“The ragged edges of the temperate rainforest reach far out onto an island in the western seas. It is a place where one chooses to go ahead or turn back…”

In a prequel to the award-winning Red: A Haida Manga, acclaimed artist Michael Nicoll Yahgulanaas blends Asian manhwa/manga with the Haida artistic and oral tradition in another stunning hand-painted volume.

In a small near-future community perched between the ocean and the northern temperate rainforest, a series of disasters is taking a heavy toll. It is early fall and a fuel spill has contaminated the marine foods the village was preparing to harvest. As food supplies dwindle, a small group decides to make a late season expedition to search for sea lions. Surprised by a ferocious storm, they abandon one man, Carpe, on an isolated rock at sea. After ten days they are finally able to return, but he has vanished. The story follows Carpe’s encounters with the Lord of the Rock, who demands retribution for Carpe’s role in the hunt, and Carpe’s fate in the half-life between human and animal, life and death.

Prize(s): Short-listed Roderick Haig-Brown Regional Prize – BC Book Prizes (2020) 

“The resulting imagery [in Carpe Fin] is powerful, moving, beautiful and often screamingly funny. No verbal description will do it justice. Interested? Go out now and buy this remarkable book, and see for yourself what one of B.C.’s most challenging and innovative visual artist is up to currently.”

Author Michael Nicoll Yahgulanaas