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…)

Interview by Leo McGovern.

One of my early interviews for ANTIGRAVITY was with Susannah Breslin. I’d heard she’d recently moved to New Orleans from Los Angeles, and was anxious to interview her and help promote the New Orleans Bookfair, which she had a scheduled reading at in late-October 2004. We sat in the back courtyard at the old Z’otz in the French Quarter. Her short story collection, You’re A Bad Man, Aren’t You, had recently been released.

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ANTIGRAVITY: When did you move to New Orleans?

Susannah Breslin: September 2003. My intention was to stay here for a year, but now my guess is I’ll stay for two years. The weather here is unbearable. I can’t live here permanently, but it’ll be longer than a year.

AG: What made you decide to move to New Orleans?

SB: I was tired of being in Los Angeles. I’d never been to the south before. I knew it was warm and cheap. It had a seedy reputation. When I figured out the abbreviation was “No L.A.” it seemed like it was divine. [Laughs] It was a way to get away from the competitiveness that was L.A. and just try and focus on writing the book instead, rather than keeping my head above water as a freelancer.

AG: You’ve said that instead of “feel good” movies, you prefer “feel bad” ones. What exactly are “feel bad” movies?

(more…)

June is ANTIGRAVITY anniversary month, so to help celebrate we’re blogging some more classic AG pieces. This one is our first ever cover story, an interview with Glorybee from June 2004. Glorybee was the perfect choice for our first cover, as they were well-known around New Orleans and certainly visually interesting. A side note is that they were my first choice to be the musical headliner for the first Alternative Media Expo (in June ‘03) but had an out-of-town show on that day. The first year or so of AG isn’t available in .pdf format, as I lost the computer they were stored on in Katrina (and stupidly hadn’t uploaded them to our website), so we’re having notable pieces like this re-transcribed. Which is nice because they can also be re-edited—keep it a secret, but I don’t think I knew as much as I think I did when this whole thing started.

Anyway, where the magic began…

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Glorybee is a trio of musicians based in New Orleans and own a sound best described as “rap/electronic/sonic death on helium.” Their live show is a unique spectacle, one where the unthinkable not only can happen but usually does. Be careful if you see one of them, even on the street, as their soldering banter can easily suck you in, after which you’re stuck like a fly in the proverbial web of Glorybee. Featuring three main members (Nasty Burga’ Kang [Bass/vocals/percussion], Lord Hoffa [vocals/keyboards], and Masta Boink [keyboards/programming/drums]), Glorybee is one of the truly unique bands in New Orleans, relying not on horns and someone else’s name to carry them, but on their own ideas and techniques. Their new CD, GYB: The First Power, is set to hit the streets June 1st, with the GYB CD release parties on June 25th at Dragon’s Den and June 26th at Chelsea’s in Baton Rouge. (more…)

Lil’ Doogie Meet-And-Greet, Color Bar Salon (2039 Magazine St.), 8pm, FREE; lildoogie.com. From a string of laugh-inducing, real-life videos (like meeting Endymion parade goers and talking to local ABC affiliate Channel 26, taking his first trip to the East Bank and throwing television antennas around the room after arguing with his roommate) to a Dirty Coast t-shirt featuring his likeness to the release of the fledgling rapper’s first EP and his appearance on this magazine’s cover (April ’08), Lil’ Doogie has confounded online philosophers with the only question worth asking: “Brah, I’m real?” Philosophize further at Color Bar Salon, where Doogie celebrates the release of Thoughts From My Mind and his first music video, for Thoughts track “Lil’ One.” You’ll have a chance to make a film with Doogie (not of the porno kind, unless that’s what you’re into) and take photos like you did at your Senior Prom. —Leo McGovern, Photo by Dan Fox.

As we briefly talked about yesterday, NOLA Rising’s Michael “ReX” Dingler has emerged victorious in his battle with Fred Radtke, a.k.a. “The Gray Ghost.” Radtke took it upon himself to turn in Dingler to the police for placing original artwork around New Orleans, and Dingler faced $50,000 in fines and a possible jail sentence.

Today, Dingler posted a full account of yesterday’s court case on his blog. One of the more interesting (to us, anyway) points:

“RAdTke produced from his grocery ba[g] of cheap tricks the ANTIGRAVITY articles that first called into question his tactics, which has since become an issue that has cost RAdTke funding.”

I thought this would be a good time to clarify our stance on The Gray Ghost, so we blogged parts 1 and 2 of our late-’07 story on Radtke, and I’m going to talk about it in general. (more…)

This interview originally appeared in the March 2007 issue of ANTIGRAVITY.

To celebrate After The Deluge getting picked up by Pantheon, I thought I’d post our original talk with artist Josh Neufeld, which coincided with A.D.’s debut over at SMITH. Interested parties may want to know that the current issue of DC/Vertigo’s American Splendor mini-series features some of Josh’s work.

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Josh Neufeld has become adept at telling graphic stories of a personal nature — his comic series The Vagabonds chronicles his and wife Sari’s travels around the world, his artwork frequently tells Harvey Pekar’s unique slice-of-life stories in American Splendor, and his 2004 graphic novel A Few Perfect Hours (and Other Stories From Southeast Asia & Central Europe) won him a prestigious grant from the Xeric Foundation. Neufeld’s latest projects feature both personal and, for the first time, communal stories. In early ’06 Neufeld released Katrina Came Calling, a chapbook-style collection of prose journal entries written in late ’05 during a three-week tour of duty with the Red Cross in Biloxi and Gulfport, Mississippi. In January ’07 the prologue of Neufeld’s new sequential art project, New Orleans: After The Deluge, premiered on SMITH, an upstart website that celebrates personal storytelling and, in 2006, published Shooting War, a highly acclaimed webcomic about the war in Iraq. After The Deluge features several real-life people affected by Katrina (including AG editor Leo McGovern), and Neufeld intends to weave those people’s stories together in an attempt to show readers that New Orleans isn’t a city full of statistics; that the populace of the Gulf Coast isn’t simply full of people either with or without the means and/or desire to leave, return and rebuild; that our region, even a year and a half after Katrina, is brimming with grey area.

ANTIGRAVITY spoke with Neufeld about the reasons he created A.D., what he hopes readers take away from these stories, and how this project is different from anything he’s done before. (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?

I was asked by ESPN: The Magazine contributing editor and SMITH founder Larry Smith (publisher of A.D.: New Orleans After the Deluge) to contribute a short blurb for the mag’s pre-NFL Draft “Moving Kit,” where they ask players in this year’s draft to list some of the best things about their city. The mag tabbed LSU defensive back Chevis Jackson for his top spots to eat, drink and club, and asked me to name an under-the-radar place to watch a sports game. I came up with the Mid-City Yacht Club, and you can read it on page 63. If you’re an ESPN Insider member, you can view it online, otherwise check it out at a bookstore/magazine rack near you!

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…)