Talking ‘You Are On Native Land’ With Anthology Editor Sarah Brunstad

MMIW stands for Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women. We shouldn’t live in a world where it’s necessary to have such an acronym, but there are organisations, like Not Our Native Daughters, working to bring awareness and stand up for these women and their families and you can support them by buying this charity comic. Featuring the work of numerous Indigenous creators, You Are On Native Land comes out next month from Mad Cave, but here’s what editor Sarah Brunstad had to say about the project:

Rachel Bellwoar: Before Mad Cave Studios, you were an editor at Marvel for over a decade. Did the experience of working on Marvel’s Voices series help with putting You Are On Native Land together?

Sarah Brunstad: Absolutely. Building an anthology is a unique art, and I’m lucky to have learned from some of the best editors in the business at Marvel. The Voices program brought its own set of additional challenges, and it was the hardest work that I did there, but also the most rewarding. I am especially proud of the Indigenous Voices anthologies that I pitched and built from the ground up, which succeeded beyond anyone’s expectations.

On the practical side, I came to Mad Cave with a large talent Rolodex and had earned the trust of many creators, and that trust was essential when I started reaching out to people to donate work, which is a very different thing from a profit-based endeavor.

Bellwoar: All proceeds from the book will be going to Not Our Native Daughters. Can you tell us a little about the work they do and how this team-up came about?

Brunstad: We knew that we wanted to work with a grassroots organization that is actually run by Indigenous people, and have the money raised go directly to Indigenous communities. It was also important, particularly to our company president Mark Irwin, that we contribute to groups fighting the Missing, Murdered, and Exploited Indigenous Women and Girls (MMIWG) crisis.

Not Our Native Daughters is unique in being founded by survivors, and their work focuses not only on healing trauma, but on preventing it through youth leadership and cultural reclamation. It is a small organization making incredible impact. Their founder, Lynnette Grey Bull, is also an artist, and so the whole collaboration really felt like kismet. 

Bellwoar: Included in the anthology are two interviews you conducted with comic artist Roy Boney and Justin Cree (director of the Akwesasne Center). What excited you the most about getting to speak with them?

Brunstad: I knew both Roy and Justin through work with Marvel, but I always felt like we’d missed the chance to talk about some of the most interesting aspects of their work. Roy Boney’s experience helping adapt Apple’s language systems to represent the Cherokee language on iPhones … I mean, that is just so cool, and I wanted more people to know about it (and, selfishly, I wanted to ask more questions myself). 

I personally was able to visit the Akwesasne Center once for an event celebrating the Marvel character Kahhori, and I saw such love for comics and art in that community. It’s a very unique cultural center, but I also hope that reading about the Akwesasne Center encourages people to seek out those community-based organizations in their own hometowns. 

Bellwoar: What is the most challenging part of putting a charity anthology together?

Brunstad: The charity part, frankly. It is nerve-wracking, asking people to donate their work. It’s much easier to come offering a check! And there is a lot of very understandable mistrust of anyone not Indigenous (like myself) who is claiming to offer a chance at representation. But that’s where that “trust” comes in that I mentioned earlier. Mad Cave Studios has built a lot of trust over ten years of making excellent comics, inviting more diversity into our industry, and giving back through a variety of charitable contributions. This wasn’t Mad Cave’s first fundraising comic, and it wasn’t my first time noticing and celebrating the Indigenous comics world. I think those two factors played a huge role in the warm reception I received and the incredible donations people offered. 

Bellwoar: Vice versa, is there a part of the process you enjoy the most?

Brunstad: Something I particularly loved about building this anthology was the diversity of the type of content we could showcase. This book has storybook-like illustrations accompanied by prose fiction; it has poetry; it has short and long comics; it has black-and-white and full-colour artwork. I feel so proud flipping through it and just seeing the breadth of styles that are represented. Maybe that’s my favorite part of the process, when it’s done (ha). When all the hard work is behind you, half-forgotten, and it now feels like magic that this thing is real. 

Bellwoar: Is there a main message you hope readers take away from this anthology?

Brunstad: There are many, many Indigenous artists in the US and all around the globe who are making life-changing content. Seek them out. Enrich your world. We have so much to learn, and so much love to discover. 

Bellwoar: Thanks for agreeing to this interview, Sarah!

You Are on Native Land: A Charity Comic for Indigenous Rights goes on sale September 15th from Mad Cave Studios.