Yahgulanaas up for comic award
April 17th, 2024
Michael Nichol Yahgulanaas (at right) is one of five finalists for the 2024 Doug Wright Award for Best Book for his graphic novel, JAJ: A Haida Manga (D&M $34.95).
JAJ brings to life the tumultuous history of first contact between Europeans and Indigenous peoples and the early colonization by the Europeans of the northern West Coast. The story follows several historical figures, including Johan Adrian Jacobsen (JAJ), who comes to the Haida village of Masset to collect specimens for a German museum, through a time span that includes first contact, the devastation of the smallpox epidemic, and the mass resettlement of disenfranchised peoples, both Indigenous and European.
Yahgulanaas is a visual artist, storyteller and public speaker. Raised on Haida Gwaii, he melds cultural hybridity and his political experiences as an Indigenous person with contemporary graphic literature to produce a unique genre called Haida Manga. His previous books include Flight of the Hummingbird (Greystone, 2008), A Tale of Two Shamans (Theytus, 2001) and Red (Douglas & McIntyre, 2009).
The Doug Wright Awards were founded in 2005 to celebrate excellence in the field of Canadian comics. The awards are named for Doug Wright (1917–1983), the creator of the long-running strip Doug Wright’s Family (a.k.a. Nipper), one of the most widely read and loved Canadian comics of the twentieth century.
The 20th annual Doug Wright Awards event takes place in Toronto on Saturday, May 11 at 8 pm EDT. The event will also be livestreamed on YouTube.
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