“Unless there is snow on the ground, never speak their name aloud. The more they eat, the hungrier they become, and they are starving.”“It is the Indigenous Walking Dead!”They were meant to stay undisturbed, their dismembered limbs scattered, frozen under the permafrost, but as is always the way, the greed of industry has unburied them once more. Now, the most feared, the Wheetago, have returned, using their powers to call back the Na acho, cannibalistic giants once banished by Dene deities.
The revered hero known as the Child Finder who is fighting to cling to his humanity after a Wheetago attack, a mother, her young son, and a desperate band of convicts, form an uneasy alliance to survive the Wheetago horrors now awakened.
ROTH, from award-winning, bestselling Tlicho Dene author Richard Van Camp, and visionary illustrator Christopher Shy is the first graphic novel in the Wheetago War series.
Van Camp said in a statement:
Roth is essentially a story about parenthood and what you would do to save your family if you were a monster capable of incredible strength but had to face stronger monsters, as well as fight yourself to cling onto your humanity.
I am so grateful for this opportunity to incorporate and share the traditions and teachings I’ve received from my Elders including Henry and Eileen Beaver, and the late and great George Blondin.
This has been a year of wonderful collaboration, seeing new artwork from Christopher every day has felt like non-stop Christmas. I’ve been a huge fan of his work since reading the Pathfinder graphic novel, and I’ve also wanted to work with Alexander & Renegade for a decade now, so us all collaborating together has been a dream come true.
I cannot wait to find out what readers think when they get hold of ROTH and the forthcoming sequel “All Out War.”
Finding the style I wanted on Roth wasn’t easy. Figuring out the Wheetago is an immersion into the primordial. Looking at Indigenous artifacts, listening to recorded snippets of stories and chants sent by Richard to set the mood, to set the wailing screams of the Wheetago.
We all talked about how we wanted the relationships between the creature and the men to play out, the boy, the look of Roth, and he went through dozens of concepts before I found what I felt represented his unique form.
Months of storyboards, sketches, dozens of color concepts, all of it worked over and over, some discarded, some sections painted and repainted as the story evolved, distilled, and came into focus. We used the same process you would to prepare for a long running comic book or TV series, creating a bible for the core story, characters and the world, before getting into the detailed work of fully realizing Richard’s story on the actual page.
“When Richard first pitched the Wheetago series to me I was hooked. Combining the traditional stories of the Dene peoples, full of the warnings that are being ignored by corporations today, with horror comics looking at what could happen once the terror of the Wheetago returns to our world, creates a compelling and unique story.
Christopher’s iterative approach to illustration means that I’ve watched the Wheetago materialize in a real sense as he’s drawn the book, whilst also incorporating the likenesses of members of the Dene community as the characters in the story. The book is a beautiful nightmare, a horror story full of monsters, but with a foundation in love and cooperation to survive the nightmare.”
