Richard Ivan Jobs and Steven Van Wolputte, "In the Land of the Lacandón: A Graphic History of Adventure and Imperialism" (McGill-Queen’s UP, 2025)

About this episode

This episode features an interview with Richard Ivan Jobs and Steven Van Wolputte discussing their graphic history on the Lacandón people and the implications of imperialism.

In the mid-1930s the amateur French ethnographer and filmmaker Bernard de Colmont ventured into the mountainous state of Chiapas to study the Lacandón people and broadcast their way of life to a curious European public. Considered a “lost tribe,” the Lacandón were thought to be the closest living relatives of the ancient Maya.De Colmont became a celebrity explorer whose adventures generated considerable attention. The Lacandón themselves, however, were silenced in his tale. Nearly a century later, in In the Land of the Lacandón: A Graphic History of Adventure and Imperialism (McGill-Queen’s UP, 2025), Dr. Richard Ivan Jobs and Dr. Steven Van Wolputte have taken up this story in all its complexity, creating a graphic history from de Colmont’s narratives and images in the form of a heroic adventure comic. An essay contextualizing and historicizing the tale follows, as does an evocative, reflective poem by Tsotsil writer Manuel Bolom Pale, which offers an Indigenous perspective on the encounter. A captivating experiment in form, the book puts an immersive new spin on studying the past.In the Land of the Lacandón illuminates de Colmont’s expedition against the backdrop of late…

People in this episode

Host: Mira

Guests: Richard Ivan Jobs, Steven Van Wolputte

Topics covered

• ethnography
• imperialism
• graphic history
• Indigenous perspectives
• exploration
• media representation

Keywords

• Lacandón
• Bernard de Colmont
• graphic novel
• adventure
• imperialism
• ethnography
• Maya
• Indigenous
• history

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: McGill-Queen’s UP

Books & works: In the Land of the Lacandón: A Graphic History of Adventure and Imperialism

Places: Chiapas, Lacandón

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