Michael Burstein article in The Boston Pheonix: “One of the most charming graphic novels published this year”

Michael A. Burstein, a science fiction writer whose stories have been nominated for multiple Hugos and a Nebula, writes:

Hereville is not your typical graphic novel, even from the alternative-comics press. Hereville’s population consists almost entirely of an Orthodox Jewish community. You might think that Deutsch himself is religious, but that turns out not to be the case: he’s an atheist who had a typical American Jewish childhood. “Our family wasn’t very observant when I was a kid. I went to Hebrew school, and we observed Passover and the High Holy Days. I also attended a Jewish summer camp, Camp Modin in Maine. But that was about it.”

Despite his lack of religious observance, he professes an affinity for Jewish culture, and he wants to see more visible Jewish characters in pop culture. Fifteen years ago, he read Liz Harris’s book Holy Days, about Hasidic life in Brooklyn, and it stayed with him. “Setting the story in a fictional Orthodox community lets me research traditional Jewish life, which is enormously fulfilling and also gives Mirka even greater barriers to overcome.

Read the whole article on the Boston Pheonix’s website.

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