“—it’s pretty easy to forget what it’s like to be a have-not”: Envisioning and Experiencing Trauma in Josh Neufeld’s A.D.: New Orleans After the Deluge

Abstract

Following the catastrophic events after Hurricane Katrina annihilated much of the southern Gulf Coast, comics artist Josh Neufeld volunteered with the Red Cross and worked providing aid to rural communities in southern Mississippi. While there, Neufeld was struck by the stories he heard, and decided he needed to give voice to those who lacked a public forum to vocalize their discontent. The product of his interviews is the graphic novel A.D.: New Orleans After the Deluge . Revolving around the plights of seven New Orleanians in the days immediately prior to and following Hurricane Katrina, A.D . encapsulates a myriad of responses to the storm – from the middle-class who managed to leave town, to those who were trapped at the Superdome, to wealthy residents who had hurricane parties in their French Quarter villas. In the pursuit of giving his subjects voices, Neufeld manages to capture the effects of a traumatic experience with remarkable clarity and precision, allowing his readers to understand how the storm wreaked havoc on the lives of New Orleans’ natives. In addition to the print version of A.D ., Neufeld also published an online edition, replete with hyperlinks which lead readers to various resources which prompt them to investigate the storm in greater depth. My paper explores the various representations of trauma in Neufeld’s text, specifically arguing that through his use of hyperlinks in the Web based A.D ., Neufeld projects trauma in a surprisingly experiential way, and thereby better lets his audience understand the position of those who experienced Katrina firsthand.