On February 14, 2011 · Comments Off on Interviewed by Laurel Snyder!
The children’s book writer and general source of awesomeness Laurel Snyder interviewed me on her blog. Here’s a sample of the interview:
Laurel: Do you think books can change the world?
Barry: Definitely, but only the way a conversation can change the world, or a speech, or a TV show. Everything we do changes the world somehow, but usually the changes are very tiny. So to make a big change you need thousands of people (and thousands of books), all pushing to change the world in some direction. A good example is, are there going to be some engaging and interesting Jewish girl characters in kids books? If just one or two books do that, the answer is “no,” but if a whole bunch of us do it, the answer becomes “yes,” and that will make a small but consequential difference in the lives of a lot of Jewish girl readers who want to see themselves reflected in books.
Please go check it out.
On February 9, 2011 · Comments Off on Sketches of Fat Guys for Fat People Art Week
It’s Fat People Art Week! A few contributions….
I’m trying to learn how to paint in Photoshop, and I was playing with some more painterly approaches in the drawing below (although I still didn’t give up the crutch of line art!). Still a long way to go…
And here’s the exact same drawing, except I took the colors and just smudged the heck out of them:
Another fat guy drawing, this one finished in my more typical style:
And a third, this time playing around with cross-hatching:
On January 30, 2011 · Comments Off on Read “Modest Medusa”
Jake Richmond, the cartoonist who (among a zillion other things) colors “Hereville,” has started a new webcomic, called “Modest Medusa,” which is genuinely funny, charming and nice to look at. The first strip is here, but I’ll post a sample:
Go check it out!
On January 20, 2011 · Comments Off on Brigid Alverson Interviewed In The Comics Reporter
There’s been no greater booster of Hereville than comics journalist Brigid Alverson, who is interviewed here by Tom Spurgeon at The Comics Reporter. Brigid — who has interviewed me more than once, and who I like a lot — was nice enough to mention Hereville:
SPURGEON: Can you talk for a bit about one or two of the comics you thought were great this year? What makes a comic great as opposed to merely good? Is there something that tends to connect great works in comics in your mind?
ALVERSON: A great comic crosses over a boundary in my brain so that I’m not just reading it, I’m experiencing it on some deeper level. Hereville was the best example of that, and I feel like a broken record because I talk about it a lot, but it really was the standout comic for me. It has to do with the way that the creator, Barry Deutsch, creates a world and very quickly draws you into it, so you are getting inside the characters’ heads. There’s a scene in there where the main character, who is 11, is solving a math problem, and as I read it, I was solving it in the same way. Many of the sequences were like that. It’s as if I hallucinated this book rather than just reading it.
Wow! Reading that made my day. Thanks, Brigid. (And click through to read the entire interview — she talks about lots of stuff other than Hereville!)
(Information about buying your own copy of Hereville can be found here.)
On January 19, 2011 · Comments Off on Beautiful dance animation
I love this little animation, a collaboration between an animator, a choreographer, and several dancers.
Thought of You from Ryan J Woodward on Vimeo.
There’s also a making-of video.
On January 13, 2011 · Comments Off on The First Hereville Fanfic!
Fanfic writer Jade Lennox has great taste — just look at her list of fandoms, which includes Slings and Arrows (my favorite TV show), Buffy the Vampire Slayer (another favorite of mine), Castle Waiting (a wonderful comic book by Linda Medley which I think most Hereville readers would enjoy), Love and Rockets, Wonderfalls, Farscape, Veronica Mars… I have to admit, by “great taste,” I just mean that she (he?) likes a lot of comics and TV that I like.
Anyway, I was thrilled when Jade Lennox recently wrote “Who Needs A Gallows When You Have A Sword?,” a Hereville short story featuring Mirka, Fruma, Zindel, Rochel, Gittel, and a brand-new character, Fruma’s brother Feter Gedalya. It’s well-written and fun to read, and in some ways it parallels thought I’ve had about Hereville characters (I’ve often thought that Mirka would resist the pressure to dress as Queen Esther!).
