Josh Neufeld, A.D.: NEW ORLEANS AFTER DELUGE graphic novelist: Mr. Media Radio Interview

There are all kinds of journalistic storytelling styles, starting with your basic who/what/when/where and why.

There is also “if it bleeds, it leads.”

And let’s not forget the “New Journalism” class of the 1960s and ‘70s, exemplified by everyone from Tom Wolfe to Truman Capote it used dramatic literary techniques to add depth to the reader’s involvement.

These days, some bloggers and tweeters have taken short-form journalism to new highs—and lows.

But how many people think of comic book and graphic novel creators as part of journalism? I see a few hands raised, but not nearly enough.

I would suggest to you that a wave of artist and writers who once would have been relegated to the comic book ghetto are creating compelling journalism in hand-drawn pictures these days. A recent guest on this show, Brendan Burford (Syncopated), publishes a series of what he calls “nonfiction picto-essays”—essentially journalism in sequential art.

The latest example I can recommend to you is Josh Neufeld’s new book, A.D.: New Orleans After the Deluge. It’s the story of a handful of very different residents of the Crescent City in the days leading up to and the months following the devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

Reading it, you’ll laugh, you’ll cry and you’ll come away with an informed perspective about the lives of average Americans dealing with extraordinary challenges.

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Copyright 2009 Bob Andelman. Click here for copyright permissions!

COMIC-CON SPECIAL: Brendan Burford, SYNCOPATED cartoonist, King Features comics editor: Mr. Media Radio Interview

If you read the comics in your daily newspaper, my guest today has probably touched your life.

Spider-Man, Hagar the Horrible and Curtis all report to him at his day job as comics editor for King Features Syndicate.

But by night—and weekends, no doubt—Brendan Burford is himself a cartoonist dedicated to the notion that comics are more than a 10-second entertainment. He believes in them as journalism, a different way of communicating the events of the day.

Burford recently published his fourth edition of Syncopated: An Anthology of Non-Fiction Picto-Essays. It is collection of illustrated stories that, at a few pages each, are longer than daily comics and shorter than a graphic novel. This latest edition of Syncopated includes work by Burford himself, as well as graphic artists including Nick Bertozzi, Josh Neufeld and many others.

If you’re interested in expanding your comics horizon, you’ll enjoy reading Syncopated.

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Copyright 2009 Bob Andelman. Click here for copyright permissions!

Jim Butcher, THE DRESDEN FILES novelist: Mr. Media Radio Interview

I am NOT the world’s biggest Harry Potter fan. The only book in the series that I’ve read is the first, which my wife and I took turns reading aloud to my daughter when she was just learning to read herself.

Since then, they’ve consumed each and every book in the series and re-read the books and re-watch the movies over and over.

So I wasn’t sure how interested I’d be when I received the graphic novel version of Jim Butcher’s The Dresden Files. More magic? Oy.

But let me tell you, this is one cool series. I love the notion of a wizard operating within the almost real world of Chicago, working at arm’s length from both the police and organized crime. If Harry Potter’s continued into adulthood and into the real world of modern London, I’d probably give them another look.

The Dresden Files began and continues as a series of novels. It was also, briefly, a syndicated television series. If you need a jumping on point, try the graphic novel, which is adapted by Mark Powers and drawn by Ardian Syaf. And then you can follow me backward into reading the books.

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Copyright 2009 Bob Andelman. Click here for copyright permissions!