Notes from Comic-Con

I’m in the San Diego airport, waiting until it’s time for me to check in for my flight in five hours or so. (For various reasons, this made more sense than the alternatives).

So: Some random, tired notes about Comic-Con:
Continue Reading…

I’m At Comic-Con this week

I’ll be at Comic-Con in San Diego this week, starting with preview night tonight and through the end of Comic-Con on Sunday.

I’m in Artists Alley, table DD-5, a fair amount of the time. I’ll have copies of Hereville and my new short story, How To Make A Man Out Of Tin Foil, with me.

I’ve never been to Comic-Con before — which is to say, I’ve been to the comic book convention that takes place in San Diego before, but as far as I can recall I’ve never been to it since it became, you know, COMIC-CON! I’m completely intimidated by the sheer hugeness of Comic-Con, but also excited.

I’m planning to spend some time going to panels, looking at other cartoonists’ tables and trying to enjoy the con, so I won’t be at my table every minute — but I’m planning to be at my table at least a few hours a day, possibly more. In addition, I’ll be doing a Hereville signing at the Abrams booth Friday and Sunday mornings.

Comic-Con is so huge that you pretty much need a strategy to attend. I’ve decided not to try to attend any of the really BIG events — the Whedon appearance, the Matt Smith appearances, and so on — because it would require too much time spent in line.

Although seeking a chance to talk to the big celebrities can lead to extremely treasure-able memories. Winter McCloud told me a great story about getting called on to ask Kristin Chenowith a question at a panel at a previous Comic-Con. (Chenowith, who is less than five feet tall, commented, “wow, you’re as tiny as I am.”) Winter (who is not shy, and who is, like me, a big fan of musicals) asked Chenowith if she’d sing just for a few moments. The crowd erupted in applause at Winter’s request, and Winter was rewarded with this performance:

Which cover design do you like best?

These are possible covers for a short self-published comic I might have with me at Comic-Con. Please let me know which design you like best.

Thanks!

UPDATE: And a fifth option (variation on the first option):

UPDATE AGAIN: Option number six (variant on #4)

Mini-interview of Barry from TCAF

I’ve been quiet lately because I’m in Canada. I’ll post a bit about this trip once I’m home, but meanwhile here’s a short interview from last month’s trip to Canada, when I attended the Toronto Comics Arts Fest. Thanks to Good Comics for Kids for making this video!

The graphic novels I recommend in this video are:

* I Kill Giants, by Joe Kelly and J.M. Ken Nimura
* Smile, by Raina Telgemeier
* Locas, by Jaime Hernandez

Book signing in Montreal, Monday June 20th

I’ll be in Montreal, at Babar en ville (1235A Greene Ave, 514-931-0606) from 5 to 7pm on Monday, signing copies of Hereville. If you’re in town, please stop by and say hi.

This weekend: Toronto Comics Arts Fest!

I’m on my way to Toronto, where I will visit a couple of schools (yay!), hang out with some relatives, and attend the Toronto Comics Arts Fest. If you’re going to be in Toronto, please come by and say hi — the Fest, located in the Toronto Reference Library, is free to the public.

The National Post sent out a survey to all the cartoonists attending TCAF who haven’t attended before. Here’s their questions and my answers:

*****************************************************
Who are you? Why are you here?

I’m Barry Deutsch, a cartoonist from Portland, Oregon, USA (one of several Portlanders attending this year). I’m here to introduce people to my first graphic novel, Hereville, a fantasy adventure about a troll-fighting 11-year-old Orthodox Jewish girl.

Why have you never been to TCAF before? What’s wrong with you!

If you folks would hold TCAF in Portland, I’d attend every year! That’s not asking too much, now is it?

What kind of stories have you heard about TCAF?

No lie: I’ve heard it’s the best-run comic book convention on the continent.

Do you attend many comic festivals and conventions? Why are they so important?

They’re not important! Important stuff involves getting work done and paying bills and dressing in brown and very probably sitting in a room where the only sound is pens scraping across tedious government forms. Comic book festivals are for fun.

If you’re not from Toronto, what do you know about the city? If you are from Toronto, what should out-of-town guests do in their free time?

I regularly listen to Stuart McLean’s “Vinyl Cafe” while I draw. So I’m looking forward to meeting the cute and folksy types that I believe comprise 100% of Canada’s population.

What part of TCAF are you most excited about?

I’m excited that TCAF is held in a public library and is free for the public to attend. Hopefully this means that some folks who aren’t comic book fanatics like I am, but who might nonetheless enjoy reading a good graphic novel, will come see the show.

There’s a lot to see and I don’t have a lot of time, so why should I come to your table on Saturday or Sunday?

When I go to conventions, people always tell me that I have the best pitch they’ve seen at the entire show. Seriously, people often hear my pitch, and then return later dragging their friends so their friends can hear the pitch too. Even if you don’t like my comic at all, you’ll enjoy hearing my pitch.

(My publisher would appreciate it if I just casually mentioned here that a School Library Journal reviewer called Hereville “the best kid’s graphic novel of 2010, bar none” Hereville is nominated for an Eisner Award, a Nebula Award, and is the first comic book ever to win the Sydney Taylor Book Award. So if you want to read a funny, exciting, and extremely unique comic that both kids and adults will enjoy, that’s another reason to stop by my table.)

The festival is kicking-off with a panel discussion featuring Chester Brown, Seth, Adrian Tomine, and Chris Ware. I have to ask: who’s your favourite and why?

