"Moon of the Snowblind," written and illustrated by Gary Kelley; Ice Cube Press (184 pages, $19.99) The history of the Indian Wars is often told from a high-altitude perspective of skirmishes, treaties, victories and defeats. This obscures what it meant to those wrapped up in its muddled battle lines and sudden, inexplicable cruelties. In this astounding graphic historical novel about the 1857 Spirit Lake Massacre from veteran illustrator Gary Kelley, that reality is brought hauntingly to life. In 1856, a pair of families had trekked West from New York looking for new land. They and eventually other white settlers found a seemingly perfect spot around the lakes of northwest Iowa. Kelley renders the verdant landscape in idyllic, lyric tones that reflect how the settlers saw the "forest primeval" as unpopulated. But following a brutal winter, the land's residents made their presence known. In March 1857, a band of the Wapekute Dakota attacked the settlers' cabins, killing several and taking four women and girls captive.