Indigenous Comics Aambe

Note: When we recorded this episode the panelist Myka used a different name. While the transcript has been updated to reflect their current name the audio recording reflects that history.

Patty Krawec
This is Ambe. And we're here for our conversation about comic books and graphic novels, or kind of whatever people want to call them. I was looking up for some good quotes on it. And I came across one where some somebody had said that the difference between graphic novels and comic books are the binding.
This is part of a yearlong project of mine where we're talking about Indigenous literature's and it started with a book I read that Daniel Heath Justice had written. And as I was kind of going through the months, and kind of creating the different categories that occurred to me, this is a valid category of literature. But it doesn't often get, it doesn't often get a lot of attention, Neil pointed out that Daniel was a contributor in one of the Moonshot volumes.
We've got Jay Odjick, who actually designed my avatar. If you see me on social media, and I look like a superhero Jay is why. That was a really interesting process that I had absolutely no idea. I was just like, make me look cool. And he's like, but I need to know this. And I need to know that. I was like, wow, that's, there's just so much information. I was like, I do, I jump into things all the time with no idea of what's actually required. So it was, it was an amazing process. And I really love her.
And so we've got Neil, who is probably my most frequent flyer with this, because he's just so cool and into everything. Lee Francis, who was actually one of the very first guests on my Medicine for the Resistance podcast that I co-host with Kerry Goring. And we were talking about Indigenous futurism. And that was just such a neat conversation. And someday, I hope to get to Indigenous ComiCon because that looks really cool. And then we've got Myka Foubert who, who is my cousin, but also a really cool person. And likes, likes, comic books, graphic novels, all that, all that artistic literature stuff.
So now what I'm gonna do, I'm just gonna kind of go around and ask each of you to give a better introduction than the one that I just gave a little bit about kind of how you connect with or do this, you know, this … kind of what it is about graphic novels and comic books. that got your attention and keeps you there. So we'll start with Jay
Jay Odjick 
So yeah, kwe-kwe, Jay Odjick n’dishnikaahz. Hello, my name is Jay Odjick . I'm an Anishinaaabe artist, writer, TV producer jack of all trades, master of absolutely none. And I've been reading comics since I was old enough to be able to read.  Even though I'm from the kidney got Kitigan Zibi Anishinabeg community in Quebec, which was where my dad's from I was born in Rochester, New York. And because my dad, like a lot of guys from the rest, there wasn't a lot of work in the community. So a lot of guys left to work, construction, high steel jobs like that. So I was born in Rochester. And right off the street from where we lived was a comic book shop. And we didn't have a lot of money. But luckily for me, the comic shop had this kind of dubious practice of taking the comics that didn't sell and tearing off the covers and selling them for five cents. So as a kid without a lot of money, it was pretty great because you walk in with like 25 cents, walk out with a couple of comics, roll them up, stick them in your back pocket. Nowadays was a guy who makes comics for a living and I'm like, “How could you?” But at the time, it was absolutely awesome. So that's how I kind of got into it. And I fell in love with the idea I think of using pictures to tell stories. I really wanted to be able to tell stories, and that's what brought me to it and I fell in love with the medium in that way of doing it because it seemed like something we could do without needing, you know, a ton of camera and equipment, video equipment and things like