Review: Red: A Haida Manga by Michael Nicoll Yahgulanaas (BEDS 413)

Of all the comics I read for my Canadian Comics class last year, this one was the most unique--and also the most confusing, and the hardest to follow.

I remember very little about the actual story. Red's sister gets kidnapped, and he becomes obsessed with getting revenge. The details are blurry, but that's the basic gist of it. If you want a better understanding, this book needs to be read twice. At least.

I can appreciate what the cartoonist was trying to do. He was pulling from traditional Haida art styles to create the comic, using thick borders that, when you pull the pages apart and rearrange them together, form a larger piece of traditional art. But not only did the swirling borders make it harder to follow the linear narrative, but the art style within the borders made the events confusing to understand. Half the time, I had no idea what was going on. I was mostly making sense of what was happened based on the dialogue and other texts in the book.

Tone: lol what just happened

Enjoyment rating: 2.7

Shelf life: The only reason I haven't sold it yet is because I keep forgetting to bring it back to the uni bookstore for buyback.

TL;DR: Hard to follow, wouldn't recommend.

Until later,

- Justyne