On November 29, 2010 · Comments Off on Christian Lipski’s Many Articles About Hereville
I’ve been neglecting the Hereville blogging for the last few weeks, and I have a bunch of articles to link to!
Today, I’ll link to a series of four (!) articles by Christian Lipski in The Portland Examiner. First, there’s Christian’s detailed report of the Premiereville event at Powell’s on Hawthorne. (I posted some photos of the event here.)
Although he got 100 details right, Christian did get one small fact wrong — my friend Jenn Frederick, who read the part of Gittel at Premiereville, isn’t my sister. But Christian’s article has made me realize that when I eventually do a reading in Ithaca, New York, I have got to make my real-life older sister Allison Andersen read the part of Mirka’s older sister Gittel!
The Portland Examiner also published a three-part interview Christian conducted with me. Unlike most interviewers, who interview me by email (thus saving themselves the transcribing work), Christian interviewed me by phone — he says that the results of phone interviews are extra-lively enough to justify the extra work.
Part one of the interview (entitled “An Unfinished End“), in which we discuss how Hereville was sold, can be found here. Part two, about Hereville and sexism, and also about the joy of huge open mouths, can be found here. And part three, about the perils of using photo reference when drawing, and about the next Hereville book, can be found here.
Here’s a little bit from part two:
…in Hasidic culture, the boys and girls are so separated there are so many years where essentially, other than their immediate male family, they’re growing up in an all-girl society. Everyone they socialize with other than their brothers and their father is female. Stephanie Levine, an anthropologist, wrote a book about the lives of teen Hasidic girls, and argues that kind of as a result of this separation they are incredibly spirited and in some ways more free than girls growing up in mainstream society. The point where having a boyfriend becomes important and you’re dressing and acting in a certain way so that the boys like you gets stalled for years in Hasidic culture.
A big thank you for Christian Lipski for all this writing about Hereville!
On November 26, 2010 · Comments Off on Courtroom Memo Re: Bris (And Judge’s Response)
Despite what this memo implies, typically Jews celebrate the birth of girls as much as the birth of boys — although without the bris, there’s more scheduling flexibility, as I understand it. But still worth posting, especially for Kimba Woods’ scribbled response.
(Via.)
Kirkus Reviews’ annual “Best Books for Children and Teens” has come out, and Hereville is listed as a “Best” in THREE categories — “Graphic Novel,” “Fantasy and Science Fiction,” and “Fiction With Great Girl Characters.”
Within the book industry, Kirkus has a reputation for being very tough reviewers, so these listings mean a lot.
Congratulations to all the other Kirkus “best” listees as well! It’s an honor to be in company like this. I’ll single out three folks I’m lucky enough to have met in real life: Tom Angleberger for The Strange Case of Origami Yoda (another triple listee! And a book with an even more unique premise than Hereville’s), Raina Telgemeier for Smile , and Hope Larson for Mercury!
My dad died today.
I wish he had lived longer.
But Dad was an amazing man, a force of nature (as my aunt Myra said). He did so many things. In his medical career, he was the the American dream come to life, leveraging his empathy with patients and his business talent and his awe-inspiring energy for endless hard work into a high climb through the economic classes. In his politics, Dad was too wise, and maybe too sweet-hearted, to expect others to bootstrap themselves the way he did.
My Dad loved Judaism with a passion, studying hard and then just as passionately teaching what he knew to others. He loved a good joke, and — as my email inbox can attest — many not-so-good jokes. He wrote poetry and loved music, especially the music of Bob Dylan, which he knew like an encyclopedia. Sometimes it’s hard for me to see my father in myself, but I look at his Dylan collection — countless CDs, books about, books of poems — and inwardly I see the large wall of comic books in my home, and I know our venn diagram circles are overlapping.
Dad was enormously, unfailingly, almost ridiculously generous to people who needed his help. My mother said that the only thing that ever truly made him unhappy was a problem he couldn’t fix. Isn’t that a wonderful way to be remembered?
He loved cooking. He loved good wine. He gave me more second chances in my life than I can count. He was so, so proud of my book. He loved his friends (who have gathered around my mother in the last few days like the warmest, most protective blanket imaginable). He loved his family.
