Cartoonist Josh Neufeld receives Knight-Wallace Fellowship in Journalism

I have mixed feelings about this. Obviously, it’s great that comics journalism is being recognized by the journalism community and it is always good news when cartoonists are getting paid to do comics. However, I wrote here about why I didn’t like the short piece that Neufeld is looking to expand into a book through this fellowship, which was about Bahrain’s recent political unrest. In short, I don’t think it would stand muster as a text piece, and I don’t think it, or any other piece of comics journalism, should get a pass just because it happens to be a comic.

Look, maybe I’ll be proven totally wrong, and Neufeld will produce an intelligent, informed book on Bahrain following his time with this fellowship. However, the failings of his earlier short piece combined with the fact that, based on the quote in the link above, it is unclear if he will be traveling to Bahrain at all (and it seems clear he won’t be living there for an extended period), make me sincerely doubt that will be the case.

Comics journalism should be lauded when it is good journalism, not just when it is good comics.