John Hogan of Graphic Novel Reporter just interviewed me for his site. He asked some great questions about the origins of A.D. and the issues it raises. Check out "Beating the Forecast."
Uncategorized
Great Big Nerd!
UncategorizedIt’s interesting: in the last week a couple of sites have written extensive reviews of the A.D. webcomic (as opposed to the revised, expanded print edition, due out next week). I welcome these latecomers to the party, but wonder about the the timing. I guess they’re hearing about the book but don’t have a review copy? Anyway, I’m definitely grateful for the attention, and pretty confident that the free webcomic will drive people to the print edition. The newest piece is by Dan Stryker of the Great Big Nerd blog.
The Webcomic Overlook's "One Punch Reviews"
UncategorizedLarry Cruz of the The Webcomic Overlook’s "One Punch Reviews" blog has written a really nice piece on A.D. which highlights — and then utilizes — some of the webcomic’s most distinctive elements: "Below the illustrated panels are links to audio and video clips of the people featured in the comic, blogs, photo essays, and newspaper articles. . . . It’s a fine example as to how comics can aspire to be more than just entertainment, and also how comics don’t have to be hemmed to the sequential panels. Comics — webcomics in particular — can be the very voice of history." And in his review Cruz nicely evokes the A.D. webcomic: whenever he refers in the text to a particular element of the story, he hotlinks that phrase to a specific visual example from the comic. Check it out.
If we can posit that webcomics are the "future" of "sequential art," then I suppose blog posts like this are the future of webcomics criticism.
Literary escort
UncategorizedI just found out that I’ll be doing a TV bit on the WGN Midday News when I’m in Chicago (August 28–31)! Nervous! On top of that, Pantheon is chipping in for a "literary escort" to pick me up at the airport and drive me around, to the station and then on to my pals’ house in Evanston. Now that’s what I’m talking about! For the lowdown on literary escorts, read this engaging piece by Joe Queenan...
Miami Herald
UncategorizedRichard Pachter of the Miami Herald plugs A.D. in a graphic novel round-up which also features ‘s kick-ass Fahrenheit 451 adaptation. Here’s what the Herald says about A.D.:
Neufeld’s excellent post-Katrina webcomic has been refreshed and reconfigured as a rich, multi-threaded nonfiction graphic work. The characterizations are rock-solid and true. The abandonment of the people of New Orleans remains palpable and poignant in this visceral depiction of a disgraceful chapter of recent U.S. history.
Giant Robot!
UncategorizedTom Mayer, the most excellent editor of my next project, Brooke Gladstone’s The Influencing Machine, was kind enough to send over a little item he spotted in the latest issue of Giant Robot: a plug for A.D.!
Josh Neufeld has shared stories from Hurricane Katrina in blog and zine formats, but this hardcover comic is the most extensive and ambitious presentation so far. Although the story is sprawling and the tone is dark, A.D.: New Orleans After the Deluge is a quick read with engaging artwork, likable characters, and honest dialogue. While most readers will recall the news footage of flooded neighborhoods and displaced victims at the Superdome, Neufeld does an excellent job of putting more detailed faces on the victims in a way that’s engaging without being patronizing or melodramatic. From desperate parents trying to protect their children to a comic-book collector saying goodbye to his collection, there are plenty of touching scenes in this ultimately positive recounting of the tragic event.
Mobile (AL) Press-Register reviews "A.D."
UncategorizedHere’s a nice birthday present: a swell review of A.D. by John Sledge, the Book Page Editor of the Mobile Press-Register. He calls me "an engaging and talented artist" — thanks, Mr. Sledge! — and writes that my "work exhibits an appealing sort of cartoonish verisimilitude. [Neufeld’s] double-page spreads, depicting New Orleans before the storm, then with massive clouds towering above it, and finally swept by floodwaters from bursting levees, are no less gut-wrenching than the full-color video of those same scenes that became so familiar."
After a very nice synopsis of the book and its themes, Sledge goes on to write that A.D. "is a fine contribution to our understanding of Hurricane Katrina and what it did to the people of the Gulf Coast. Because it depicts true events, it seems somehow inappropriate to call it a graphic ‘novel.’ ‘Comic book’ doesn’t work either — not much funny here. The difficulty is only one of labeling, however. The work itself is superb."
