Press
"Stowaway" Selected Reviews
"... an engaging meld of investigative journalism and graphic illustration with just enough New Journalism panache to keep a reader interested. . . . [S]hould be a must-read for politicians of every stripe."
"... [a] harrowing tale . . . in an awesome, immersive, wonderfully illustrated format."
— Gizmodo
— Brooklyn Rail
"Bahrain: Lines in Ink, Lines in the Sand" Selected Reviews
"An excellent, accessible piece that really helps make clear a smaller eddy of the complex, swirling events of the Arab Spring."
— Heidi MacDonald, The Beat"A compelling new work of visual journalism."
— "Comic Riffs," The Washington Post"Josh Neufeld will break your heart in 18 pages."
— "Robot 6," Comic Book Resources"At the intersection of creative appropriation, translation, cartooning, and journalism."
— MidEastPosts.com
The Influencing Machine Selected Reviews
"This is a comic book with zest and brains — and it just might help a reader understand the brave new world."
— The New Yorker". . . What makes the book so notable is its style. It's presented almost entirely in drawings, like a textbook in comic-book or graphic-novel form. . . . It's easy to imagine The Influencing Machine becoming mandatory reading in journalism classes around the country."
— Associated Press". . . mind-opening, thought-provoking, and incredibly timely. . . . [A]n absolutely spectacular read: serious without being weighty, accessible without being thin. It's one of those graphic nonfiction volumes, like Understanding Comics, that shows just how well suited comics are to explaining and exploring serious subjects."
— BoingBoing"The Influencing Machine is so remarkable that it is hard to describe. The best I can do is: it’s a book about the history and current controversies of the media, all done as a Spiegelman-style comic-strip narrative. Brooke herself (or at least an avatar) leads you through it all, and her ‘voice’ — well known after her years as host of NPR’s On the Media — comes through loud and clear, thanks to Josh Neufeld's witty drawings. I learned a lot, including a lot that I should have known already, and enjoyed every minute."
— Michael Kinsley"The Influencing Machine is more than graphic nonfiction. It's a media studies course in itself. . . . Working with Josh Neufeld, the artist behind the heartbreaking A.D.: New Orleans After the Deluge, [Brooke] Gladstone's media manifesto provides valuable background critical for understanding the problems and possibilities in this particular moment in journalism."
— Cartoon Movement". . . A rollicking and rambling tour of the historical role of the media and its relationship to people and politics. . . . [Begs] second and third readings to absorb and enjoy all the information and droll asides."
— Miami Herald"It's the kind of graphic novel that demands repeated readings and dog-eared pages of relevant facts. It's the kind of book that should be in the hands of every high school student as a primer in the way minds and citizenry function in the free-for-all called American-style democracy, and how that ties in with the vast march of human perception."
— North Adams Transcript". . . Often brilliant and always thought-provoking. . . . [T]he main reason the book flows so well and delivers its ideas so efficiently is related to Neufeld’s contributions. Avoiding the easy laughs achieved by outlandish caricatures of historical figures, Neufeld likewise achieves an approach to storytelling that’s always smart but never descends into mere (and annoying) cleverness. Employing an understated style that doesn’t try to draw attention to itself but instead always works in concert with his collaborator’s prose, he helps create what is a truly multimodal text with the artwork working on a parallel, if clearly complementary, track to the print. . . . At the risk of stating the obvious, it’s also Neufeld’s engaging visual explication of its ideas that make the book so accessible to what is potentially a wide range of audiences."
— Graphic Novel Reporter". . . This analysis of contemporary journalism is as incisive as it is entertaining, while offering a lesson on good citizenship through savvy media consumption."
— Kirkus (Starred Review)"Gladstone . . . and noted illustrator Neufeld . . . make a formidable pair in this fascinating history of media's influence."
— Publishers Weekly
"A first-rate comics manifesto. The Influencing Machine has influenced me to think much more deeply about the media landscape we live in. Gladstone and Neufeld can show and tell with the best of 'em."
— Scott McCloud
A.D. Selected Reviews
Featured by the New York Times, Newsweek, National Public Radio, the New Orleans Times-Picayune, WWL-TV, The News Hour, Salon.com, Rolling Stone, the Wall Street Journal, the Toronto Star, BoingBoing, and many others
"Josh Neufeld is a master storyteller. A.D. is intimate and yet seismic in its scope. Through seven finely drawn lives, we end up with new understanding of both devastation and redemption. His art takes us to the depth of the humanity of those we cherish."
— Cornel West"Who'd have thought that after watching all that video we'd come upon a fresh visual way to experience Hurricane Katrina? Josh Neufeld's drawings — and his tender, dead-honest dialogue — brought it all back in a way that made me feel it in my gut."
— Dan Baum, author of Nine Lives: Death and Life in New Orleans". . . Neufeld has created a work of art that becomes both social history and political commentary. . . . Neufeld’s honesty, integrity and attention to detail grabs readers and make us empathize with survivors. . . . Neufeld does not make propaganda; he makes art that speaks a political and humanitarian message: never leave people behind. A. D. [is] powerful and gratifying. The novel becomes an everlasting memorial to the lives of a city, its people and perhaps a generation of survivors."
— The Comics Journal"A.D. is raw and painful — down to the detailed depictions of ruined homes and the frenzied dialogue among friends. . . . For many New Orleanians, the story hits all too close to home."
— Newsweek"[A.D. is] bristling with attitude and pungent with social awareness."
— Kirkus"Neufeld is one of my favorite reporters and observers in the world of comics, and [A.D.] may be his masterwork."
— Rob Clough, "High-Low," Sequart.com"It took Josh Neufeld only 13 panels to storyboard New Orleans' worst nightmare."
— Gambit Weekly"Referring to A.D. or one of Joe Sacco's illustrated memoirs as a 'comic book' is a bit like calling Schindler's List a 'talkie.'"
— The Los Angeles Times
"[A.D.]'s stirring images are sure to linger in memory, perhaps even longer than hours of news footage already have."
— The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
"Accessible, informative and beautifully drawn, . . . Josh Neufeld's moving webcomic tells the true story of hurricane victims in New Orleans."
— USA Today's "PopCandy"
"A.D. manages to capture the mixture of fear, uncertainty and oncoming dread that Katrina wrought on an unsuspecting city."
— The Toronto Star