2011 Eisner Nominations – No big deal.

The 2011 Eisner nominations are out… This is no big deal. I can take it or leave it. I mean, it’s only the comic book industry’s biggest award, and Will Eisner is only one of my favorite artists EVER, and I DID take Eisner’s class at SVA, but it’s not like I care or any–

What’s that?

Hereville made the nom list, you say?

Oh.

Well.

No biggie.

Er, pardon me just a moment.

As I was saying, nothing to get excited about.

Hereville in the Jewish Daily Forward

Nice article about Hereville in the Jewish Daily Forward, one of the preeminent Jewish publications in the USA. Here’s a quote from the article:

Mirka’s life as a Hasidic Jew is a fundamental part of her character, but no superfluous attention is called to her religion.

“I definitely don’t want to write a textbook, but painlessly without lecturing people, give readers the impression of how Mirka’s life feels to Mirka,” Deutsch explained.

One of the most effective ways he accomplishes this is with the inclusion of Shabbat in the story.
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Immediately after being charged with her quest, rather than set out, Mirka rushes home to celebrate Shabbat. For the next nine pages the action of the book is completely halted and the Sabbath is observed; its traditions described in detail. “The reason I have the story line pretty much stop dead and then pick up like snap when Shabbos is over,” Deutsch explained, “is because you’re supposed to put away your weekday concerns and not let them interfere with Shabbos, and I thought it was the most direct way of communicating that to the reader.”

“It’s a break from the other things going on and hopefully a really joyful break because of how special Shabbos time is to Mirka.”

Mirka’s sense of religious duty and the joy she takes in it, combined with her adventure-seeking personality, makes her a compelling character in children’s literature.

The catch line on “Hereville”’s cover reads, “Yet Another Troll-Fighting 11-Year-Old Orthodox Jewish Girl.” Though meant to be tongue-in-cheek, in many ways Deutsch’s character is just that.

By normalizing the rhythm and values of Jewish life, rather than singling them out as a topic for discussion, he manages to make Mirka just another adventure seeking pre-teen … who just so happens to be Jewish.

Read the whole article here.

Many thanks to Laurie Kamens, the author of the article, who was a delight to talk to.

Bank Street College’s Best Children’s Books Of The Year List

Bank Street College of Education Children’s Book Committee has released its annual Best Children’s Books Of The Year list. I’m happy to say that not only is Hereville on the list, it’s one of the relatively few to receive a starred listing, for “outstanding merit.”

Another Portland Opera Drawing: The Bewitched Child

As I said in yesterday’s post, Portland Opera was kind enough to let me and other area cartoonists view their latest production, a double bill of The Spanish Hour and The Bewitched Child.

My previous drawing was from The Spanish Hour; this one is from The Bewitched Child.

To see what other cartoonists at the Opera have done, search on twitter for #pdxoperacomics.

(You can see previous Portland Opera illustrations I’ve done here.)

Portland Opera Comics — first illustration from The Spanish Hour

Once again, Portland Opera graciously hosted me and a gaggle of other cartoonists to see the dress rehearsal of one of their productions, this time a double bill of The Spanish Hour and The Bewitched Child.

Here’s the first drawing I’ve done as a result, of a man hiding in a clock. (The Spanish Hour is the sort of comedy in which a lot of men hide in a lot of clocks.)

To see what other cartoonists at the Opera have done, search on twitter for #pdxoperacomics.

(You can see previous Portland Opera illustrations I’ve done here.)

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.)

Hereville makes Booklist’s annual “Best Graphic Novels For Teens” list!

And here’s the list. 🙂

Hereville Nominated For Andre Norton Award

I was very surprised, but also very honored, that my graphic novel Hereville has been nominated for the 2010 “Andre Norton Award for Young Adult Science Fiction and Fantasy.”

The Andre Norton award is given out annually by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association of America for an outstanding work of fiction for young people. It’s given out as part of the Nebula Awards. (When the nice lady from the Nebula committee called me, she said this is “essentially the Nebula Award for young adult books”).

My competition this year includes many VERY big names — Paolo Bacigalupi, Suzanne Collins, Scott Westerfeld, Holly Black, Pearl North, Megan Whalen Turner, and — sheesh! — even Terry Pratchett! It is an amazing honor to be nominated in such company. My thanks to every science fiction and fantasy writer out there who voted for Hereville.

My congratulations as well to my friend (and someone who strongly influenced Hereville) Rachel Swirsky. Her novella ‘‘The Lady Who Plucked Red Flowers beneath the Queen’s Window’’ is nominated for this year’s “best novella” Nebula Award. “The Lady Who Plucked…” is an incredible story, and I would have been shocked if it weren’t nominated.

Comic Book Of The Month does an episode on Hereville

The Comic Book Of The Month podcast has released an episode focused on Hereville. That’s right, over an hour of people discussing Hereville! How can you miss out on that?

Seriously, I enjoyed their discussion and thought they had some good observations. 🙂