1001 COMICS MINI-SITE

Even with 960 pages, I couldn't squeeze all the material I had into my book 1001 Comics You Must Read Before You Die. This mini-site is designed to supplement that book with updates, additional information and links... but obviously you'll still need a copy of the book!

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AD: New Orleans After The Deluge

Original publisher: Smith Magazine (USA)
First published: 2007
Reviewed by: Ellen Lindner
Genre: Autobiographical, Historical, Journalism

Josh Neufeld:
The project began in the summer of 2006. My buddy Jeff Newelt, who is the comics editor of the storytelling site SMITH Magazine, had read Katrina Came Calling, my self-published ‘zine about my time volunteering with the Red Cross in the Gulf Coast after the hurricane. As a disaster response worker stationed in Biloxi, Mississippi, in October 2005, just weeks after the storm, I delivered hot meals to sections of the city without power. While I was there, I met many folks who had lost everything in the hurricane. Those experiences with the Red Cross gave me a sense of connection that later provided vital background and context for A.D..

I felt it was important to tell the story from the perspectives of a range of real people who had lived through the storm: well-off and poor, black and white, young and old, gay and straight, male and female, those who evacuated and those who stayed behind, people who were greatly affected by the flooding and even some who weren’t. So my first job was to act as a journalist: After I spoke with friends, friends of friends, tracked down accounts of the storm and its aftermath on the radio, in magazines and newspapers, and on the Internet, seven people emerged as A.D.‘s “characters”: Denise, Leo, Michelle, Abbas, Darnell, Kwame, and The Doctor, whom I finally met in person in January 2007. It was then up to me to weave the characters’ stories together in comics form, illustrating the storm and their disparate paths into and through it - while periodically fact-checking with them and keeping up with their changing fortunes.

A.D. was serialized on SMITH in 2007-2008. I had always planned for the comic to be a book, however, so when Pantheon agreed in the summer of 2008 to publish it, I couldn’t wait to get to work on reformatting and expanding it. The book edition of A.D. has about 25 percent more story and art than what appeared online; I also made significant changes and revisions to large chunks of the original material. That, combined with the different reading experience between online and print, in my mind makes the A.D. book a completely new animal.

Pantheon Books, USA, 2010

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