what is happening in the present, and investigate what the future might look like for Indigenous people. Graphic narratives can visualize traditional stories and past events, facilitating their transmission across generations, often sensitizing a heterogeneous readership (encompassing Natives and non-Native communities) and calling for ethical forms of remembering and activism. To discuss how (Indigenous) comics can be read as a challenge to settlers’ temporalities this paper analyzes how the past has been articulated by two different graphic narratives: Gord Hill’s The 500 Years of Indigenous Resistance and Michael Nicholl Yahgulanaas’ Red: A Haida Manga.