On October 6, 2010 · Comments Off on 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.
On October 5, 2010 · Comments Off on 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.)
On October 4, 2010 · Comments Off on 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!
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.
UPDATE 3: Whoops, it’s not The Bookery! My bad — I’ve been to Ithaca only a few times, and I got the names confused.
The bookstore that may have been the first in the nation to sell a copy of Hereville (and was certainly the first to sell one to my sister!) is BUFFALO STREET BOOKS. So thank you, BUFFALO STREET BOOKS. I promise to stop in and buy something next time I visit my sister!
(I’ve also been in The Bookery, IIRC, and it’s also a very nice story — but it only has used books, and it doesn’t have a graphic novel section.)
UPDATE 2: Or was Anderson’s Bookshop in Illinois the first? We may never know!
UPDATE: The possibly first-in-the-nation bookstore to sell Hereville is The Bookery. I’ve been in the Bookery, and it’s a great bookstore, with a graphic novel selection that emphasizes really good independent comics.
* * *
Although the official release date isn’t until November first, apparently a few bookstores managed to get copies well in advance of that… including one in Ithaca, New York, where my sister Allison found (and bought) a copy on the shelf! She emailed me a photo:
That’s my nephew Silas and my niece Jemma holding a copy and generally acting adorable. This is all very exciting!
Here’s a drawing of Robin I did as a gift for my friend Becca. The Tim Drake version (Becca’s favorite). I really don’t draw superheroes often; I’m guessing that the last time I drew Robin, I was a teenager myself.
Robin was originally created by Bob Kane, Bill Finger and Jerry Robinson. Tim Drake, a later version of Robin, was created by Marv Wolfman and Pat Broderick.
Raw Ink Online, an education site, writes:
Deutsch has two very distinct characteristics working through Mirka that will make this book one teachers will want to add to their bookshelves as a stand-alone, an independent read, or as a unit covering the Hero’s Journey. For one, we have an eleven-year-old girl as hero. . .in a graphic novel. Mirka finds her place among the graphic novel heroes and holds it with her passion and determination to reach her goals. Secondly, we have a Orthodox Jew as main character providing responsible reporting and insight from Deutsch to blend Mirka’c culture into the story. The characters use Yiddish phrases (and Deutsch is kind in providing a gutter glossary to define the terms which he stops doing after the first time, an approach to context that will be welcome to teachers building vocabulary through introduction and context/repetition). Further, the reader is able to peek into the Jewish culture by viewing Mirka in her familial context. The reader sees Mirka knitting, caring for family members, discussing issues of marriage and family identity, and preparing for and observing the Sabbath.
Fans of graphic novels will love what Deutsch has done with the illustrations in Hereville: How Mirka Got Her Sword. Deutsch completely violates any sense of what Scott McCloud tells us is the “gutter” in graphic novels. Character heads appear in multiples. A pig takes up an entire page. Character dialogue sometimes reads like stream of conscious presentation with word bubbles dripping down the page. It’s an absolutely beautiful graphic novel in this respect.
Thanks to Paul W. Hankins, who wrote that review! Click through to read the whole review.
The webcomic “Least I Could Do” posted this amazingly sexist cartoon today:
(It was too wide to fit onto a regular blog, so I reformatted it a bit.)
Emmy Cicierega suggested that people try repairing the cartoon with some strategic relettering, and posted a version with oddly tweaked art and blank balloons.
Eat, Drink and Be Scary added words to Emmy’s version, which you can read here.
Maxwell Pacheco posted his own version, here.
And here’s my version (using the original art, not Emmy’s version, because the shrunken head in Emmy’s version freaked me out!)
And finally, in case any of y’all want to get in on the act, here’s a blank version, formatted so it’ll fit onto blogs.
Or just leave your ideas in the comments. 🙂
Edited to add: Check out this one, too.
On September 13, 2010 · Comments Off on “Hereville” Reviewed on Educating Alice
Educating Alice, a blog specializing in children’s literature (among other things), writes:
While no kayaks show up in Barry Deutsch’s remarkable graphic novel Hereville: How Mirka Got Her Sword, plenty of other things do — a pig, a witch, some nasty bullies, a wise step-mother, knitting, and that sword. I knew nothing about this book, but after reading Betsy Bird’s rave review, I requested it pronto. (Thank you, Jason Wells at Abrams, for sending it so quickly!) I’m not sure I can add much to Betsy’s review other than to say — it is all that and more. This graphic novel is bright and fun and clever, the characters real and multi-faceted, and the art spectacular. Deutsch uses comic vernacular perfectly — expressions, movement, panels, speech bubbles — all in the service of his warm, wise, and wonderful story.
Kayaks…. hmmmm.
Click here to read the rest of the review.
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