“How Mirka Got Her Sword,” Page 29

This is one of my favorite pages; for my tastes, the layout is very successful. A lot of cartoonists don’t like drawing people talking, but it’s actually my favorite thing to draw.

This is the first page of the comic without Mirka on it, I think.

More “Hereville” Title Page Sketches!

For folks who buy paper copies of Hereville and are wondering what you get if you spend the extra for a title page sketch, here are a few examples….

I’ve been drawing on computer so long, drawing with markers on paper feels very odd. 🙂

I’m purposely not erasing all of my pencil construction lines; I always love seeing those in other people’s work (I have a Walt Kelly cartoon on my wall in which his blue pencil lines are very clear, and even show where he changed his mind about panel order).

More title page sketches under the fold…. I’d be very interested in knowing which ones people like and don’t like.

Continue Reading…

“Hereville” Nominated For Russ Manning Award!

Woo-hoo!

The Manning award has been given out annually at the San Diego Comic-Con since 1982. It is presented to a comics artist who, early in his or her career, shows a superior knowledge and ability in the art of creating comics. It is named for Russ Manning, the artist best known for his work on the Tarzan and Star Wars newspaper strips and the Magnus, Robot Fighter comic book.

Past winners of the Manning award include Scott McCloud, Steve Rude and Jeff Smith, so as you might imagine I’m very excited and pleased to have been nominated. (As Rachel points out, I’m the only nominee this year who’s small-time enough not to have a publisher.)

The other four nominees this year are:

* Fred Chao, writer/artist, Johnny Hiro (AdHouse)
* Cathy Malkasian, writer/artist, Percy Gloom (Fantagraphics)
* Mukesh Singh, artist, Shadow Hunter (Virgin Comics)
* Christian Slade, Corgi (Top Shelf)

(Links swiped from The Comics Reporter).

I Will Be At MoCCA, In New York City, June 7 and 8

I’ll be attending MoCCA, at the Cartoonists With Attitude table, selling copies of “Hereville.” If you’re there, please come say hi! I attended MoCCA last year and was favorably impressed; it’s a very fun convention, much better (and more alternative-comics-friendly) than most comic book conventions.

MoCCA is in the Puck Building, 295 Lafayette Street in Soho. I’ll be at table A54, on the first floor.

“How Mirka Got Her Sword,” Page 28

Hereville is back in print!

The second printing of Hereville will be delivered on Thursday!

So just a reminder — you can order them here, either for $15 for an unsketched copy, or $30 for a copy with an original sketch on the title page. Here’s an example of one with a sketch:

You can also buy an electronic copy for $5.

ComicMix Review of “Hereville”

My pal Elayne Riggs has posted a nice review of “Hereville” on ComicMix, a major comics website. Really interesting stuff. Here’s a sample:

I don’t think we’re meant to derive a specific setting as much as a general feeling, and on that count Hereville succeeds marvelously. We become privy to a whole culture — one with which, given my upbringing, I could pretty easily identify — and family interrelationships, as well as universal experiences like bravery, ambition, cleverness and dreaming big.

Our protagonist, Mirka Herschberg, doesn’t seem to crave too much of the outside world anyway. We know she wants to vanquish evil in the way of the knights of eld — first she decides she wants to slay dragons, and then later her aim is to battle a troll — but what she doesn’t want to do seems ambiguous. She dislikes the “womanly arts” her stepmother (not an evil stepmother, by the way, a very welcome change from the usual in these sorts of stories) attempts to teach her, skills which, naturally, she will grow to need as the narrative reaches its climax. On the other hand, she accepts unquestioningly the bigger picture, that of the severe gender separation within the Jewish culture as a whole.

And I think back to when I was an 11-year-old tomboy, and I think, “So did I.” Sure, I wanted to play baseball and have lawn-mowing as one of my chores instead of doing the dishes or vacuuming, but I hadn’t yet arrived at the point where I’d find myself in a couple of years, finally questioning the morning prayer where men thanked God for not making them female and women substituted that prayer with one which thanked God for “making me as I am” (i.e., dutifully and even joyfully accepting second-class citizenship). Mirka’s not meant to be a bigger-picture “why don’t we have a feminist haggadah” and “heck with it, women should be on the bima and maybe, just maybe, God isn’t actually male” revolutionary yet. She’s still navigating the treacherous waters of pre-adolescent adventure.

At the same time, she’s able to participate in and marvel at what she considers to be a pretty comforting lifestyle from her point of view. Sure, she may not wish to sew or cook, and she cleans the house and polishes the candlesticks somewhat grudgingly, but she absolutely delights in observing the Sabbath with relatives and friends. She enjoys the community it brings her, the intellectual opportunities, the specialness. There’s a lot of the 11-year-old me there, except Mirka doesn’t seem to fall asleep in the pews at the Shabbos service the way I always did.

Elayne also has an interesting discussion of the art, which I always appreciate. But to read that, you’ll have to go read the whole thing.

“How Mirka Got Her Sword,” Page 27

I may have overdone panel 3, but gosh it was fun to draw. 🙂 That panel — and really this entire sequence — was very influenced by Dave Sim’s comic book “Cerebus,” and in particular “Church and State.”

“Blogger News Network” Reviews “Hereville”

Bob Hayes — a friend of mine from college days, (mumble mumble) years ago — has posted a very kind review of “Hereville” on “Blogger News Network.”

This is not a Marvel comic book filled with iron-jawed superheroes, though Mirka yearns for heroics – dreaming of dragonslaying as she tends her younger brother, knits with her stepmother, and prepares the Shabbat meal with her family. “Hereville” explores themes more adult than its protagonist might wish for in a comic book – primarily, coming of age, the role of women in traditional societies, a subtle exploration of how communities on the margins of a larger society nonetheless view themselves as the center, with their own set of outcasts and marginal figures, and the struggle faced by an independent, somewhat nonconformist young girl faced with a social role not of her choice or to her liking.

The story of Mirka begins with a friendly argument, and climaxes in a debate whose outcome could mean death to Mirka – or could, if we didn’t presume from the title that our heroine would prevail in the end. In between, Mirka saves an outcast woman (a “witch”, according to the local boys) from a beating, and is offered a reward for her service – a reward that takes the form of a quest to retrieve a sword from the local troll. But before Mirka can battle the troll, she must keep her brother from ratting out her plans to their ever-protective parents, celebrate the Shabbat, and find a way to get out of the house at night without being detected. These obstacles and travails are drawn with wit and warmth, and the reader is drawn into the oddball world of “Hereville” without a backwards glance. (A world of trolls, witches, electric lights and vacuum cleaners? Don’t ask questions – just enjoy it!)

There’s more to the review, including some mild criticism and mild spoilers, at BNN.

“How Mirka Got Her Sword,” Page 26

I love layouts like this, with a big figure superimposed over the panels. But I don’t often find places in my own comics where they feel “right” to me as storytelling devices.