A.D.: New Orleans After the Deluge is a non-fiction graphic novel by cartoonist Josh Neufeld. Originally published as a webcomic, A.D. tells the stories of a handful of real-life New Orleans residents and their experiences during and after Hurricane Katrina. The graphic novel was a New York Times best-seller and was nominated for an Eisner Award and a Harvey Award in 2010. In addition, A.D. was selected for inclusion in The Best American Comics 2010.
In A.D., author Neufeld draws upon interviews with the actual people represented in the story; newspaper, magazine, and blog accounts of the events surrounding Hurricane Katrina and its effects on New Orleans; and his own experiences as a Red Cross volunteer in the weeks after the storm.[1]
Publication history
A.D. was serialized as a webcomic on SMITH Magazine in 2007–2008. The web version of A.D. utilizes the Internet in a variety of interesting ways to expand the scope of the story beyond the comic itself. Many pages and panels have links to outside sources such as audio and video clips, newspapers stories, photo essays, and the like. The A.D. website also features audio & video clips from the characters, a blogroll, a resource library, and a blog (in addition to a comments section for each chapter.)[2] (The shorter web version of A.D. continues to live on the SMITH website.)
The hardcover edition of A.D. was released by Pantheon Graphic Novels on August 18, 2009, shortly before Hurricane Katrina's fourth anniversary. It went on to become a New York Times bestseller.[3]A.D. came out in paperback, with a new cover, and a new afterword, in the summer of 2010, on the fifth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina.
A Dutch translation of A.D. was published in 2010,[4] and a French translation was published in 2012.[5]
The characters
Denise, a sixth-generation New Orleanian with a master's degree in guidance and counseling. When Katrina strikes, she is living with her mother, Louise (a surgical tech at Memorial Baptist Hospital), her niece Cydney, and Cydney's daughter, R’nae, in an apartment above a boxing club in Mid-City.
The Doctor, a medical man-about-town based in the French Quarter and often found at the legendary Galatoire's restaurant. Although personally unaffected by Katrina, The Doctor stays behind after the storm, setting up a street clinic to help tend to relief workers and refugees.
Abbas (Hamid in the webcomic), Iranian-born, long-time New Orleanian, father of two, and owner of a family-run supermarket in Uptown who faces the storm with his friend Darnell (Mansell in the webcomic). Abbas and Darnell weather the storm in Abbas's convenience store. But when the power goes out and the water starts to rise, the two men realize they are literally in over their heads.
Kwame (Kevin in the webcomic), son of a pastor from New Orleans East, who is just entering his senior year of high school as Katrina strikes. Fleeing to Tallahassee with his family the day before the storm, Kwame is shocked by the devastation left behind. His parents send him to live with a family friend in Berkeley, California, to finish high school. Like thousands of other Katrina refugees, Kwame faces the future in alien surroundings.
Leo and Michelle, twenty-somethings who each grew up in the city. He's a local music zine publisher and works with mentally challenged youth. She's a waitress and gymnastics instructor. After evacuating to Houston, Texas, they learn that their apartment took at least five feet of water. Leo's entire 15,000-strong comic book collection is ruined, and the couple face many hard choices about returning and rebuilding.
Plot
Webcomic
The online version of the story encompasses a two-part prologue, 13 chapters, and an epilogue — 15 chapters in total. In the prologue, from a "God's eye" perspective, A.D. shows Hurricane Katrina as it builds from a tropical storm in the Bahamas and moves inexorably toward New Orleans. Katrina slams into the Gulf Coast. Winds and rain lash New Orleans and Biloxi, Mississippi. The levees burst and the city is flooded.
Going back in time to more than a week before the storm, readers meet the protagonists in their pre-Katrina lives. Then in the days leading up to the hurricane, the characters learn about the approaching monster storm. On the Saturday before the hurricane, Leo tracks the storm on his computer as he and Michelle decide whether to evacuate. Meanwhile, The Doctor makes plans to host some friends at his French Quarter home for a “hurricane party.” On Sunday, August 28, 2005, one day before Katrina, Hamid sends his wife and family off to safety in Houston. Kevin helps his family prepare to evacuate to Tallahassee. Denise goes with her niece and grandniece to take shelter at the hospital where her mother works, but when they are turned away from a private room due to overcrowding, she angrily returns to her apartment alone. Leo and Michelle spend hours in bumper-to-bumper traffic to Houston, while Kevin and his family do the same en route to Tallahassee. Meanwhile, Hamid and Mansell excitedly outfit themselves for the storm at Hamid's store.
Monday, August 29. As the storm's pre-winds batter New Orleans, The Doctor's hurricane party is in full swing. Hamid and Mansell hunker down at the store. When the full force of the hurricane hits, Denise learns just what a mistake it was to forsake the refuge of the hospital for her apartment. Her apartment is shaken repeatedly by the storm, the ceiling in the bedroom comes down, and she spends the night holding onto a bed wedged in the hallway. We also check in on Kevin and his family in Tallahassee, and Leo and Michelle in Houston. No one is yet aware that the levees have been breached.