He loved me and my sister and her husband and his two beautiful grandchildren. Most of all, he loved my mother.
The final diagnosis came less than a week ago, and I wish there had been more time for Dad to say goodbyes. But he died in his sleep, looking peaceful, surrounded by his family, Bob Dylan playing on the stereo. Nicely done, Dad.
God, I wish he had lived longer. He should have lived longer. But my Dad was a great person who lived — who built — a great life, not just for himself but for so many around him. And that’s something I’ll remember with great joy. Which is what a life like my Dad’s deserves.
Photo: Larry Deutsch and Toby Hirschberg, who would later be Toby Deutsch, in 1959.
For my money, few comic books has been as thrilling and interesting as Dave Sim’s Cerebus — and no other comic has been as infuriating and disappointing in the end. Here are some of my favorite covers, drawn by Sim and Gerhard. (Sim does the figures and lettering, Gerhard does backgrounds, objects and colors).
 Issue 87. The cover, depicting two characters falling off a cliff during a blizzard, is lovely in its own right. I liked it even better once I realized that it was a parody of Frank Miller’s Dark Knight cover — but Sim and Gerhard’s version looks better.
 Issue 123. I love this cover portrait of a character who seemed simple, but turned out to have many sides, some of them quite ugly.
 Issue 140, one of many nice Cerebus covers in this period featuring small figures in front of amazing Gerhard drawings of architecture. This cover stands out to me because of the subtle but perfect body language; Sebastian sick and exhausted and facing a long climb still to go, and Robbie so worried for his friend and eager to help.
 Issue 206. I wanted to include a cover from “Guys,” because I really liked the way that the covers were just additional pages in the comic, and fit into the paperbook book collection seamlessly — but are still lovely cover designs in and of themselves. Also, these covers feature Sim drawing in his Drucker-influenced caricature style, my favorite of Sim’s drawing styles.
 Issue 96, probably my favorite of any cover to an individual Cerebus issue. This was the second of a series of five covers featuring tight close-ups of Cerebus, all drawn in a rough cross-hatched style. It’s a powerful image, and a great use of cropping to create drama.
Then there are my two favorite phone book covers:
 High Society. A stunning pen-and-ink drawing of a small Cerebus climbing the steps to an enormous hotel. Click on the image to see it larger, or see a huge, high-quality scan on Cerebusfangirl’s Flickr page.
 Click on it to see it bigger! As I said, I love Dave Sim in his Mort Drucker influenced mode, and the huge crowd scene on this cover certainly gives me a lot of that. A zillion elements — the insane crowd, the overwhelming mountain and architecture, and the little tiny Cerebus making huge gestures on top of the building — are held together by Sim’s solid design sense, and form a perfect illustration for the story inside.
 This is a wrap-around cover, by the way. I couldn’t find a really great scan of the whole wrap-around, but here’s the best I did find (click on it to see it larger).
I don’t think this is a cover, but while looking for Cerebus covers, I came across this impressive painting by Sim and Gerhard of Cerebus having a nightmare. And I have no idea where the painting came from! So if you know, please leave a comment.
On November 11, 2010 · Comments Off on Another drawing video!
Here’s another video of me drawing Mirka, this time at 20x actual speed.
I will be appearing at Mockingbird Books in Seattle tomorrow (Thursday the 11th) at 6:30pm. I’ll be presenting a slideshow about Hereville (including a reading), answering questions, and signing books. If you’re in Seattle, please come out and see me.
 Scott McCloud very nicely mentions Hereville on his blog. (I’d urge y’all to read Scott’s comics, but I assume you already have, right? Right?)
One reader emailed me from a Therapy Center simply because she’d heard there was a comic explaining Crohn’s Disease (there is; it was a 24-hour comic by Tom Humberstone who suffers from the condition). Crohn’s disease affects between 400,000 and 600,000 people in North America alone (thanks, Wikipedia). Why the Hell WASN’T there a comic about Crohn’s disease until now??
