I had the opportunity to view New Orleans After the Deluge by Josh Neufeld. This graphic novel is a historical imagining of the lives of 5 (?) individuals just before and after hurricane Katrina in 2005. Neufeld uses large, sweeping shots and large, neatly aligned panels to tell personal stories in a very matter-of-fact tone. The first chapter shows us a repetition of scenery, separated by time and the tragic events which unfolded. Neufeld also gives us a very distinct rhythm and progression of time — we are clearly given dates when the scenes transition, and each individual’s story utilizes a unique color scheme. While pages contain, at most, 4-6 panels, Neufeld establishes a hierarchy by choosing to give more important scenes larger panels or even their own page (for example, page 11). Chapter 1 of New Orleans After the Deluge feels very much like Google maps snapshots of Katrina, in that Neufeld uses a birds-eye view almost exclusively. We are able to see the totality of the devastation before going into individual people’s experiences. Neufeld’s gutters are always clear, clean and even and tend to demark the passage of time and space. In chapter 2, the gutters are still crisp, but Neufeld uses people’s silhouettes to form organic borders which remove the character from their grounding in time and space.

I was emotionally affected by Neufeld’s use of the actual civil emergency message.  This added a sense of reality to the character’s situations – making the story difficult for me to read. We see this message woven into each of the character’s lives as they make their own personal choices: if they should leave, and then when, and then, horrifyingly, how…