Josh Neufeld's Blog

December 18, 2009

A.D. has been cited on a number of year-end "best-of" and gift-giving lists. The New York Times gift guide cited the book, the San Jose Mercury News recommended it, and Vanity Fair magazine declared A.D. to be one of its five "better-than-a-sweater" gift suggestions. Meanwhile, the Oklahoman listed A.D. as one of 2009's best graphic novels, and MTV's "Splash Page" blog called it the best nonfiction comic of 2009. A.D. was also cited numerous times on the Daily Cross Hatch's list of "The Best ...
0 comments Published on December 18, 2009 10:08

December 15, 2009

The website The Daily Cross Hatch has just posted its year-end popularity list, "The Best Damned Comics of 2009 Chosen by the Artists." Here are my picks (in no particular order):

Masterpiece Comics by R. Sikoryak — I’ve loved Sikoryak’s comics for years, and this beautiful volume collects all his “mash-ups” of high and low, merging the look of classic strips and comics with stories from the Western literary canon. Bob Kane’s Batman vs. Dostoevsky’s Crime & Punishment! Blondie & Dagwood vs...
0 comments Published on December 15, 2009 08:54 | 1 view

December 14, 2009

Looking for something to do this holiday season? (New York City can be so dull.) Then come check out Chip Kidd's band artbreak — and indy cartoonists Dash Shaw, David Heatley, and yours truly — at a benefit for Dixon Place: “Chip Kidd presents an evening of music, comics, and cartoons — New York indie style. Kidd’s band artbreak (with Mars Trillion) will perform a full set in preparation for its upcoming self-produced LP Wonderground, with special guests cartoonists Dash Shaw, David Heatley, ...
0 comments Published on December 14, 2009 09:51 | 1 view
Looking for something to do this holiday season? (New York City can be so dull.) Then come check out Chip Kidd's band artbreak — and indy cartoonists Dash Shaw, David Heatley, and yours truly — at a benefit for Dixon Place: “Chip Kidd presents an evening of music, comics, and cartoons — New York indie style. Kidd’s band artbreak (with Mars Trillion) will perform a full set in preparation for its upcoming self-produced LP Wonderground, with special guests cartoonists Dash Shaw, David Heatley, ...
0 comments Published on December 14, 2009 09:51

December 11, 2009

It's been a long time since my work's been reviewed in The Comics Journal — not since a 1997 review of Keyhole — but they just found me again with a review of A.D.! (This is as about a big thrill for me as the New York Times feature back in August.)

Matthew Miller's piece is titled "Everlasting Memorial," and in the review he covers all the bases, discussing A.D.'s origins as a webcomic on SMITH, dissecting the opening section, "The Storm," focusing on various characters and elements througho...
0 comments Published on December 11, 2009 10:43

December 10, 2009

I'm way late in writing about this, but you should check out cartoonist/rocker David Heatley's "Suburban White Girls" video. Written by David when he was 19, it was remixed and re-recorded last year as part of his My Brain is Hanging Upside Down EP — which of course coincided with the release of his My Brain is Hanging Upside Down graphic novel (Pantheon, 2008). And now there's a music video.

1980s junior high nerdAs befitting Heatley's work, "Suburban White Girls" is "an anthem of uncomfortable truth, complex paro...
0 comments Published on December 10, 2009 10:04

November 24, 2009

My visit to Oberlin earlier this month was the first time I had been back to the campus since late 2000, and the first extended stay since my ten-year reunion back in 1998. As with all things, much had changed in the school and surrounding town, though at heart the Oberlin experience remains the same: happily, it’s still a tiny, politically progressive, hippie-oriented enclave in a bucolic northern Ohio setting.

The most striking difference between then and now is how much the town of Oberlin ...
0 comments Published on November 24, 2009 10:50 | 1 view

November 20, 2009

Some New Kind of Slaughter: Lost in the Flood (and How We Found Home Again): Diluvian Myths from Around The World, from Archaia Studios Press, is now out. Given my connection to a certain diluvian story, creators A. David Lewis & mpMann asked me to write the foreword to the book, which I did. Here it is:

For me, it all began with the 2004 Asian tsunami. Horrified by the huge loss of life, I was also fascinated by the imagery, by the idea that life-giving water could bring such epic death and d...
0 comments Published on November 20, 2009 09:58 | 1 view

November 18, 2009

The discovery of water on the Moon proves that Tintin-creator Hergé was not only a comics genius but a scientific genius as well. Check out this panel from Explorers on the Moon, published in 1954 — over fifty years before this latest discovery (and fifteen years before the first human being actually set foot on the Moon).

Explorers on the Moon

I remember, reading this book in the 1970s and 1980s, scoffing at the silly belief that there was ever water on the "dead" lunar sphere. Who's laughing now?
0 comments Published on November 18, 2009 18:57 | 1 view

November 12, 2009

This weekend Sari & I will be in Miami for the Miami Book Fair International! Besides enjoying the warm weather, partying by the water, and hopefully meeting A.D. readers, I will be taking part in two panels on Saturday, November 14. And Sari will be joining me for one! To whit:

11:30 a.m., Centre Gallery, Rm. 1365 (Bldg. 1)
A Conversation with Dan Goldman (08: A Graphic Diary of the Campaign Trail), Josh Neufeld (A.D. After the Deluge) and Joshua Dysart (Unknown Soldier). We'll be presenting o...
0 comments Published on November 12, 2009 20:00 | 3 views