Artist Spotlight: Kristina Maldonado Bad Hand - Part II

Reclaiming Nativeness in the Realm of Nerdom

Read Part I here. To see illustrations of the works discussed below, visit Kristina Maldonado Bad Hand's portfolio here.

Kristina Maldonado Bad Hand. Image courtesy of RedLine Contemporary Art Center in Denver, CO where she is a current Artist in Residence.

In her still-in-progress series appropriately titled Indigenous Fairy Tales, Indigenous artist Kristina Maldonado Bad Hand “matches up” various European fairy tales with their Native corollaries or finds an aspect of the story that meshes well with a part of Native traditions. Kupu is a Northwest Coast Inuit version of the Little Mermaid; the stories of the Lakota trickster Iktomi and of Pinocchio will be combined into another tale. Kaui is a modern-day take on Beauty and the Beast set in Hawaii. By writing strong Native heroines who draw upon both their present-day and ancestral knowledge to face dangerous situations, Maldonado Bad Hand is forging a new path in the realm of comic book art, blurring the definitions of fine art practice, and proudly educating audiences on the vast expressions of Indigenous identity in a trail-blazing new way. 

Kaui is a young woman who lives with her older aunt and who loves to surf and paddle board with her friends. She is out on the waves one day when she is pulled underneath the water by an undertow and wakes up on a strange island. Once Kaui starts exploring the island, she must try and figure out how to survive and has some run-ins with the local fauna. She draws upon the knowledge her aunt has passed down to her about what plants are good for eating and healing, and how to spearfish (even if she is unsuccessful at it). As she continues to explore she sees that the island is in fact a great turtle, and she starts to realize that all the stories she was brought up with as a child about the cosmic turtle and otherworldly creatures are true. She stumbles upon a cave where a series of rock art stories tells the tale of a man who was an acclaimed warrior and hunter, beautiful but cruel. As punishment for his heartlessness, he was transformed by his grandfather into a hideous creature and walked the island for centuries in misery. As she reads, she turns to find the beast standing beside her. 

The story’s baseline narrative is familiar to most Euro-American audiences, but the inclusion of details from the Polynesian version of the myth [1], as well as Kaui’s identity as a modern woman, enrich this story. As she travels through the forest of the island, she remembers the words from her aunt that were passed down about how to survive in unknown places. This does not mean, however, that she is automatically good at it simply because she is Polynesian. She fails to catch any fish in the river, and even though she speaks respectfully to the wild boar she finds, addressing him directly, as one would a person, she still angers him and lets out a very relatable cry of “crap!” as she runs away. When she discovers the giant turtle, Honu, and sees the turtle-butterflies that surround her, she blinks in disbelief and states “that’s it,” marching off to try and find answers to these strange phenomena. 

The book is richly inked, and the colors help place the reader in Kaui’s mindset. The story starts at Kaui’s home and then the island in vibrant blues and greens. As Kaui starts to discover the secrets of the island, the color palette incorporates more browns and muted colors, until she finally ends up in the cave dominated by darkness. Bad Hand’s style contrasts with the more well-defined, hard edges of most mainstream comic book illustration, and this is especially evident in the cover for Kaui, as well as her initial concept art. Rather than thick lines of black ink, or heavy dots of color, Bad Hand’s artwork embraces a watercolor aesthetic with soft washes of pigment that in themselves are less rigid and showcase the organic focus of her story. As a Polynesian incarnation of Belle, Kaui does not act out her story within damp, chilly, unforgiving castle walls, but on the island atop Honu, among verdant trees, sparkling oceans, and thriving wildlife. One might say that the landscape, the land of Hawaii, is itself a main character of this piece. It may be taking the theme too far to say that Mother Nature is another powerful female within this comic, but the style of the artwork, as well as its content, certainly situates the land as an important part of the narrative. 

Although Kaui is not a superhero, she is a heroine, and a Native heroine at that. Contrasted sharply with the white male nationalistic voices of wartime America, Kaui asserts a strong female voice within the world of comics. While mainstream comic corporations like Marvel are increasingly championing strong female characters like Black Widow, Captain Marvel, and Peggy Carter, these voices are still predominantly white, and belong to physically beautiful women. However, each woman quickly commands respect and admiration when she reveals that she is far more than a pretty face: each of the three characters mentioned above have moments within their universes that show the men who underestimate them just how great a mistake they have made. Kaui appears to walk this line as well. She is physically beautiful, and the majority of frames in the first issue of her comic book show her baring her midriff, wearing nothing but a small sports bra and shorts as she surfs and then wanders the island on Honu’s back.

However, her sexuality is not empty, but complements her intelligence. This intelligence is aided by the intergenerational transmission of knowledge from mother to daughter, aunt to niece, that is shown and reflected upon as Kaui remembers her aunt’s words about survival. In this way, she embodies Joy Harjo’s phrase of “thinking in skin,” in which “Indigenous…heroines pay attention to their bodies…in the same way and for the same reason they attend to their minds and spirits: they must know their limits and needs in order to fulfill community and personal responsibilities.” Kaui listens to the needs of her body as she tries to find food and shelter for peaceful rest away from dangerous wildlife. She listens to the needs of her mind as she refuses to accept that she is stuck in a mysterious place without answers and goes in search of them. 

