<\/p>\n
When someone opens a comic book, turns on a video game or just watches TV, rarely is he or she greeted by Native American characters. And when those characters are present, they are frequently little more than stereotypes. The organizers of the first-ever Indigenous Comic Con seek to change that on the third weekend of November.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Indigenous Comic Con is a three-day festival and convention celebrating all things \u2018Indiginerd\u2019 and bringing together the worlds of comic books, graphic novels, games, film, television all with an indigenous perspective and to highlight the cool work that\u2019s being done by indigenous people in pop culture,\u201d says Lee Francis, director of the convention and CEO of Native Realities, a press that specializes in comic books representing indigenous cultures.<\/p>\n
The convention boasts a number of guests, from film, television and video game stars like Jonathan Joss (\u201cParks & Rec,\u201d \u201cKing of the Hill\u201d) and Kaniehtiio Horn (\u201cSupernatural,\u201d \u201cAssassins Creed III\u201d) to comic book creators such as Jon Proudstar (\u201cTribal Force\u201d), Arigon Starr (\u201cSuper Indian\u201d) and Theo Tso (\u201cCaptain Paiute\u201d). Aside from their contributions to pop culture, all the guests have one thing in common: They are members of tribes indigenous to North America.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re trying to keep a good expansion of the concept of indigenous,\u201d Francis says. \u201cWe were very careful in naming this. It\u2019s not the Native American Comic Con \u2013 it\u2019s the Indigenous Comic Con because we really want to include a lot of the folks that are doing this work all over the world.\u201d<\/p>\n
Navajo artist Ryan Singer, for instance, grew up near Tuba City, Arizona, and now lives in Albuquerque. In his words, he \u201cuses pop culture and sci-fi imagery and kind of mash it up with native culture and then (he tries) to find different meanings or different ways they can coexist together.\u201d<\/p>\n
The results are paintings featuring characters from franchises such as \u201cStar Wars\u201d re-enacting famous scenes but against the backdrop of the Four Corners and the reservation.<\/p>\n
One of the guests audiences might be the least familiar with may also be the most interesting, Francis says. Allen Turner, a game designer and storyteller who has worked for Disney and other big companies, has also designed the only native tabletop role playing game, Ehdrigohr.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve got game designers that are going to be here, so if you like video games, if you like table-top games, this is a really good chance to come on down,\u201d Francis says. \u201cWhether you\u2019re native or not native, I think it\u2019s a really good opportunity because you kind of get to see a really different side of what\u2019s being done in this \u2026 amazingly diverse and incredibly eclectic pop culture world we exist in.\u201d<\/p>\n
As with most comic conventions, costumes are welcome and encouraged, though the con would like people to be considerate of the fact that it is a family event in addition to being culturally sensitive.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe certainly don\u2019t want everybody coming as Apache Chief or as the most recent iteration of Tonto,\u201d Francis says.<\/p>\n
In addition to panels, booths and discussions appealing to geeky teens and adults, the convention will provide younger children with areas to work on costumes, movies, book readings and musical instruments with which to play.<\/p>\n
Indigenous Comic Con<\/em><\/p>\n When:<\/em> Nov. 18-20<\/p>\n Where:<\/em> National Hispanic Cultural Center, 1701 4th St. S.W., Albuquerque<\/p>\n Tickets:<\/em> On sale at www.indigenouscomiccon.com, starting at $45 for a three-day pass.<\/p>\n What: Indigenous Comic Con First-ever event will be held in Albuquerque<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":71108,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[21,13],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-71107","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-cortez","tag-frontpage-lead"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71107","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=71107"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71107\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/71108"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=71107"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=71107"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=71107"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=71107"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}If you go<\/h4>\n
\n When: Nov. 18-20
\n Where: National Hispanic Cultural Center, 1701 4th St. S.W., Albuquerque
\n Tickets: On sale at www.indigenouscomiccon.com, starting at $45 for a three-day pass.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"