Cole PaulsComic artist and illustrator Cole Pauls will begin a month as UWindsor writer-in-residence Jan. 17.

Indigenous comic artist to take up writing residency

The English and Creative Writing department welcomes comic artist and illustrator Cole Pauls for a month-long residency Jan. 17 to Feb. 18.

Pauls is a Tahltan comic artist, illustrator, and printmaker hailing from Haines Junction, Yukon. Residing in Vancouver, Pauls focuses on his two comic series, the first being Pizza Punks — a self-contained comic strip about punks eating pizza — the other the award-winning Dakwäkãda Warriors.

In 2017, Pauls won Broken Pencil Magazine’s Best Comic and Best Zine of the Year Award for Dakwäkãda Warriors II. In 2020, Dakwäkãda Warriors won Best Work in an Indigenous Language from the Indigenous Voices Awards and was nominated for the Doug Wright Award categories The Egghead for best kids’ book and The Nipper for emerging talent.

“Cole Pauls is an exceptionally talented comic artist, printmaker, and storyteller,” says English professor Dale Jacobs. “His portrayals of his home community of the Tahltan First Nation in Haines Junction, the Vancouver punk scene, and the imagined world of the Dakwäkãda Warriors — through which he also seeks to preserve the Southern Tuchone language — allow him to explore issues of racism, identity, tradition, and community.”

Dr. Jacobs predicts students will benefit tremendously from what Pauls has to say “about visual storytelling, the creative use of genre, and the benefits of grounding their writing in the communities from which they come.”

Pauls has planned several events while he is in residency, including:

  • A campus event on Thursday, Jan. 26, at 4:30 p.m. in the Collaboratory space on the main floor of Leddy Library; and
  •  A public event at the John Muir branch of Windsor Public Library on Wednesday, Feb. 8 at 6:30 p.m.

He will also be available for one-on-one writing consultations with students and the community; book a consultation by emailing Monika Burdzy mburdzy@uwindsor.ca.

—Susan McKee