Maldonado Bad Hand’s purpose in representing Indigenous women in a medium that has been traditionally dominated by white males both on the pages of comic books and within their audience, is to present strong, relatable icons of both feminine and Native power, and to show that neither of these categories is mutually exclusive with the realm Kaui finds herself in. In other words, Honu is not the only mysterious island that she traverses, isolated and afraid, but empowered nevertheless through her identity as a Native and Indigenous woman. The true island is the realm of comic books itself, of this subculture which has been dominated by the same voices for over seven decades. In contrast to the physical strength and wartime propaganda embodied by Batman, Superman, and others, Kaui stands for a strength that is not merely physical, but integrated throughout her body, mind, and spirit. This holistic strength stems from her identity as a Native woman and connotes the community that she relies upon for support, like her friends and her aunt. At the same time, she is modern, and shares modern enjoyments, as well as skepticism concerning matters of mysticism, curses, and magic. She uses her knowledge to practically address her circumstances and begins to realize that there is more to the traditional stories than she knows.

Kaui and heroines like her make Native-centered hero stories accessible, both literally and metaphorically. They create space for strong Indigenous narratives within the realm of popular culture as told by Native women that draws attention to the survivance and flourishing of contemporary Native identity. These powerful female characters assert that the false binaries of tradition and modernity, Native and non-Native, man and woman, even fine art and popular art, can not only coexist but are enriched when complemented by one another. 

"7 Generations: A Plains Cree Saga," tells the story of one family over the span of three centuries. Image courtesy of Amazon.

Anthologies like Trickster: Native American Tales, A Graphic Collection and Moonshot: The Indigenous Comics Collection also present traditional Native mythologies, creation stories, cautionary tales, and sacred wisdom within their pages. Some volumes speak to serious social and cultural issues still facing young people as they try and define what it means to them to be both Native and modern, as in the Cree comic book 7 Generations, which addresses the problem of high teen suicide rates on reservations. Other volumes are directed towards smaller children who can look to comic book heroes as teachers of valuable skills, as with The Adventures of Sanannguagartiit, which is Inuktitut for “your carving buddy,” whose protagonist shows children how to carve wood properly and safely. 

Whatever their narrative goals, from whichever communities they hail, Native comic book and graphic artists are increasingly carving out their own spaces within popular culture in order to convey the powerful message that they are here and they have incredible stories to continue sharing with their communities and the world through modern media. After all, the best comic books, the stories that stick with us, are the ones that combine entertainment, fun, and fantasy with the quintessential themes of inner strength, justice, community, and human endurance in the face of hardship.  

[1] Sutterer, Anna. "Women have made comic books inclusive from the beginning." Ms. Mayhem. July 14, 2021. https://msmayhem.com/women-made-comic-books-inclusive-from-the-beginning/.

Sources and Further Reading

Blume, Anna. “In A Place of Writing.” In Plains Indian Drawings 1865-1935: Pages from A Visual History. Edited by Janet Catherine Berlo. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1996, 40-44. 

Carlson, Marta. Framed: Native American Representations in Contemporary Visual Mediums, 2013, ProQuest Dissertations and Theses.

Comic Books and American Cultural History: An Anthology. Edited by Matthew Pustz. 2012.

“Comic Book Hero Teaches Safe Carving Practices.” Windspeaker (Edmonton, Alta.), 1993.

Danziger-Russell, Jacqueline. Girls and Their Comics: Finding a Female Voice in Comic Book Narrative. Lanham, Md.: Scarecrow Press, 2013. 

DeMeyer, Trace. “Comic Book Teaches Importance of Tribal Sovereignty.” Ojibwe Akiing (Hayward, Wis.), 1999.

Folkins, Tali. “Comic Book Captures Residential Schools Story.” Anglican Journal 142, no. 4 (2016): 2.

Harvey, Robert C. The Art of the Comic Book: An Aesthetic History. Studies in Popular Culture (Jackson, Miss.). Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1996.

James, Lynette. “Children of Change, Not Doom: Indigenous Futurist Heroines in YA.” Extrapolation 57, no. 1 2 (2016): 151-VI.

King, C. Richard. “Alter/native Heroes: Native Americans, Comic Books, and the Struggle for Self-Definition.” Cultural Studies: Critical Methodologies 9, no. 2 (2009): 214-23.

Leggatt, Judith. “Suicide Prevention in Nêhiyawi (Cree) Comic Books.” Bookbird 54, no. 1 (2016): 31-41.

Mckinnon, Matthew. “Graphic Details; Comic Book Artist Doing His Part to Keep Native Language Alive.” Edmonton Journal (Edmonton, Alta.), 2017.

“Native Americans Tell Their Own Superhero Stories At Indigenous Comic Con.” Weekend All Things Considered (Washington, D.C.), 2017.

Robertson, Paul Lester. “Indians of the Apocalypse: Native Appropriation and Representation in 1980s Dystopic Films and

Comic Books.” Journal of Popular Culture 51, no. 1 (2018): 68-90.

Sheyahshe, Michael A. “IPI: Indigenous Peeps in the Industry – 09 Kristina BadHand.” AlterNativemedia. January 24, 2018. https://alter-native-media.com/2015/03/27/ipi-indigenous-peeps-in-the-industry-09/.

Sheyahshe, Michael A. Native Americans in Comic Books: A Critical Study. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland, 2008.

Summerlin, Coley. From Exclusion to Inclusion—A Shift in the Perception of Native and Asian Americans through Graphic Stories: A Comparison of Political Cartoons from the 1800s to Trickster, American Born Chinese, and Level Up, 2015, ProQuest Dissertations and Theses.

Trickster: Native American Tales, A Graphic Collection. Edited by Matt Dembicki. Golden, Colo.: Fulcrum Pub., 2010.

Woodall, Lowery, and Campbell, Christopher. The Secret Identity of Race: Exploring Ethnic and Racial Portrayals in Superhero Comic Books, 2010, ProQuest Dissertations and Theses.