Graphic Novels

This critique of the art world will have you crying with laughter

In Wendy’s Revenge, Scott’s titular heroine returns with a fresh set of awkward misadventures and messy nights out. When the book opens, aspiring artist Wendy has decided to move to the west coast to clear her head.

She plans on getting some quality time with her collaborator and friend Winona, only to find Winona packing up to leave, having decided to move back in with her mom on the rez. All alone, Wendy endeavours to foster community in Vancouver’s bleak art scene. When her hope and optimism are all used up, she packs her bags for an artist residency in Japan. Wendy then gallery hops and parties around the globe until she stumbles upon the opportunity to unite with former foe Paloma. Together they enact revenge on VVURST, the German publication that once tore her performance art to shreds.

Young artists struggle with mental health issues, they get wasted and hook up with men with gross piercings, and they’re afflicted with an insatiable longing for a stable identity—stability they themselves undermine. Scott’s deceptively simple, inky character drawings evoke millennial culture with such Jungian accuracy that you can’t help but stare and giggle in equal measure. Praised by The New Yorker, Guardian, Globe and Mail, and with an appearance in the Best American Comics anthology, it’s clear why Walter Scott’s Wendy comics have taken critics by storm.

Reviews
“I am blown away by Walter Scott’s Wendy series.” —Zadie Smith

“Wendy, her pals and her milieu comprise a fictional world as fully and funnily inhabited as any in recent Canadian storytelling.”—Globe & Mail

“Funny, poignant, and scary. Scott makes you laugh and then rips your heart out.”—Literary Hub

Educator Information
The publisher recommends for ages 16+, but this graphic novel contains very mature content. 

Caution: Mature content

In this second comic, Winona, an Indigenous character, is introduced.

Additional Information
260 pages | 6.50" x 9.00" | Black-and-white illustrations with partial color section | Paperback 

Experience the riveting, powerful story of the Native American civil rights movement and the resulting struggle for identity told through the high-flying career of West Coast rock 'n' roll pioneers Redbone.

You've heard the hit song "Come and Get Your Love" in the movie Guardians of the Galaxy, but the story of the band behind it is one of cultural, political, and social importance.

Brothers Pat and Lolly Vegas were talented Native American rock musicians that took the 1960s Sunset Strip by storm. They influenced The Doors and jammed with Jimmy Hendrix before he was "Jimi," and the idea of a band made up of all Native Americans soon followed. Determined to control their creative vision and maintain their cultural identity, they eventually signed a deal with Epic Records in 1969. But as the American Indian Movement gained momentum the band took a stand, choosing pride in their ancestry over continued commercial reward.

Created in cooperation of the Vegas family, authors Christian Staebler and Sonia Paoloni with artist Thibault Balahy take painstaking steps to ensure the historical accuracy of this important and often overlooked story of America's past. Part biography and part research journalism, Redbone tells a vivid story about this neglected chapter of American history.

Reviews
"Compelling reading for fans of roots rock and Native American history in middle school and up." —School Library Journal

"An entertaining, enlightening history for music fans. Balahy’s loose, energetic drawings; imaginative layouts; and playful use of color make everything pop." —Publishers Weekly

"Musicians with heart put their people before profits in an inspirational tale. Well-researched and well-paced, this book will introduce a new generation to the music and impact of Redbone." —Kirkus Reviews (Starred review)

"In some eyes, the guys in Redbone, still the most successful Native American rock band this country has produced, are indeed superheroes. Not all heroes wear capes, and some wear buckskin." —Houston Chronicle

"In the early sixties, Pat and his brother, Lolly, perform on the Sunset Strip, crossing paths with The Byrds, The Doors, and Jimi Hendrix, who gives the brothers the idea of forming 'an all Indian band. That'd make this country sit up.' The seed germinates and Redbone bursts forth. Staebler and Paoloni offer a lens onto aspects of the twentieth-century Native American struggle for civil rights and injustices like forced schooling and racist policing, as well as the 1968 birth of the American Indian Movement. Balahy's art is particularly splendid and well-varied in style for the complex subject matter." —Booklist

