Kirkus Reviews Loves Hereville! “Undoubtedly one of the cleverest graphic novels of the year”

In a starred review (“A star is assigned to books of unusual merit”), Kirkus Reviews writes:

Like all 11-year-old Orthodox Jewish girls, ebullient Mirka must face a six-armed troll to avoid becoming his dinner and obtain a dragon-slaying sword–wait, what? This utterly ingenious graphic novel spins the darling yarn of Mirka, who finds tasks like knitting dull and tedious. She keeps herself amused while stitching by conversing with her stepmother, Fruma, a top-notch debater who can adeptly argue her way out of any dispute. A magical encounter leads Mirka to discover a witch who sends her on a quest to acquire a sword perfect for a fledgling dragon-slayer, just the role Mirka envisions for herself. When Mirka must battle a fierce troll, the skills she’s learned from Fruma prove to be not so entirely useless.

Deutsch creates a beautiful, detail-rich world with a muted, ethereal palette that masterfully blends faith and fantasy with astounding harmony. Each page conveys fluid motion through his panel layout and text-bubble placement; readers can easily grasp and empathize with Mirka’s feelings. Undoubtedly one of the cleverest graphic novels of the year; let’s hope this isn’t the last of Mirka.

That’s definitely the sort of review that improves my week. 🙂 Thanks, Kirkus!

Information about buying Hereville can be found here.

Al Jaffee, Jewish Kids Cartoonist

Who knew? The New York Times reports that Al Jaffee, one of the great Mad Magazine cartoonists, has been quietly providing illustrations (at a bargain rate, yet) to a Jewish kid’s magazine for decades.

For a quarter century, Jewish children have hungrily followed the kooky adventures of the Shpy, the adventurous hero of The Moshiach Times, a family-friendly magazine that is published six times a year in the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn. (Think Highlights, but Jewish.)

With a closet full of disguises and more gadgets than 007, the Shpy volunteers his services when innocent people or ancient traditions are imperiled. He escapes from a giant Mixmaster when investigating a case of stolen hamantaschen, and thwarts a mysterious bee infestation that nearly spoils the fall holiday of Sukkot. In one installment, he invents a repellent to keep the sinister Yetzer Hora at bay, complete with a catchy slogan: “Let us Shpray.” (The softening of the S, when the Shpy shpeaks, so to speak, is meant to evoke Humphrey Bogart.)

Young fans of the Shpy can be forgiven for skipping over the credits on Page 2 of the magazine. It is hard to fathom, though, how the rest of New York has barely noticed that the artist responsible for making the Shpy such a mensch is Al Jaffee. Yes, that Al Jaffee. The same 89-year-old bad boy whose work has been appearing for more than half a century in the occasionally rude, irreverent, and bawdy pages of Mad magazine.

Read the rest.

Neat!

There’s a Shpy story, including several of Jaffee’s illustrations, here. I’m not sure how long that link will be good for, though.

Nothing makes my day more than being mentioned in the same sentence as Eisner

A brief but extremely kind write-up about “Hereville” at CultureMob.com:

One look at the original story (which can be accessed at Hereville.com) reveals the creator’s influence by the late great Will Eisner, with whom he trained during his tenure at the School of Visual Arts in New York. He explores similar themes of Judaism and personal strife, executing it with the same panache with which his legendary mentor did before him. He incorporates expressive and emotionally charged characters with a playful approach to layout and coloration that connect on a fundamental level to life experiences common to us all. Promising to feature 100 pages of redrawn or new art, the book is bound to be even better.

Thanks, CultureMob!

(Info about buying Hereville is here.)

Barry is Interviewed on Diamond Bookshelf

Diamond is the single largest (very nearly the only) distributor serving comic book stores in the USA and Canada, so I was very pleased when Diamond Bookshelf interviewed me about Hereville.

There don’t seem to be a lot of books out there devoted to troll-fighting 11-year-old Orthodox Jewish girls. What was the inspiration for Hereville?

Deadline pressure, of course! The website girlamatic.com — a webcomics site with “girl-friendly” comics — put out a call for submissions. So I needed something right away.

I had already been wondering why traditional heroic tales never seemed to be about Jews. What if the barrier was that historically, Jews in Europe weren’t allowed to own swords? And to put yet another barrier in the way I thought the hero should be a woman.

But I also remembered Liz Harris’ wonderful book Holy Days, which tells great stories about daily life in a Hasidic family. What a great setting for a comic book!

So these various elements mixed together in my mind, and what popped out was a story about an 11 year old girl’s quest for a sword.

Why did you decide to expand the story from the Web comic? Had you originally intended to do this?

When I began creating Hereville, I had no idea what I intended! I just made up the first two pages and submitted them to Girlamatic. And after Girlamatic accepted Hereville, I was simultaneously producing new pages, making up the story, and researching the lives of Hasidic girls. And the more I researched, the more I realized that I wanted to expand and redo the story, so that I could incorporate all I was learning about Mirka’s world into Hereville.

Please visit Diamond Bookshelf to read the rest of the interview.

And remember, information about purchasing Hereville online can be found here. Or you can get it at your local bookstore. If they’re not carrying it, please ask them to!

Great Short Animated Film — “Out of Sight”

This short, from three recent graduates of the National Taiwan University of Arts, is lovely. I also like the way the little girl is depicted — she’s a bit frightened at first, but she’s not at all depicted as helpless or incapable.