Indiginerds Review

Indiginerds: Tales from Modern Indigenous Life is titled about as straight-forwardly as you can get. It's the latest anthology from Iron Circus Comics and tells several stories about indigenous people -- mostly of whom are self-described nerds -- who are trying to navigate the modern era. What does it look like to balance the traditional ways of their respective cultures with cell phones and video games and hundreds of years of having their voices supressed by coloniziers?

Despite the tone I put on the tail end of that last sentence, there is very little anger in the book. It is largely about finding joy and celebrating community. Connecting with others, both friends and the broader aspects of North American culture as a whole. (To be clear, the indigenous people represented here stretch from Canada through the US down to Mexico.) In some cases, that is in a very personal and intimate way -- finding a dating partner -- and in some cases that is in a much grander way -- helping to create an international, loosely-affiliated coalition of radio stations broadcasting news and information vital to standing up for indigenous rights. Even the story about a band whose instruments are stolen hours before a concert don't really exhibit much anger, and spend their time focusing on how they can still play at the gig and sharing the joy of their music with others.

One thing I found interesting was how many of the stories specifically involved finding some measure of comfort or solace within a 'nerd' environment. Finding a D&D group whose campaigns did not feel uncomfortably like a party of "white saviors" colonizing the local "savages." Choosing a race in World of Warcraft that was overtly inspired by Native cultures. Coming to grips with Star Trek's appropriation of Native cultures in some of the more ham-fisted episodes. That was certainly not the entirety of the stories, not even half honestly. But it's an idea that stands out to me, coming from a place of using my own nerd interests to find my own community; the idea that, even within those niche groups, a person can still feel excluded. It's not a new-to-me idea at least, but I definitely appreciate the reminder here. I suspect more than a few readers could stand to pick it up as a refresher as well.

As with any anthology, the writing and art styles vary from story to story and, not surprisingly, some were more to my tastes than others. All of them were good, though, and my only real complaint from a craft perspective was that one of the stories had a few caption boxes placed a bit awkwardly for a really smooth reading experience. But by and large, these are all some very talented individuals at work here.

The book was originally a crowd-funded project from late 2023. I do not see the book available on the Iron Circus site as of this writing, but it does appear to be available from online sellers like Bookshop.org. I just last week received my copy from the crowd-funding project, though, so I'm not sure how quickly it might get shipped from other sources. Indiginerds: Tales from Modern Indigenous Life retails for $20 US.

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