Additional Information
160 pages | 7.00" x 10.00"

“My million years of immortality have barely begun…”

Pursued by warring human/alien hybrids, the immortal Kyrill, also known as Salamander, is the key to a prison forged by the seven gods of creation. While one of the warring factions moves to protect him, the other seeks to use him to open the prison. Kyrill’s story unfolds in a war-ravaged dystopia where his people, Indigenous North Americans, are space pirates who control the solar system’s spaceways. The Krillian Key: Salamander Run is a fun, sassy and fast-paced graphic novel set in the post-apocalyptic future of Neo-New York circa 2242, with flashbacks to modern-day Canada.

Additional Information
200 pages | 5.50" x 8.50" | black and white illustrations

“The ragged edges of the temperate rainforest reach far out onto an island in the western seas. It is a place where one chooses to go ahead or turn back…” 

In a prequel to the award-winning Red: A Haida Manga, acclaimed artist Michael Nicoll Yahgulanaas blends Asian manhwa/manga with the Haida artistic and oral tradition in another stunning hand-painted volume. 

In a small near-future community perched between the ocean and the northern temperate rainforest, a series of disasters is taking a heavy toll. It is early fall and a fuel spill has contaminated the marine foods the village was preparing to harvest. As food supplies dwindle, a small group decides to make a late-season expedition to search for sea lions. Surprised by a ferocious storm, they abandon one man, Carpe, on an isolated rock at sea. After ten days they are finally able to return, but he has vanished. The story follows Carpe’s encounters with the Lord of the Rock, who demands retribution for Carpe’s role in the hunt, and Carpe’s fate in the half-life between human and animal, life and death.

Educator & Series Information
Haida manga is a contemporary style of Haida comics and print cartoons that explores the elements of both traditional North Pacific Indigenous arts and narrative, while also adapting contemporary techniques of artistic design from the western portion of the North Pacific, namely the Japanese manga from which its name derives.

Additional Information
120 pages | 10.00" x 10.00" | 100 colour illustrations

Art has always played a significant role in the history of the labour movement. Songs, stories, poems, pamphlets, and comics, have inspired workers to take action against greedy bosses and helped shape ideas of a more equal world. They also help fan the flames of discontent. Radical social change doesn’t come without radical art. It would be impossible to think about labour unrest without its iconic songs like “Solidarity Forever” or its cartoons like Ernest Riebe’s creation, Mr. Block. 

In this vein, The Graphic History Collective has created an illustrated chronicle of the strike—the organized withdrawal of labour power—in Canada. For centuries, workers in Canada—Indigenous and non-Indigenous, union and non-union, men and women—have used the strike as a powerful tool, not just for better wages, but also for growing working-class power. This lively comic book will inspire new generations to learn more about labour and working-class history and the power of solidarity.

Reviews
"There are so many exciting and vitally important stories from the history of social movements, and the most engaging way to tell those stories is through art, in its various forms.  The Graphic History Collective is brilliantly doing just that." - David Rovics, singer, songwriter, activists 

"The Graphic History Collective shows us that art can inspire hope for radical social change" - Noam Chomsky

"Brilliant in narrative power and artistic expression, Direct Action Gets the Goods offers more proof of the Graphic History Collective's prowess with the graphic form. Magnificent!" - Paul Buhle 

"Direct Action Gets the Goods is a brilliant and essential resource. Through well-researched history and powerful graphic art, it shows how the strike is key to revolutionary unionism and social movement solidarity. This book will inspire future generations to fight and win against bosses and capitalism." – Harsha Walia, community organizer and author of Undoing Border Imperialism

Educator Information
The Graphic History Collective is made up of activists, artists, writers, and researchers passionate about comics, history, and social change.  They produce alternative histories - people's histories - in an accessible format to help people understand the historical roots of contemporary social issues. 

