Tulsa Native Comic Book Workshop 2014
Arigon Starr traveled to Tulsa, Oklahoma for the March 8th Native Comic Book Workshop sponsored by the Tulsa City-County Library’s American Indian Resource Center. Comic creators Michael Sheyahshe, Roy Boney and Lee Francis IV joined Arigon at the Martin Regional Library for the two-plus hour workshop. Lots of folks of all ages and from all different communities attended the talk which covered the history of Native Americans in comics, plus various how-tos for writing, drawing and publishing comic books.
“It was so much fun to hang out with my friends and collaborators,” said Arigon. “Roy, Michael and Lee had so much information to give to the audience. It really helped me, because I had come down with a stomach virus the day before and was really off my game,” she related. “So nice to know that I’m not out here working alone on changing the stereotypes in popular comics.”
Arigon also worked with a group of kids a few days prior to the group workshop. Local Native kids, plus a van load of Osage students who are working on making comic books in the Osage language attended the hands-on session. “They came in all the way from Pawhuska,” Arigon marveled. “Their instructor Cameron was adamant that each student take the work seriously so they would be able to create stories of their own using their tribal language. This has got to be the start of an empowering movement!”
After the Saturday workshop, the Native creators gathered and discussed plans for upcoming projects including their group collaboration, “Tales of the Mighty Code Talkers” and Arigon’s upcoming “Super Indian Volume Two.”
“Huge thank you to the American Indian Resource Center’s Teresa Runnels and my friend Mark Abbott for bringing all of us into to Tulsa. I look forward to doing a lot more of this work,” smiled Arigon.
The Indigenous Narratives Collective can next be seen at WonderCon at the Anaheim Convention Center April 18-20. More details to come!