It’s impossible to say who’s the best cartoonist of that lot; they’re each beyond incredible. But of those four, I get the most enjoyment out of Seth’s comics. Seth’s work contains the precise mix of playful whimsy and mind-numbing depression that most appeals to me.

If you could spend a day with another artist attending this year’s TCAF, who would it be and why?

Aaarrgh! Too hard. It’s 2:49am and my brain can’t process a question this difficult.

What’s your most anticipated comic of the year?

The advance word on Anya’s Ghost by Vera Brosgol is incredible, and I can’t wait to read it. But the graphic novel I’m most looking forward to is Dicebox, by Jenn Lee, a 350-page graphic novel collecting her webcomic of the same name. Lee is one of very few cartoonists creating intelligent, grown-up science fiction comics, and her drawing is exquisite. Plus I love that Dicebox isn’t about some starship Captain or galactic rebels; it’s about ordinary blue-collar workers trying to get along in the universe.

This summer we’ll see Captain America, Thor, and the Green Lantern on the big screen. What comic should next make the leap to film? Who should direct it?

Chris Ware’s “Jimmy Corrigan” should become a big-budget blockbuster directed by Chris Columbus of “Home Alone” fame. It can’t miss!

What will have to happen this weekend for you to consider TCAF a success?

I’d like to sell a bunch of books, have some great conversations with fans and other cartoonists, meet the girl and or boy of my dreams, have a passionate yet tragic and ultimately doomed love affair, invent a time travel machine and have tea with Oscar Wilde, reconnect with my estranged best friend from the sixth grade, fight a duel with my mortal enemy Skelator, each of us are armed only with broken umbrellas from bad takes of “Singin’ In The Rain,” win six billion dollars and use it to buy the rights to more seasons of “Firefly,” and eat a really delicious sandwich.

*****************************************************

Stumptown report, and audio of a panel discussion

Stumptown went great! I sold all 60 copies of Hereville I had with me, chatted with many readers and cartoonists, and just generally had a swell time.

From The Beat, here’s a photo of me at my booth at Stumptown.

Thanks to Jen Vaughn, who took that photo and is also an excellent cartoonist with a series of comics about menstruation.

I also had the good fortune to be on a panel about world-building, moderated by Evan Dahm; the other panelists were Carla Speed McNeil, Jenn Manley Lee, Kel McDonald, and Larry Marder. So that was pretty awesome.

Happily, Evan made an audio recording of the panel, which you can listen to here.

Barry at Stumptown Comics Fest!

I’ll be at Stumptown Comics Fest in Portland, Oregon this weekend; look for me at table C-26 (see map below). I’ll be signing and selling copies of “Hereville” and just basically hanging out. If you’re there, please come say hi.

I’ll also be appearing on a panel on Sunday:

Worldbuilding • Sunday, April 17th • 2:00-2:45pm in Room A106
Evan Dahm moderates a discussion featuring Carla Speed McNeil, Barry Deutsch, Jenn Manley Lee, Larry Marder, and Kel McDonald, as they share the challenges and rewards of intricate, in-depth world-building for your own fictional settings.

Hope to see you there!

Character drawing from a short non-Hereville comic I’m working on

Hereville is knocked out of The Battle Of The Kids Books!

Alas, Hereville has been knocked out of the SLJ Battle of the Kid’s Books! Congratulations to Kathi Appelt’s Keeper, which won the round.

It’s hard for me to feel bad about this, though. For one thing, Keeper sounds like a terrific book (and I intend to read it). For another, Hereville was one of only 16 books published in 2010 — out of the tens of thousands of kids books published in a year — to be selected to participate in the Battle at all.

And finally, the judge for this round, Susan Patron, had this to say about Hereville:

Hereville: How Mirka Got Her Sword, a graphic novel by Barry Deutsch, must be the only book ever whose outside front cover made me laugh. “Yet Another Troll-Fighting 11-Year-Old Orthodox Jewish Girl,” it proclaims. Thick, shiny, paper painted in shades of coral, brown, black and white—changing to deep purples and grays in the scary night scenes—feel silky to the touch. Every page is vibrant with energetic pictures, dialogue, sound effects—and extremely minimal exposition.

The story plays with genres, tilting them on their sides; using incongruity, it skewers conventions. Seemingly we are in the middle of a Hansel and Gretel pastiche, a fairy tale, in which the characters sprinkle their dialogue with Yiddish words, “A klog iz mir: Woe is me!” as well as expressions like “Yaaaah!” ”Mumph!” and “Aaak!” Mirka, one daughter in a large family of sibs and step-sibs, rebels against the traditional role expected of her in the Orthodox Jewish community of Hereville. Rather than learning such “womanly arts” as knitting, she wants to fight dragons. There is lots of very clever stuff here: visual jokes such as an illustration contained within an exclamation point, table legs morphing into trees, and a deliciously horrid troll.

Wit and irony also abound in the text: a monster pig eats Mirka’s homework, Mirka and her clever, loving stepmother engage in wonderfully funny debates, and some Orthodox traditions are gently poked fun at (“preparing for all that non-working [on Shabbos] takes a lot of work!” and “In Hereville, kids aren’t allowed to have non-Jewish books. So Mirka keeps hers hidden”). I was hugely entertained, even as one tender scene brought tears to my eyes.

How can I possibly feel bad about that? 😀

(Info about purchasing Hereville can be found here.)