Additional Information
64 pages | 8.50" x 11.00" | 80 illustrations

Authenticity and Content Note: This work contains contributions from Gord Hill, a member of the Kwakwaka'wakw Nation.  Indigenous content and perspectives, therefore, may be included but are not the sole focus of the work.

The shocking images of neo-Nazis marching in Charlottesville, Virginia, in the summer of 2017 linger, but so do those of the passionate anti-fascist protestors who risked their lives to do the right thing. In this stirring graphic non-fiction book by the author of The 500 Years of Resistance Comic Book, Gord Hill looks at the history of fascism over the last 100 years, and the concurrent antifa movements that have worked fastidiously to topple it. 

Fascism is a relatively new political ideology, yet in its short history some of the greatest atrocities against humanity have been carried out in its name. Its poisonous roots have taken hold in every region of the world, from its beginnings in post-World War I Italy, through Nazi Germany, Franco's Spain, and the KKK in America. And today, emboldened by the American president, fascism is alive and well again. At the same time, antifa activists have proven, throughout history and again today, that the spirit of resistance is alive and well, and necessary. 

In The Antifa Comic Book, Gord Hill documents these powerful moments of conflict and confrontation with a perceptive eye and a powerful sense of resolve. 

Full-colour throughout. Includes a foreword by Mark Bray, author of Antifa: The Anti-Fascist Handbook.

Additional Information
112 pages | 8.00" x 10.00"

Author Michel Hellman meets with his editor Luc Bossé and casually promises to write a sequel to his best-selling book Mile End. But the Montréal neighborhood, with its trendy cafés and gluten-free bakeries, doesn't seem half as inspiring as it used to be. Part memoir and part documentary, Nunavik follows Hellman on a trek through Northern Quebec as he travels to Kuujjuaq, Puvirnituk, Kangiqsujuaq and Kangirsurk, meeting members of the First Nations, activists, hunters and drug dealers along the way. An honest and often funny account of this trip, Nunavik truly feels personal, with the author acknowledging (and challenging) his own prejudices. While the North has had a profound influence on our collective identity as Canadians, it remains an idea - myth rather than reality. Empirical rather than theoretical, Nunavik reflects on the way our relationship to the North has shaped our own cultural landscape.

Reviews
"An insightful, self-reflexive memoir of the author's journey to small Inuit communities in Nunavik, the northern part of the province of Quebec. Hellman shares his thoughts and perceptions of the North while never losing sight of his own racial privilege." - Jarrah, Goodreads.com

Educator Information
Graphic Novel | Non-Fiction

Additional Information
156 pages | 6.25" x 8.25" | Black and white images

Referencing a classic Haida oral narrative, this stunning full-colour graphic novel documents the powerful story of Red, a leader so blinded by revenge that he leads his community to the brink of war and destruction.

Set in the islands off the northwest coast of B.C., it tells the tale of orphan Red and his sister, Jaada. When raiders attack their village, Red, still a boy, escapes dramatically. But Jaada is whisked away. The loss of Jaada breeds a seething anger, and Red sets out to find his sister and exact revenge on her captors.

Red blends traditional Haida imagery into a Japanese manga-styled story. Tragic and timeless, it is reminiscent of such classic stories as Oedipus Rex, Macbeth and King Lear.

This innovation in contemporary storytelling consists of 108 pages of hand-painted illustrations. When arranged in a specific order, the panels of the narrative create a Haida formline image four metres long. The sequence for this complex design is displayed on the inside jacket.

Educator & Series Information
Haida manga is a contemporary style of Haida comics and print cartoons that explores the elements of both traditional North Pacific Indigenous arts and narrative, while also adapting contemporary techniques of artistic design from the western portion of the North Pacific, namely the Japanese manga from which its name derives.

This book is available in French: Red: Un manga haïda 

Additional Information
120 pages | 8.00" x 8.75"