Like lots of kids, Honni David started out drawing dinosaurs and dragons. His inspiration grew as he did; he was influenced by movies, like Star Wars, and comic books.

David, who is from Akwesasne, was also absorbing Haudenosaunee legends and stories. Now, as an author and illustrator, he's telling them in his own way.

David recently spoke at SUNY Canton, where some of his work is on display in the college's library through the end of the semester.

Northern Light co-host Catherine Wheeler caught up with him ahead of his presentation. They started by talking about his two children's books.

Their conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

Catherine WheelerChildhood dreams come true for this Akwesasne illustrator

HONNI DAVID: The first book is based on turtle's race with bear. It's a cute little story and one of the many stories where we see turtle educating another animal in the forest. The turtles are our most ancient animals on the Earth. We walk on the back of the Great Turtle. And there are many turtles within nature -- they carry a lot of wisdom. A lot of the time in our stories, they're kind of tricksters, so there is a twist for the book. It's not "turtle and the hare." Every time I leave the house I'll hear, "Oh, it's like turtle and the hare." I'm like, "Yeah, it's a little different." But it's a really fun story. Yeah, Who Will Win? It's a good time.

Then the second book is The Good Game, which is based on one of the first games of lacrosse. I say one of the first games, because tewa:aráton, lacrosse, was originally given to the animals in the forest to determine what their gifts were. So that they could figure out why they were there, what their purpose was, and it helped them determine where they were in nature, so they figured out where their strengths were.

So we follow two animals who love watching the two strongest teams, the winged ones and the four leggeds as they played lacrosse. They love the game, they love watching it, but they want to play themselves. They're fun stories, really happy to work on them. And [I'm] working on my next book. So yeah, that'll be cool.

CATHERINE WHEELER: Stories, myths and legends were really big inspirations for you as a kid, and that's reflected in a lot of your work. Why is that something that you feel really called to put out into the world?

DAVID: Each storyteller is different, each interpreter is different, each version between nations is a little bit different. The core of the legend, the core of the idea, the core of the teaching is still there. But every time you hear it, it's a little bit different. There's a fingerprint that's left from whoever you have speaking, or even the audience, or the message they're trying to convey to those kids or to those people that are in the audience. I'm really excited whenever I do my versions of stories because it's not the definitive version; it's the Honni David version.

I've been telling stories since I was 14. I can confidently say that's when I started telling our stories. I've got a long backlog of what's worked, what hasn't worked. I can picture a lot of these characters in my head because I've lived with them so long, telling the stories.

I'm really happy to have my stamp, but I don't think that this is the end. I want them to continue because I want our kids, my kids, my grandkids, children, up to the seventh generation to have these stories, to have these legends, to have these teachings because a lot of the stuff that we speak about is cyclically still important today. I think it took a while, but you know, we're coming back to realizing, "Oh yeah, Indigenous teachings and stuff, there's a lot that we should have been listening to in the beginning here."

WHEELER: I was wondering if we could talk a little bit about your connection to Marvel and what that's been like.

DAVID: That started off of some fan art that I did whenever the character Kahhori was announced. They put out an article talking about her character, talking about all of the connections to community that were involved in making her character in the first place because they had a lot of Indigenous elders and knowledge keepers that they consulted with directly about the character's design, her history, and how she would carry herself. Even the theme that plays on in her episode is done by an Indigenous artist, and it's really, really beautiful.

So, before the episode came out, I saw the article announcing it. I ran to my house. I told my little brother all about it, and I was ecstatic because she is from the same nation as us. She has the same clan as us, and she's a Mohawk speaker.

So I told him all about it, and I wanted to, again, show him that there was that representation, because I grew up with Indian in the Cupboard. I watched it recently. [I] forgot how many slurs are in there, and how it's not the best. But what stuck with me into adulthood until I rewatched it was the fact that he takes time to build a longhouse. He burns tobacco for this deer that he fells in the forest. There are all these things at the core of it that were great, but then it was not told by Indigenous storytellers.

But we had this character that was announced. I got super excited about it. Then I spent the rest of that night working on my own piece of fan art. I woke up and I had emails and messages from news networks and stuff asking about the inspiration for your character, how it felt being an Indigenous person writing an Indigenous superhero, and what it was like working with Marvel. But it was fan art. So, I had to message them all back, being like, "I'm not involved. This is fan art. Please don't get me in trouble."

From there, [Marvel] did a meet and greet in Akwesasne. They had the creators come out and meet with the community, talk about the Kahhori, the character, and then I ended up talking to them, talked to Ryan Little, talked with Dean George. A few months later, I got a call from Ryan Little, and he asked if I knew any authors or illustrators in Akwesasne that would be interested in working on a Kahhori comic. And I was like, "I'm the guy. I'm your guy. I'm him. I've got two published books, you know? And he's like, "Well, yeah, we know, but we didn't want to assume that you had the time. So, we wanted to ask, we wanted to check in. But if you've got the time, that'd be great. Like, we can work it into your schedule." And I'm like, "I have the time. I can do that. Yeah, I have time for a comic book."

So, they gave me the tap, and over the course of 4 months, we worked on it. It was really cool being able to bring in more language as well because I found that a lot of the other writers had kind of basic expressions where she was saying like, "ouch" or "damn, or "shucks." There's stuff like that where I was like she'd be saying "Áki," "akéh" or calling the villain of our story, "Kawiráksen", which translates to troublemaker or trickster. And it's what we would hear here as kids if we were being bad, kawiráksen.

It was really, really cool. I'm really happy that we were able to do that. It's a really great comic. And you know, fingers crossed, whether I'm involved or not involved, I'd love to see Kahhori's story continue because I think she is a really great character, and she means a lot to our community. We just had a lacrosse game a couple of months ago where we had a cosplayer that was dressed up in traditional regalia, but it was also Kahhori-themed. It came out a few years ago, the initial episode, but that character is still influencing and inspiring other artists now.

WHEELER: What is it like to go from fan art blowing up to getting to really be involved with telling her story and creating her story because of who you are and the time you've put in your work? How does it feel to be able to combine all these things into one cool thing that you were dreaming of since you were a kid?

DAVID: It's crazy. I say it all the time, if you told me at eight years old that I would have been writing for a Marvel comic book about an Indigenous character, who's Mohawk and is a language speaker and is my clan and does all these wild things -- I bring in Indian tacos in the comic as well. I have Daredevil eating an Indian taco and saying, "Oh, it smells good."

If you told me all of that at 8 years old, I probably would have had an asthma attack and been on the floor. These were tent pole things that, as a kid, I was thinking about, and like, yeah, it would be awesome to do this. It'd be awesome to do a comic, be awesome to talk about the legends, be awesome to you know do all these things.

I feel like I'm constantly trying to create stuff that former me would get really excited about. If I had a time machine to go show former me and be like, "Hey, 8-year-old me, look at this." And he'd freak out. That'd be great.

Translating that to all the kids now that are also fellow little artists on the playground and just in the back and working in their sketchbooks and stuff, I want them to see that there's a path forward because that's important. As a kid, again, I saw Indian in the Cupboard. I saw, I guess, Spirit. All these other movies where I was like, "Yeah, that's cool." But there's always a through-line narrative that's regressive. Whereas we want something progressive that is showing us a path forward, but also Natives succeeding, Natives going ahead and doing great stuff.