The outside circle

Original Review: While the premise of the graphic novel felt a little bit Public Service Announcement, the story and art of The Outside Circle are truly very engaging. Laboucane-Benson's own personal experiences are obviously central to this fictional story, and the transformation of our main character is brave and beautiful.

The art in The Outside Circle was perhaps one of the most surprisingly good aspects for me. I've read a lot of cash in style graphic novels that don't apparently feel like investing in the art. Kind of a slap in the face when you think about it. Kelly Mellings on the other hand is an award winning Alberta artist who is as deeply familiar with the issues as Laboucane-Benson herself. The art style itself felt like a somewhat more approachable Paul Pope and the colors really built into the feelings of the story. Faded and somber but still strangely vibrant.

Moving onto the story, I'm not sure that Laboucane-Benson could have set her sights much higher. In a world that persistently looks down on or completely ignores native people, she really did an excellent job of packing a lot of information into a small quick reading space. Not a single inch of this book was wasted, but it never felt bogged down either. I easily read this book in an afternoon.

As many people have mentioned, the themes inside get pretty dark at times. But to do anything less would do to a severe injustice to those who have lived through these kinds of situations. That said, these issues are also handled in the least crass way possible. All the swear words are gibberish, none of the gore is really depicted on frame, and there's no nudity or sex. The book even ends on a pretty hopeful note. I would argue that this book is fully appropriate for even younger teens.

But before I conclude I would like to mention specifically what really set this book truly apart for me, and that was the fact that the aboriginal people got to help themselves. Almost every other story I get presented with, where a none-white person struggles with life, involves white people being their ultimate savior. While I am not saying that white people never help (I certainly hope I do) but the narrative is intrinsically reinforcing the idea that western civilization/white man are the best.

Updates after 2nd reading: As far as content warnings go, there's not really that much. Some people get beat up, but violence/action is not the point of the book so it doesn't take up much space and is not gruesome. There's swears, but it's all jumbled, and most important to note there is reference to lots of kinds of abuse but it's just in dialog and not actually shown. The biggest issue I had this time through is that I did feel like drugs were a bit too stigmatised. I mean, I get why it happened and it does reflect the way things likely would have happened in real life, but I guess I feel a bit more nuance between reality and ideally could have been made. Particularly when it came to the second infograph, while I can appreciate how these statistics can give context as to the scope of the "problem" it also felt like in some ways it was equating all indigenous poverty with the lifestyle of the characters.

On the better side of things, this book is both a good pick to learn more about the history of Canada's abusive relationship with indigenous people of Turtle Island and for alternatives to pure incarceration. Is it totally anti-incarceration I don't know, but considering how much Healing Lodges seem to freak out the general Canadian public every time they are in the news, it's something. I'm not aware of official reading level policies, but personally, I could see myself appreciating this book as early as eighth grade.