Josh Neufeld, the author and artist of “A.D.,” an alternative comic, tells a non-fiction story about real people. It is a graphic novel about Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath. Neufeld said he chose to tell the stories of five characters because he felt they displayed a wide variety of the effects that residents of New Orleans felt.

Neufeld discussed why he wrote “A.D.” and what he hopes students will get out of it in an interview with Hilltop Views.

Neufeld volunteered with Red Cross during the aftermath of Katrina delivering hot meals to residents. Neufeld said “A.D.” is a human response to an immense tragedy.

“[A.D.] was a good fit for our common theme, Looking In, Looking Out: Personal Transformation,” Alex Barron, the director of freshman studies, said.

Neufeld said he wrote “A.D.” to show readers the truth about what happened during Katrina. “A.D.” emphasizes that the people of New Orleans were left, as Neufeld said, at the shelters of last resort: the Superdome and the Convention Center in Houston. They were left alone without food or water for days.

“It was the government and police forces that left these people alone there,” Neufeld said. “New Orleans had been left to its own devices. That’s the real story.”

“The book illustrates how this was a man-made disaster, not a natural one,” Barron said. “No one could have prevented the storm, but what happened afterwards could have been different if the government had acted faster and more effectively.”

Neufeld said the media portrayed the residents of New Orleans who stayed in the city as thugs and focused on the looting and chaos; the media focused on, as Neufeld said, repugnant ideas and portrayals of African Americans. However, in reality, people were stealing water and food from stores to feed themselves and their community.

Neufeld said he hopes that people who read “A.D.” understand that what happened in New Orleans after Katrina was a terrible occurrence, and there were people who lost everything. He said that he hopes the readers imagine what it is like to have built a life somewhere and to have it lost forever.

“Comics are not just for kids,” Neufeld said. “They can tell any kind of story, and ‘A.D.,’ in particular, is the history of something that really happened to real people.”

Neufeld said that because “A.D.” is a graphic novel, many of the scenes allow the reader to see destroyed buildings, the water lines on houses, lost possessions or the fear on someone’s face, which helps readers to attain a more powerful message.

“I think graphic narratives reach out to their audience in a different way,” Barron said.

Neufeld also said when a person reads a comic, he or she is engaged through the actions of interpretation and inference and so they feel an emotional tie to the characters. Neufeld hopes that the students at St. Edward’s who read “A.D.” now have a deeper appreciation for graphic novels and perhaps view Katrina differently as well.

“Reading texts like AD that highlight injustice occurring right now, right here in the U.S. reminds us that it’s all of our responsibility to pursue a more just world,” Barron said.