By the way, if you find the format or font difficult to read, click on the “Hide Creator’s Style” link near the top of the webpage, towards the right, and that should fix things.
Today is World Fair Use Day, which makes it an especially auspicious day to link to some fanfic. My thanks to Jade Lennox, for writing such a terrific story. And to my friend TeaOtter, who requested a Hereville story.
On January 12, 2011 · Comments Off on Barry Interviewed on “Hey, Women! Comics!” (And why having good female characters matters.)
The blog “Hey, Women! Comics!” has posted an interview with me.
Here’s a bit from the interview; there’s more at the link.
HWC: What sort of woman do you think Hereville best appeals to?
BD: I’m not sure! I’ve noticed that most of Hereville’s reviewers are female, though, so there must be some appeal there.
I intended Hereville to be a feminist book – not in the sense of being over-the-top or preachy, but int he sense of writing a book with a kick-ass but not perfect female protagonist, and with a lot of female characters who actually matter to the story (especially Mirka’s not-at-all-evil stepmother, Fruma.) I often read books to my two honorary nieces, Sydney and Maddox, and they’re always very aware of if a book has girl characters they can relate to or not; without any prompting from me, they’re always asking “is this one a girl?” and pointing to the female characters and saying “I’m her!” So I think it’s important.
I think any reader who likes fun, character-based fantasy stories could enjoy Hereville.
On January 11, 2011 · Comments Off on Hereville interview on The Book of Life!
Heidi Estrin — a librarian who knows more about Jewish kids books than pretty much anyone on Earth — interviewed me for her podcast, “The Book of Life.” It was a really fun interview for me (and only the second interview I’ve done face-to-face, rather than via email or phone), and considering the depth of her knowledge, I’m super-flattered that Heidi has been supporting Hereville.
You can listen to the interview here, on Heidi’s website. It’s about 19 minutes long.
The Sydney Taylor Book Award is given once a year by the Association of Jewish Libraries for the best Jewish kid’s book. It’s given in three categories: younger readers, older readers, and teen readers.
The AJL blog has just announced the winners, and Hereville is this year’s winner in the “books for older readers” category!
This is the first time a graphic novel has ever won a Sydney Taylor, incidentally. I’m sitting here grinning from ear to ear.
My deepest thanks to the AJL committee — I am honored and thrilled. And moziltov to my fellow winners, Howard Schwartz and Kristina Swarner for their book Gathering Sparks (younger readers), and Dana Reinhardt for her book The Things a Brother Knows (teen readers).
From the AJL blog:
Deutsch will receive the 2011 gold medal in the Sydney Taylor Book Award’s Older Readers Category for Hereville: How Mirka Got Her Sword, published by Amulet Books, an imprint of Abrams Books. This is the first graphic novel to win the Award. Committee member Aimee Lurie noted, “Mirka is a clever, headstrong and imaginative heroine who will appeal to a wide audience. Teens who feel like they don’t fit in will have no trouble relating to her balancing what is best for her family versus her desire to fight dragons. Grounded in her religious beliefs, she is willing to put her fantasies aside to celebrate Shabbat. The illustrations strike the perfect balance of showing a realistic Orthodox community, while creating the perfect backdrop for a fairytale.” […]
A blog tour, featuring interviews with winning authors and illustrators, will take place in early February, with participation from a wide range of children’s literature, family interest, and Jewish blogs.
What a way to start a Monday morning!
On January 7, 2011 · Comments Off on A Bunch Of Fifty Dollar Sketches
I have an ongoing offer to do a $50 dollar sketch for people who buy a copy of Hereville from me. It’s fun for me to do, and I think people enjoy having a one-of-a-kind drawing done just for them.
With only a couple of exceptions, these were drawn entirely on computer, and then printed out with a high-quality art printer. (This is the same way I draw Hereville; I hardly ever draw directly on paper nowadays!). Some of these were requests (“draw Mirka in Tom Baker Doctor Who’s scarf,” for example, or “draw Mirka playing hockey”), others were just me drawing whatever I felt like (which turned out at least twice to be Mirka in a tree).
Click on any of the drawings to see them bigger.
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