“Hereville is the culmination of several positive kidlit trends….”

Laurel at From The Mixed Up Files, a blog about books for middle schoolers, interviews Heidi Estrin, the Vice-President of the Association of Jewish Libraries, about Jewish books for kids.

Laurel is a Hereville fan and gets a bit silly. 😀

QUESTION: what trends do you see currently? Any good new books we should be watching for?

ANSWER: Watch for Hereville: How Mirka Got Her Sword by Barry Deutsch, a graphic novel whose tagline is “Yet another troll-fighting 11-year-old Orthodox Jewish girl.” (at this point, the interviewer squeals because she’s so in love with this book!) This book succeeds on so many levels! It’s got drama, Jewish customs, humor, Jewish ways of thinking, magic, and super-expressive art! (interviewer nods insanely) It effortlessly draws any reader into the Orthodox setting without feeling educational or preachy. It creates its own rich Jewish world with no need for victimhood as a source of identity or as a dramatic device. In a way, this book is the culmination of several positive kidlit (and Jewishlit) trends: multiculturalism and normalizing of ethnic characters, respecting children’s intelligence, experimental formats, and strong female leads.

Thanks so much, Heidi and Laurel!

I really loved that Heidi said Hereville “creates its own rich Jewish world with no need for victimhood as a source of identity or as a dramatic device.” That was definitely one of my goals for the book.

(If you’d like a copy of Hereville, you can find information here.)

Preview: Page 23

Here’s a preview page from “Hereville.” These preview pages can have spoilers, so don’t look if you’d rather not see!

(Info on buying Hereville is here.)

Continue Reading…

Barry Interviewed at “The Author’s Tent”

The Author’s Tent, a blog specializing in author interviews, was kind enough to interview me about Hereville. Amazingly, Hereville was the first graphic novel the interviewer had ever read, but that didn’t stop her from asking good questions. Check it out!

Sintel

A fourteen minute computer-animated short that I enjoyed. Interestingly, the filmmakers used open-source 3D software.

I should warn you that if you only like cute things, with no sad side to the story, then do not watch this video.

Kirkus Reviews Loves Hereville! “Undoubtedly one of the cleverest graphic novels of the year”

In a starred review (“A star is assigned to books of unusual merit”), Kirkus Reviews writes:

Like all 11-year-old Orthodox Jewish girls, ebullient Mirka must face a six-armed troll to avoid becoming his dinner and obtain a dragon-slaying sword–wait, what? This utterly ingenious graphic novel spins the darling yarn of Mirka, who finds tasks like knitting dull and tedious. She keeps herself amused while stitching by conversing with her stepmother, Fruma, a top-notch debater who can adeptly argue her way out of any dispute. A magical encounter leads Mirka to discover a witch who sends her on a quest to acquire a sword perfect for a fledgling dragon-slayer, just the role Mirka envisions for herself. When Mirka must battle a fierce troll, the skills she’s learned from Fruma prove to be not so entirely useless.

Deutsch creates a beautiful, detail-rich world with a muted, ethereal palette that masterfully blends faith and fantasy with astounding harmony. Each page conveys fluid motion through his panel layout and text-bubble placement; readers can easily grasp and empathize with Mirka’s feelings. Undoubtedly one of the cleverest graphic novels of the year; let’s hope this isn’t the last of Mirka.

That’s definitely the sort of review that improves my week. 🙂 Thanks, Kirkus!

Information about buying Hereville can be found here.

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.)

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!

Great Short Animated Film — “Out of Sight”

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.

“Hereville” sighted in a bookstore! Photographic evidence!

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!

Robin Drawing

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.