Join us as comic artist Cole Pauls and curator/multidisciplinary artist Whess Harman speak in greater depth about Pauls’s comic Chäshu̧ Kadini (Say That Again), which opens C’s most recent issue, 154 “Gossip.” Illustrating a kind of oral storytelling in small Indigenous communities that becomes ambivalent folklore, Harman finds the importance of Pauls’s work in “telling an allegory of colonialism from the proverbial secret rez store that lets in joy and excitement, the same way we look for the stories we can romanticize in gossip.” As Harman writes about the generosity and humour in Pauls’s work, which includes protecting up-and-coming Indigenous comic artists,“ [a]ddressing the deep, dark issues is important, but so is building up our communities from within.” Listen as Pauls and Harman talk about the stories that are told, lovingly and to let off steam.

Cole Pauls is a Champagne and Aishihik Citizen and Tahltan comic artist, illustrator, and printmaker hailing from Haines Junction (YT). He holds a BFA in Illustration from Emily Carr University. Residing in Vancouver, Pauls has created three graphic novels: Dakwäkãda Warriors (2019), Pizza Punks (2021), and Kwändür (2022).

Whess Harman is Carrier Wit’at and based on the unceded territories of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh. Their multidisciplinary practice includes beading, illustration, text, and poetry. As a mixed-race, trans artist they work to find their way through colonial exhaustion and queer melancholy with a balance of rage and humour.