Whole markets can be created out of thin air when the right subject strikes. […] The beauty of this kind of outreach is that it only adds to the base of comics readers, and rarely do these efforts cannibalize each other. Barry Deutsch’s fantastic orthodox Jewish adventure Hereville isn’t competing for readers with the Bertrand Russell stories in Logicomix, or with XKCD, or with Persepolis.  Each one is its own little community of readers, some of whom may have never read a comic before, but ALL of whom are now one comic deeper into this medium we’d all like to see grow.
Interestingly enough, it turns out there are at least two comics about Crohn’s disease, as someone immediately pointed out in Scott’s comments. As Scott and everyone else knows, there are a number of famous Jewish-themed graphic novels. But I was surprised to discover that there are four five new Jewish graphic novels just in Fall 2010!
A reporter from The Jewish Journal emailed me about my appearance at the Miami Book Fair later this month, and one of his questions was what makes Hereville distinct from the dozen or so other Jewish books also being presented at the Miami Book Fair this year.
I was all set to answer “well, as the only graphic novel blah blah blah,” but fortunately I checked what the other books were first. Turns out Hereville is just one of three Jewish-themed graphic novels at the Miami Book Fair! The other two are Vanessa Davis’ Make Me A Woman (haven’t read it yet, but the sample pages I’ve seen are beyond fabulous, and I can’t wait to read it)  and Anne Frank: The Authorized Anne Frank House Graphic Biography (haven’t heard much about it yet).
In addition, there’s Sarah Glidden’s How To Understand Israel In Sixty Days Or Less, which is being released today. (I’ve read a chapter of this, and I’m looking forward to reading the whole book.)
A year ago, I would have agreed with Scott that a Jewish-themed graphic novel would appeal to an under-served market. But four five Jewish-themed graphic novels, all coming out not just in the same year but in the same season of the same year — that seems like a lot, doesn’t it?
Or are there always this many coming out, and I’m only noticing it now because one of the books is my own?
 In the end, Scott is right. All four five of these graphic novels are very different, and have the potential to bring new readers to the medium. Although I hope there’s some crossover (i.e., I’d love it if their readers would check Hereville out, and vice versa), I very much doubt we’re poaching each other’s readers.
Still, I’m kind of surprised that no one’s organized a panel at some con featuring all four books. Sarah, Vanessa, Ernie, Aaron, Sharon, are you folks coming to Stumptown in April? Let me know, I’ll see if I can organize a panel for us. 😛
UPDATE: When I first posted this, I forgot about The Comic Torah! Sorry about that, Aaron and Sharon. So there are five Jewish-themed graphic novels out this season, not “only” four as I had thought.
On November 9, 2010 · Comments Off on Preview: The First 15 Pages Of Hereville
Click here to read a preview of the first fifteen pages of Hereville!
The Hereville premiere at Powell’s — or “Premiereville,” as Sara Ryan dubbed it on twitter — went very well. Almost 40 people came (which the Powell’s employees told me was very good for a first-time author), people seemed to enjoy the slideshow, and happily my head did not explode at any point during the proceedings.
Jennifer Frederick and Dan Pooley were nice enough to take photos, which Jenn has posted on Facebook. Here are some of the pictures!
Here I am, talking to a whole bunch of people. Notice, again, that my head has not exploded. This was a matter of some concern before the event.
Being very lazy, I asked a few of my friends to play parts during the reading portion of the show. (It’s hard to see in this photo, but panels were being projected on screen to go with the reading). Sydney (nearly 7 years old) read Zindel’s lines, Jenn (aka Bean, somewhat over 7 years old) read Gittel’s lines, and Flora, who volunteered from the audience to read Rochel’s lines (9 years old). Not in this photo: Brad Rosman (wise beyond his years) read the part of the pig with panache, and I (barely 18 years old! Really!) read Mirka’s lines. All the guest readers did a great job!
Sydney prepared for the reading by memorizing all her lines! We were all very impressed. She also contributed a crackerjack impression of a squeaking gate. Flora did a wonderful job reading, and only stumbled over one word, “gentile.” Her mom quipped from the audience “she’s never heard that word before because we’re Jewish.”
More pics — including photos of the cosplayers — after the jump!
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