Calhoun Grocery, one of the settings of A.D.: New Orleans After the Deluge
Tuesday, August 30. Katrina has finally passed New Orleans, and Hamid and Mansell emerge, blinking in the sunlight, ecstatic to have survived the storm. But then the flooding begins. Reluctant to abandon the store and fearful of looters, the two men stand fast in the rising waters.
Wednesday, August 31. Hamid and Mansell wake up from a long night on the roof of Hamid's maintenance shed. They spend the day wading through the chest-high waters, refusing a boat ride out of the flooded sections of the city. Denise and her family, having momentarily escaped the flooding, await transport out of the flooded city. What they find instead is a van to the Convention Center. In Houston, Leo and Michelle are dismayed to discover that their neighborhood took over five feet of water. The Doctor makes the rounds of the French Quarter, administering aid where needed. Hamid and Mansell deliver much-needed water to a trapped neighbor. And in Tallahassee, Kevin sees footage of the flooding and realizes he won't be returning home any time soon. Denise arrive at the Convention Center to find it completely without vital services, and filled with abandoned people. Mansell narrowly avoids being crushed by a bobbing refrigerator case. Mansell's asthma and the high water makes Hamid face the fact that they probably should evacuate the flooded city. In Houston, Leo & Michelle discuss what their next move should be. And in Tallahassee, Kevin learns that he and his younger brother will be sent off to California to attend school there.
Thursday, September 1. Three days after the hurricane and two days after the city began flooding. Denise and her family, having been dropped off at the New Orleans Convention Center, find themselves stranded and abandoned, surrounded by thousands of other refugees. And from there things only get worse. Denise and her family are still trapped at the New Orleans Convention Center. The NOLA police roll by in armored SWAT vehicles, with rifles loaded — but no food or water. This companion section to Chapter 12 tells the real story — from the perspective of the people who were there — of what went down at the Convention Center in the days after Hurricane Katrina.
In the epilogue, "Picking Up The Pieces," A.D. concluded its online run with a final look at all the characters. Picking up the story a year and a half after the hurricane, readers find out about Denise's escape from the Convention Center; Hamid & Mansell's rescue from the flooded store; Kevin's years-long odyssey; the Doctor's formation of the New Orleans Health Department in Exile; and Leo & Michelle's return to their flooded home. The epilogue concludes with a jump of another year ahead in time, to early 2008, and a final check-in with the Doctor, Leo, and Denise.
Book
The A.D. book includes 25% more story and art, as well as extensive revisions to the material from the webcomic. Other changes include dividing the book into five sections rather than 15 chapters, as well as the changing of some of the characters' names.[2]
Critical response
The A.D. webcomic received recognition from magazines, newspapers, and websites such as Newsweek,[6] the Los Angeles Times,[1] the New Orleans Times-Picayune,[7] the Atlanta Journal-Constitution,[8]Rolling Stone, BoingBoing,[9] the Toronto Star,[10] and National Public Radio's "News & Notes". USA Today’s "Pop Candy" named A.D. one of 2007's best comics, Wired.com called it “a sterling example of comics with a social conscience,"[11] and the New Orleans Gambit Weekly said "it took Josh Neufeld only 13 panels to storyboard New Orleans’ worst nightmare."[12]
The 2009 hardcover edition of A.D. gained more critical recognition. The Los Angeles Times called the book "a work . . . of literature, of high art, and of reverence for nature and humanity."[13] The book was covered by (among others) the New York Times,[14]Newsweek,[15] National Public Radio's "Tell Me More,"[16] the New Orleans Times-Picayune,[17]USA Today,[18] Salon.com,[19] and the Wall Street Journal.[20]
A.D. was nominated for a 2010 Eisner Award (for Best Graphic Album—Reprint),[26] a Harvey Award (for Best Previously Published Graphic Album),[27] and a Harry Chapin Media Award (in the Book category).[28] It was also a YALSA 2010 Great Graphic Novels for Teens selection.[29] The A.D. hardcover was recognized on many top-ten lists for 2009.[30] It was declared MTV's Best Nonfiction Comic of 2009,[31] one of Vanity Fair magazine's top five books of 2009,[32] and a Salon Critics' Pick.[33] In addition, it was a Mother Jones magazine MoJo Top Book of 2009,[34] and a Daily Beast recommended book.[35]
Webcomics are comics published on the internet, such as on a website or a mobile app. While many webcomics are published exclusively online, others are also published in magazines, newspapers, or comic books.
The Perry Bible Fellowship is a webcomic and newspaper comic strip by Nicholas Gurewitch. It first appeared in the Syracuse University newspaper The Daily Orange in 2001.