Andreas Michalke
UncategorizedJust had dinner at my neighborhood sushi joint, Gen, with the awesome Berliner couple, cartoonist Andreas Michalke and his girlfriend Julia Tagert (as well as the equally awesome Nicholas Kahn, one-half of the art team Kahn & Selesnick). My connection to them was through my frequent collaborator, poet/memoirist Nick Flynn. Andi & Julia were visiting the States for a week, and we had the good fortune to meet up while our paths crossed. I wasn’t familiar with Andi’s work since it has yet to be published in English, so we got a chance to share war stories and trade books. (I fear he got the raw end of the deal, as all I was able to give him were The Vagabonds #1 & #2, while I came away with his beautiul Reprodukt tome BigBeatLand.)
It was interesting to compare notes and see how similar the histories of Germany and America are in terms of popular acceptance of the comics form. As with us, comics as a "serious" pursuit didn’t begin there until the late 1960s, and literary-type graphic novels are still an incipient field, with much of them coming in the form of translated books from France, Canada, and the U.S. We both got a laugh about the similarities of our respective comics convention cultures, with the people in silly costumes, the sad lonely men, and the inevitable groups of kids wanting drawings for their sketchbooks. Seems fan-boys the world over conform to the same sterotypes.
It was worth missing Phoebe’s bedtime tonight to get a taste of the traveling life again, to make new friends, and have a place to stay should I find myself in Berlin.
PopTheology
UncategorizedPop Theology, the Christian website that usually focuses on film and TV — "examin[ing] the intersection of pop culture and theology, religion, and spirituality" — just posted a lengthy, thoughtful review of A.D. I was taken with the writer’s pinpointing of a unique feature of comics which address documentary subjects:
The genre in which [Neufeld] chooses to work is a treasure because it allows readers to stop and meditate on images that often passed by so quickly on the news or in documentary films like Trouble the Water or When the Levees Broke. The crowds in front of the Superdome or the convention center often “fell victim” to the fly-by helicopter or drive-by tracking shot. Viewers could barely distinguish individuals in the huddled masses. Unintentionally or not, news coverage often grouped images of looters with those who were simply trying to provide for or rescue friends or family members.Thankfully, we can linger here on these images of suffering and/or heroism in ways that the rapidity of other media do not allow. Neufeld’s book, by focusing on real people and slowing down these experiences, helps concretize what so many lost in the experience, both emotionally and materially. From belongings to personal feelings of value and dignity, the victims of this storm will strive for the rest of their lives to piece together what they, perhaps, once took for granted.
was also interested in the review’s attribution of a spiritual message to A.D.:
Neufeld opens his novel with an image of the Earth seen from outer space. As he zooms in on the planet, we see the storm clouds grow larger and larger. As a result, he paints (or rather draws) this event as a global/human disaster, not just an American one. Humanity, not just Americans, has suffered.
As a non-religious person, I approached that sequence from a journalistic and "ethical humanistic" perspective, but I suppose it’s easy to see a religious implication. As Pop Theology says in their "About" page:
We also know that a [work of art] can be religious or spiritual or offer important theological insights even if it does not contain explicitly religious characters or tell a historically religious story. It is often the case that when song or a television show seriously explores the human condition, theological questions can’t be far behind.
And to be honest, I’ve always referred to the book’s "prologue" as being from a "god’s eye" perspective.
Masstransiscope
UncategorizedOne of my weekly rituals is my Tuesday night basketball game in Manhattan. I live in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn, so to get to the game in the Lower East Side, I switch at Atlantic Avenue to either the B or the Q. The B takes me to Grand Street, where I walk to the game; or the Q takes me to Canal, where I switch to the M to Essex. But that’s neither here nor there. (Sorry, bad pun.)
Usually, during the B/Q leg, my head’s buried in a book or my iPod, but the other day, in the section of tunnel right before the train emerged from the Dekalb station into the open air of the Manhattan Bridge, I was idly glancing out the window… and I saw the coolest thing! Flickering by against a background of bright white was what I took to be a complex graffiti mural, something like you used to see in abandoned stations but rarely see in the subways any more. But as I watched the images unfold I realized this was much more than a long string of graffiti. The images moved, morphed, danced, and, at the end, took off in a rocketship! Here’s what it looked like:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3IwVD5efXz0
(Don’t you love the running commentary?) I did a little Googling and quickly discovered this is a newly restored piece of urban art by Bill Brand called "Masstransiscope". It’s actually a zoetrope — individual paintings (in this case, 228 of them) separated by slits and "animated" by the moving train. Really ingenious — and a technique only over 100 years old, ya big dunce! (It also turns out the art was painted in an abandoned station, "Myrtle Avenue," no longer serviced by the MTA…)
So next time you’re on the Manhattan-bound B or Q, leaving the Dekalb station, keep looking out the right side of the train: you’re in a free Big Apple cartoon treat.