Photo Courtesy Blue Lake Rancheria Tribal Education Agency
Among Indigenous stories and histories California sometimes gets left out. In a large state full of big industries of many kinds the Native stories of this land can get overlooked. Chag Lowry (Yurok, Maidu, and Achumawi) hopes to change that story by bringing a lot of the history and contemporary culture of his homelands to a wider audience through his work in comics. As a lifelong fan of comics, he cites GI Joe, Wolverine and Man Thing as some of his early influences, Lowry understands the power of the medium. Many of Lowry’s stories focus on veterans, cultural revitalization and share perspectives of other than human persons. Grand Entry Geek Out was able to sit down with Chag recently to learn more about his process, what draws him to the stories he tells and what’s next.
(This interview has been edited for length and clarity)
GEGO: Can you tell us a little bit about yourself?
Chag Lowry (CL): yeah thank you so I was raised uh on my father’s uh ancestral lands in northeastern California um I’m Mountain Maidu and Pit River. Those are two cultures from that area and then on my mother’s side I am of Yurok ancestry and lived there and went to Humboldt State University and the Yurok tribe is the largest indigenous tribe in California and our ancestral lands uh are along the Klamath river the lower part of the Klamath river and where it empties into the Pacific and it’s a redwood country so so uh but and then my family and I currently live in San Diego I work at UC San Diego in health the School of Public Health but comics and writing are my passion work.
Photo Courtesy Susanville Stuff
GEGO: So much of your work tells the stories of veterans including one of your best known works Soldiers Unknown. What was it about these stories that you connected with?
CL: I interviewed a lot of the World War II and Korean War veterans that I knew. I interviewed almost 70 events over the course of a couple years just you know word of mouth and on my own time. I would travel around Northern California and a lot of them would bring out family photos or they would start to talk. Many of them would say “well my dad” or “oh I had an older brother that was in World War I.” They would sometimes have actual service photos of them and would share them with me. I was always amazed by that. So after those experiences and seeing those images I did a lot of research… They’re so connected right World War I and World War II there’s only 20 years apart but World War I is amazing that time period because [of what was happening] here in California. World War I happened [and when] the Americans came in 1917/1918 we were still at the tail end of the physical genocide in California that was happening especially up north. So it always amazed me that you had survivors of the massacres that happened in Northern California and then here you also had these men from tribes who went into the service. Sometimes voluntarily sometimes they were drafted and then sent to France. It just boggled my mind!
GEGO: When working with an artist, do you try to give them a lot of input or do you mostly try to let them make it their own?
CL: I think it depends on the artist but I’ve been very fortunate to work with artists who have the amazing abilities. Like wow how did they get that so right! I wrote a description or some dialogue and then they just nail it! If it was like a cultural image or more history based where, like in Soldiers Unknown, we had to get the uniforms right and the type of weaponry right. That kind of detail I had to be strict with and say this is how it goes. For other parts of the story yeah I’m a big believer in you don’t limit the artist. I mean they’re bringing a lot of ability and talent to the creative process.
Tongva Artist/Author Weshoyot Alvitre Photo courtesy Blue Lake Rancheria Tribal Education Agency
GEGO: In My Sisters you tell the story from the perspective of baskets. Lately the term ‘other than human persons’ has been getting a lot of use and is a concept that is very familiar to multiple Native Cultures. How do you capture that voice of other than human persons and are there other stories you’re working on that tell stories from the perspective of other than human persons?
CL: As native people I think we were all taught that we can tap into other ways of being. What often represents that when I was growing up were baskets. That’s the manifestation, the physical manifestation, of connectivity and being and mindfulness and spiritualness. As humans, I think that there are other other avenues for us to learn. See on my mom’s side, in Yoruk culture, [once] certain baskets are used in ceremony, they are considered living members of society… I was always fascinated by that! [The] baskets have a voice, the baskets have a spirit. Basketry for the most part is the women’s activity so I didn’t want to try and write from the women’s side because that’s not respectable. But I thought I could write from the basket side and so that’s what compelled me to write that story. It was amazing to collaborate with Weshoyot because she is of Tongva ancestry, so from down south, and then I’m from up North. [It goes] back to that ability for stories to connect between cultures. [It was] an all California Native collaboration and she also wrote parts in that story too that pertained to the Tongva basketry experience and journey.
Photo courtesy Indigenous Con
GEGO: How do you see Native representation in comics today and what do you hope is the future of Native people in comics?
CL: You know I will take this opportunity to really thank Lee Francis for everything that he’s done. I met Lee at indigenous ComicCon in Albuquerque, so the ability for us to connect as native creatives is still I think, the most key need. For the overall industry… I’m always cautious about non-native companies owning the rights to Native characters and native stories. So I prefer to see us owning our own publishing imprints owning the process, having native editors and that’s the side that I’m most interested in trying to be impactful in right now…
Going back to Lee, what I view as Lee’s vision is that we own it ourselves. We tell it ourselves, we are responsible to ourselves in a good way. So I encourage people to support his Indigipop [Convention] and his efforts to get us linked.
Every place in this country has a native story behind it. Every rock, every type of water, every type of tree, right? There’s power in all of our ancestral lands and whether we live on them or not as native people we carry that.
Thank you so much to Chag Lowry for taking the time to sit down and speak with us!
This article is just scratching the surface of our conversation, be sure to check out the full interview on our YouTube channel.
To view more of Chag’s work and pick up your own copy of his stories head to
https://GEGObooksandcomics.com/search?type=product&options%5Bprefix%5D=last&q=Chag+lowry
