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A Cherokee Sesame Street by Leta Rector TAHLEQUAH, Ok -- Roy Boney grew up only 20 minutes from the Tahlequah, the Cherokee headquarters, in a home where both his Mom (Gloria Henson-Boney) and Dad (Roy Boney) spoke their own language. His dad was fluent and also writes the Cherokee language. Like many others in his little hometown of Locust Grove, Boney is an artist. Boney was interested in animation in particular."Where I grew up, there are a lot of artists, but not a lot of serious artists," Boney explained. One person was very influential in helping Boney not to fall into that category, James Sinclair. Sinclair was his high school art teacher who got Boney an art scholarship for college. But the battle was not over even then. "It took a bit of an adjustment. I had never been anywhere,"Boney said. But he made the best of it and studied design and illustration. While in college, Boney was drawing a lot of mainstream superheroes. That all changed when he got an internship to a New York fine arts printmaking studio. "It was pretty cool," he said. "I was impressed. I learned a lot of technical aspects in those five months at Universal Ltd. Art." He completed the apprenticeship in Bay Shore, NY on Long Island in 2002. It was while there that he began to realize he could be doing Indian-themed work. He thought about his mainstream superheroes. "I thought, 'that's totally wrong'," Boney said. He came back to Oklahoma and graduated from Oklahoma Srate University in 2002 and set out to right that wrong. He It is co-created on a six issue series of comic books with Canadian author Matthew Shepherd ( www.shep.ca). The comic books are called "Dead Eyes Open" being published by Slave Labor Graphics in San Jose, California. Boney is the artist, and Shepherd is the scriptwriter.The synopsis of the story is as follows. "Dead Eyes Open" is a zombie story with a twist (actually, the term "zombie" isn't used in the story). It follows the life of psychiatrist Dr. John Requin as he deals with Life after Death. What sets DEO apart from other "zombie" stories is that rather than the zombies being mindless flesh eating monsters, the zombies (or "Deadies", a derogatory term used against the recently Returned) retain their thoughts, memories, values, etc. Basically, a Returner is basically the same person he/she was before death, except they live inside a rotting corpse. But there's more to this zombie story than meets the eye. "The story deals with how Society at first scoffs at the Returners, treating them as second class citizens, locking them up in camps, stripping them of their rights, and hunting them down like animals," said Boney. "The Returners become a marginalized group, but eventually, they fight back, and in the end, they form their own society and subculture," Boney said. "The story is an exploration of many of our culture's prejudices and paranoia," Boney explained. Although the "Dead-returning-to-life" aspect of the story is set against the backdrop of a global problem, they keep the story focused on an individual level with Dr. John Requin as he copes with his own resurrection and his family's reaction to it as well as his reluctant acceptance as becoming a spokesperson for the Dead Generation. Boney summarizes, "It's sort of 1960s era civil rights meets today's right-wing paranoia, except it's discrimination against the undead." Boney worked on a five minute film on the story of the Cherokee Trail of Tears titled "On a Spring Day." "It shows the Georgia militia show up and evict the family from their home," Boney said. It is entirely in the Cherokee language. He is sending it to film festivals and symposiums now for further exposure. He also did a project called "Messenger," a Cherokee story about an owl being the messenger of death. Currently, he works for the American Indian Resource Center, Inc. in
Tahlequah, OK where He worked on an interactive film for the American Indian Resource Center with Creek and Cherokee kids tso make 5-10 minute films on stories they got from their grandparents. Another person was a powerful influence on Boney, Wathene Young is the director of the AIRC in Tahlequah. "It was Wathene who encouraged me to go to graduate school," he said. Last fall he was a research fellow for the Sequoyah Research Center and will graduate in May with a Masters degree in Studio Art from the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. Like every Indian filmmaker who has gone before him, Boney has two enemies to fight: "Most Indian things are in the past," Boney said. Secondly, "a lot of Indian things are serious." "I just want to combat that image," Boney said. To combat that, Boney wants to do Indian projects that are set in the future, such as sci-fi. Also, he wants his projects to include that famous Indian humor. Boney has a goal to produce a weekly "Sesame Street"-type show so Cherokee kids can learn their language. For more information, you can go to www.roysunshine.com
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