COME HOME, INDIO - Serio Comics 46
COME HOME, INDIO written and drawn by Jim Terry, published by Street Noise Books
Indigenous People’s Day
Indigenous People’s Day is October 14th, 2024.
I often receive Facebook memories now because I published FAKE HISTORY! in 2018 which satirized Christopher Columbus by conflating his history with Donald Trump’s.
You can read that work of juvenalia that’s hopefully never relevant after this year here :0
This week, very happy to have Serio Comics’ first opportunity to showcase a graphic novel by an Indigenous/Native American author.
Jim Terry
Jim Terry is a writer and illustrator who's worked on THE CROW, DEATHSTALKER, WEST OF SUNDOWN, VAMPIRELLA, HEAVY METAL, and more.
He's self-published numerous works.
And is the author of COME HOME, INDIO - A MEMOIR, which was a finalist for the LA Time Book Prize for graphic novel, nominated for the Ignatz Award, and was an ALA top 20 book.
Terry grew up in the suburbs of Chicago. His mother was Native American from the Ho-Chunk nation of Wisconsin, and his father was an Irish American jazz musician. He now lives in Chicago with his cats.
This is his website and his Instagram.
COME HOME, INDIO
A Native American cartoonist explores the isolation and anxiety of being lost between two worlds but ultimately becoming comfortable in his own skin.
This powerful graphic novel shares the author’s journey of discovering his spiritual home as a Native American.
From a childhood in suburbia, disconnected from his identity as an Indigenous person.
Through an urban adulthood marked by a struggle with alcoholism and the death of his parents.
To his life-altering experience at Standing Rock.
He begins to find a new sense of self as a Native and as an American.
Alcoholism— Cultural/Systemic + Personal/Individual
Ed Park reviewed COME HOME, INDIO for The New York Times Book Review’s Graphic Content section and said:
“Though describing alcoholism risks monotony, Terry reveals how his problem is not just familial but cultural.”
I too appreciated Terry’s grappling with alcoholism as an individual problem and the way he used visuals to depict the depths of his experience.
And, like Park, I also found it very illuminating to read Terry’s contextualization of his Alcoholism within his culture and systemic pressures.
This theme paired well with his critique of Native American depictions in mainstream American culture.
Which is something I have been experiencing recently weekly at my day job which has been showing Westerns from an Indigenous lens.
Love— Romantic, Familial, Self
Terry is also very good at depicting forms of love, reminiscent as Ed Park also mentioned in The New York Times, of Craig Thompson’s book BLANKETS.
Whether that be romantic love.
Familial love.
Or self love.
Art—A Healing Practice
I also found joy in Terry’s portrayal that finding an art practice through his love of Will Eisner was part of his healing process.
I listened to a Publisher’s Weekly podcast with Street Noise Books publisher, Liz Frances, where she said that one of the things she loves about publishing debut authors with an activist angle is that not only do the readers report being healed by the experience of reading the books, but the authors report a similar experience of being healed by making it.
SHOULD WE BUY A GUN?’s Connection To Native Americans, Alcoholism, and Will Eisner As Well
There are moments in my graphic novel that show how the history of guns in America impacted Native Americans.
As well, there is a storyline, within the talented but troubled teenage student’s story, about the impact of alcoholism on families.
It also felt special that Jim Terry found his love for cartooning via Will Eisner.
If you remember from Serio Comics 22, Eisner is credited with popularizing the art form for serious audiences and coining the phrase graphic novel in the 1970s.
My literary agent’s clients are publishing a graphic biography of him in July 2025 with NBM.
Thanks for Reading!
COME HOME, INDIO written and drawn by Jim Terry, published by Street Noise Books is available from the publisher and Amazon
