Press
Kirkus Reviews: Graphic Spotlight 2009
A.D.: New Orleans After the Deluge
Josh Neufeld
Pantheon /August / 978030738149 / $24.95
Kirkus Supplements • Vol. 5, No. 6 • July 1, 2009
"The
idea of seeing so many people's lives just washed away, and the things that
they owned destroyed — and this happening on every scale, on a personal
scale and a city scale and a whole region — it was such a nightmare
that I related to so strongly," says Josh Neufeld. Serving as a disaster-response
worker for three weeks in Biloxi, Miss., in the wake of Hurricane Katrina,
the cartoonist was stirred to action, writing a blog that turned into a self-published
book about the storm's aftermath, Katrina Came Calling. A.D.
expands on that title, using unique one- and two-color panels to create moods
of panic and distress while capturing acts of humanity during the catastrophe's
worst moments. Following the lives of seven New Orleans residents during the
first five days after Katrina struck, Neufeld captures a wide cross-section
of the city's inhabitants, bringing their stories to light with what he calls
"graphic journalism." "We've seen so many images and video
of Katrina, but it hadn't been told in comic-book form," says Neufeld.
"My thing as a cartoonist has always been to use comics in ways that
are unexpected, to tell real stories and not feel limited by what most people
think of when they think of comics."