frasersimons's profile picture

frasersimons 's review for:

Dakwäkãda Warriors by Cole Pauls
4.0

This is a pretty great, quick little trade of a book that plants indigenous roots in future that is very much an allegory to current indigenous struggles, as it relates to the Yukon, specifically. But also issues that encompass all of Canada, such as residential schools.

In it, heroes Crow & Wolf must combat a bombastic colonizer buccaneer. While the comic is pretty straight forward and has a unique visual style I like, I really loved how there are two indigenous dialects unique to the Yukon used throughout the script. Unfortunately, sometimes the translations for each word are very small and, depending on the background, are very difficult to discern.

However, it’s a straight forward story and a visual medium, so typically it’s intuitive what the translation will be regardless. This is fantastic and fun; kids and teenagers should love this. And at the end there is a few pages dedicated to the story and intent of the story and the places and inspirations it comes from. There’s also a glossary at the back. Solid stuff.