Webcomics Nation was a webcomic hosting and automation service launched on July 29, 2005 by Joey Manley. Unlike Manley's previous webcomic sites, Webcomics Nation was based on user-generated content and relied on online advertisement revenue, which increased in viability in the second half of the 2000s. Webcomics Nation quickly became Manley's most financially successful website, and encouraged him to turn his Modern Tales sites partially free as well. Manley began merging Webcomics Nation into Josh Roberts' ComicSpace in 2007, but this process took longer than hoped and Webcomics Nation eventually closed down in 2013.
Hurricane Katrina was a devastating and deadly Category 5 Atlantic hurricane that caused 1,836 fatalities and damages estimated between $97.4 billion to $145.5 billion in late August 2005, particularly in the city of New Orleans and its surrounding area. At the time, it was the costliest tropical cyclone on record, later tied by Hurricane Harvey in 2017. Katrina was the twelfth tropical cyclone, the fifth hurricane, and the third major hurricane of the 2005 Atlantic hurricane season. It was also the fourth-most intense Atlantic hurricane to make landfall in the contiguous United States, gauged by barometric pressure.
As the center of Hurricane Katrina passed southeast of New Orleans on August 29, 2005, winds downtown were in the Category 1 range with frequent intense gusts. The storm surge caused approximately 23 breaches in the drainage canal and navigational canal levees and flood walls. As mandated in the Flood Control Act of 1965, responsibility for the design and construction of the city's levees belongs to the United States Army Corps of Engineers and responsibility for their maintenance belongs to the Orleans Levee Board. The failures of levees and flood walls during Katrina are considered by experts to be the worst engineering disaster in the history of the United States. By August 31, 2005, 80% of New Orleans was flooded, with some parts under 15 feet (4.6 m) of water. The famous French Quarter and Garden District escaped flooding because those areas are above sea level. The major breaches included the 17th Street Canal levee, the Industrial Canal levee, and the London Avenue Canal flood wall. These breaches caused the majority of the flooding, according to a June 2007 report by the American Society of Civil Engineers. The flood disaster halted oil production and refining which increased oil prices worldwide.
Hurricane preparedness in New Orleans has been an issue since the city's early settlement because of its location.
New Orleans is featured in a number of works of fiction. This article in an ongoing effort to list the books, movies, television shows, and comics that are set or filmed, in whole or part, in New Orleans.
Brad Guigar is an American cartoonist who is best known for his daily webcomic Greystone Inn and its sequel Evil Inc.
Dean Edmund Haspiel is an American comic book artist, writer, and playwright. He is known for creating Billy Dogma, The Red Hook, and for his collaborations with writer Harvey Pekar on his American Splendor series as well as the graphic novel The Quitter, and for his collaborations with Jonathan Ames on The Alcoholic and HBO's Bored to Death. He has been nominated for numerous Eisner Awards, and won a 2010 Emmy Award for TV design work.
Josh Neufeld is an alternative cartoonist known for his comics journalism work on subjects like graphic medicine, equity, and technology; as well as his collaborations with writers like Harvey Pekar and Brooke Gladstone. He is the writer/artist of A.D.: New Orleans After the Deluge, and the illustrator of The Influencing Machine: Brooke Gladstone on the Media.
Smith Magazine is a U.S.-based online magazine devoted to storytelling in all its forms. Smith's content is participatory in nature, and the magazine welcomes contributions from all its readers. The magazine has made a name for itself with its original graphic novel projects Shooting War, A.D.: New Orleans After the Deluge, and Next Door Neighbor; and with its series of Six-Word Memoirs projects. Most of these projects have since gone from web to print publication, from such publishers as HarperCollins, Pantheon, and Grand Central Publishing.
Rob Walker is an American journalist, author and educator, whose primary interests include design, business, technology, consumer culture, and the arts.
ACT-I-VATE was an American webcomics collective based on an original idea by Dean Haspiel and founded by Haspiel and seven other cartoonists. It started out on the blogging platform Livejournal, and then moved to its own dedicated website.
Christian Beranek (born August 23, 1974) is a United States writer, actress, musician and film/TV producer.
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Keyhole is a black-and-white alternative comic book published from 1996 to 1998. A two-man anthology by cartoonists Dean Haspiel and Josh Neufeld, Keyhole was published by two different publishers, starting with Millennium Publications and ending up at Top Shelf Productions. In 2021, Haspiel and Neufeld released a 25th-anniversary issue of Keyhole, with new material from both creators.
Non-fiction comics, also known as graphic non-fiction, is non-fiction in the comics medium, embracing a variety of formats from comic strips to trade paperbacks.
Hurricane Katrina has been featured in a number of works of fiction. This article is an ongoing effort to list the many artworks, books, comics, movies, popular songs, and television shows that feature Hurricane Katrina as an event in the plot.
Notable events of 2007 in webcomics.
Notable events of 2008 in webcomics.
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