The new chapter of A.D.: New Orleans After the Deluge has gone live—it’s entitled “If It’s The Last Thing We Ever Do” and takes place on September 1st, 2005 outside the Convention Center.

I’m curious to see what people think about this, and A.D. in general, especially after all the play the “parasite class” comments have gotten lately.

Since it’s anniversary month here at AG, here’s another June blast from the past: our Keith Knight interview from June 2006. As I said in the post about this month’s cover, I felt like that issue was really worth celebrating since it was our first anniversary after Katrina and we asked Keith Knight to draw me and editors Noah Bonaparte and Patrick Strange into the mix, which he did brilliantly. Keith happened to be in New Orleans that month to promote The Beginner’s Guide To Community-Based Arts to the librarian’s conference, so we put together a slideshow for him at Handsome Willy’s.

Here it is:

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We’re in an era of unparalleled awareness for the art of cartooning. Between George Bush’s uncanny ability to stimulate political cartoonists, the now-infamous Danish Muhammad cartoons, animated series based on strips like Aaron McGruder’s Boondocks, and–while much tamer to audiences, for sure–the domination of the box office by comic icons Spider-Man, Superman and Batman, more people are aware comics exist than ever before. One comic strip that can run the gamut of emotions all the above can inflict is Keith Knight’s The K Chronicles, a unique foray into politics, pop culture and human emotions. Knight is just as likely to reference Star Wars as he is to mention his mother, and in any given strip you may be treated to the lighthearted optimism of “Life’s Little Victories,” a theme that celebrates when the simple things in life go your way, or an unabashed send-up of Dick Cheney’s latest hunting misadventure. When you may least expect it, though, Knight can deliver a heartwrenching or heartwarming slice of life, whether it’s his wife’s cancer-scare (she’s okay), the death of an influential person (like comic great Will Eisner) or a tribute to the people of the Gulf Coast.

Knight’s not a Johnny-come-lately, some hanger-on to McGruder’s faux-provacativeness–he’s been a professional for over twelve years. He started out as a caricature artist in his hometown Boston and, once he moved to indie-comic Mecca San Francisco, worked his way from ‘zine artist to full-fledged newspaper comics page contributor. Since the K Chronicles became entrenched in publications nation(and world)wide, he’s started a second strip, (th)ink, a comic done in single panel style (a la a serious Far Side) meant to take on race and political issues. He’s also illustrated a book called The Beginner’s Guide To Community-Based Arts, a book that tells the stories of several activists who use art to make their communities around the country better.

The man’s got legs, as they say, and one method he’s used to accumulate fans is his slideshow, an indie-comics convention favorite. Knight hosts the show like a comedian, moving through pics of his strips and elaborating on their history like the college professor you always wished you had. ANTIGRAVITY has been on the Keith Knight train since its beginning–The K Chronicles was the first strip we decided to run, and when an opportunity to host a slideshow presented itself we pounced on it. AG presents the Keith Knight slideshow in the latter part of June, and we spoke with Knight about his growing up in Boston, working for ESPN and MAD, and some of his more controversial strips, like the one where he smoked crack with God. (more…)

We just received word that New Orleans: After The Deluge, the webcomic that features the real-life Katrina stories of six New Orleanians, including mine, has secured a publishing deal with the graphic novel division of Pantheon, which itself is a division of Random House.

A.D. author Josh Neufeld joins a very distinguished catalog of authors that includes some of my personal favorites: Jessica Abel’s La Perdida, Charles Burns’ Black Hole, Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis, Craig Thompson’s Goodbye Chunky Rice and Art Spiegelman’s Maus.

Neufeld has planned for the web version of A.D. to run 12 chapters, and the GN version will be expanded to further delve into all the characters’ stories. A.D.’s set for a Summer 2009 release and will appear in both hard and softcover editions.

It’s kind of mind-blowing to be a character in a webcomic, much less a graphic novel published by a company like Pantheon. How awesome is this?

Gabe Soria recently moved back to New Orleans from Brooklyn, NY. In the late ‘90s, Soria worked the Wednesday shift at Oak Street’s More Fun Comics (that’s new comics day for you uninitiated folk), where the store credit he earned slinging sequential art helped balance his comic habit with his fledgling career as a freelance writer. Soria bounced between Las Vegas and New York in the early ‘00s, where his work appeared in publications like Mojo, Arthur, Film Threat and Blender. His time in New York treated him well: in addition to meeting his wife and having a son, he got to network and become friends with a veritable Who’s Who of indie comics: Dean Haspiel (The Quitter, Billy Dogma), Jessica Abel (Artbabe, La Perdida), Matt Madden (Black Candy, A Fine Mess) and Paul Pope (THB, 100). So it’s fitting that as Soria returns to the city he once helped supply comics to he’s pushing a comic of his own. (more…)