“Hereville” reviewed on Raw Ink Online

Raw Ink Online, an education site, writes:

Deutsch has two very distinct characteristics working through Mirka that will make this book one teachers will want to add to their bookshelves as a stand-alone, an independent read, or as a unit covering the Hero’s Journey. For one, we have an eleven-year-old girl as hero. . .in a graphic novel. Mirka finds her place among the graphic novel heroes and holds it with her passion and determination to reach her goals. Secondly, we have a Orthodox Jew as main character providing responsible reporting and insight from Deutsch to blend Mirka’c culture into the story. The characters use Yiddish phrases (and Deutsch is kind in providing a gutter glossary to define the terms which he stops doing after the first time, an approach to context that will be welcome to teachers building vocabulary through introduction and context/repetition). Further, the reader is able to peek into the Jewish culture by viewing Mirka in her familial context. The reader sees Mirka knitting, caring for family members, discussing issues of marriage and family identity, and preparing for and observing the Sabbath.

Fans of graphic novels will love what Deutsch has done with the illustrations in Hereville: How Mirka Got Her Sword. Deutsch completely violates any sense of what Scott McCloud tells us is the “gutter” in graphic novels. Character heads appear in multiples. A pig takes up an entire page. Character dialogue sometimes reads like stream of conscious presentation with word bubbles dripping down the page. It’s an absolutely beautiful graphic novel in this respect.

Thanks to Paul W. Hankins, who wrote that review! Click through to read the whole review.

Process: How To Design A Troll

Repairing a Sexist Cartoon

The webcomic “Least I Could Do” posted this amazingly sexist cartoon today:

(It was too wide to fit onto a regular blog, so I reformatted it a bit.)

Emmy Cicierega suggested that people try repairing the cartoon with some strategic relettering, and posted a version with oddly tweaked art and blank balloons.

Eat, Drink and Be Scary added words to Emmy’s version, which you can read here.

Maxwell Pacheco posted his own version, here.

And here’s my version (using the original art, not Emmy’s version, because the shrunken head in Emmy’s version freaked me out!)

And finally, in case any of y’all want to get in on the act, here’s a blank version, formatted so it’ll fit onto blogs.

Or just leave your ideas in the comments. 🙂

Edited to add: Check out this one, too.

“Hereville” Reviewed on Educating Alice

Educating Alice, a blog specializing in children’s literature (among other things), writes:

While no kayaks show up in Barry Deutsch’s remarkable graphic novel Hereville: How Mirka Got Her Sword, plenty of other things do — a pig, a witch, some nasty bullies, a wise step-mother, knitting, and that sword.  I knew nothing about this book, but after reading Betsy Bird’s rave review, I requested it pronto. (Thank you, Jason Wells at Abrams, for sending it so quickly!)  I’m not sure I can add much to Betsy’s review other than to say — it is all that and more.  This graphic novel is bright and fun and clever, the characters real and multi-faceted, and the art spectacular.  Deutsch uses comic vernacular perfectly — expressions, movement, panels, speech bubbles — all in the service of his warm, wise, and wonderful story.

Kayaks…. hmmmm.

Click here to read the rest of the review.

Another School Library Journal Blog Reviews “Hereville”

From Brigid Alverson, of the “Good Comics For Kids” blog:

I really enjoyed Barry Deutsch’s Hereville when it was a webcomic, and I like it even better now that it’s a full-length graphic novel, which will be released by Abrams in November. Set in an Orthodox Jewish community, Hereville has a strong sense of the traditional about it, and parts of the story (as when the heroine battles a pig that has been tormenting her) are strongly reminiscent of folk tales. Deutsch breathes life into his story, though, by having characters who talk and react like real tweens and teens. She may dress differently from her peers in public school, but when 11-year-old Mirka tries to solve a math problem, or is torn between her family’s expectations and her own desires, she is channeling every kid. Deutsch’s art has lightened up quite a bit in this book, and he has honed his extraordinary talent for using panel arrangements and other visual effects to tell his story in the most effective way possible. I would go into more detail, but my 10-year-old nephew swiped the book at dinner last night and I don’t know when I’m going to get it back. Highly recommended!

Sketchbook: Self-portrait

Played around with drawing in black and white on brown paper. I want to find a way of getting sharper lines; I think I need to find some less soft brown paper.

Sketchbook: Zero Mostel

Two More Hereville Title Page Sketches

Back when I was selling the self-published comic book of Hereville, folks sometimes paid extra for their comic in order to have me do a drawing on their title page. (A similar offer is now available for folks who preorder the hardcover book). Sometimes these sketches would be requests, other times I’d just choose a theme myself.

You can see a whole bunch of Hereville title page sketches here on Flickr. And I’ve just now added two more to the set:

The second sketch is below the fold.

Continue Reading…

Another Nice Goodreads Review

Inge at Goodreads wrote:

Let’s get the obvious comments over with. Yes. This is a graphic novel where the brave heroine is an 11 year-old Orthodox Jewish girl. This is definitely not something you see every day. However, it’s not treated as a novelty, and while the reader will learn about Orthodox Judaism and its practices, it is not done in an overly didactic manner. Mirka is a bit of a rebel in some ways, but overall she’s true to her family and her beliefs without sacrificing her need for adventure.

I used to work as a librarian in a mostly Orthodox Jewish community and I have to say that my most of my patrons were voracious readers. Friday afternoons, before Shabbat, children would storm the library in droves, walking off with ten books or so a piece, and leaving bare shelves behind. It always troubled me that, while I was surrounded by so many dedicated book-lovers, the children rarely saw themselves reflected in books. Or if so, it was as a novelty/token character or they were featured in a Holocaust-related novel. Of course, there are exceptions to this rule, but I hope this graphic novel reaches that community and is well-loved.

Hereville is not exceptional merely because of its unusual protagonist, but because it’s a fun and humorous adventure. It’s well-paced and beautifully drawn. Mirka is passionate about her desire for action and adventure, but just as passionate about her love of her late mother, as well as the rest of her family. Mirka’s stepmother, Fruma, is a source hilarious entertainment, with her nagging and desperate need to argue. The troll and the witch are also sources of comedy. Last, there are many bittersweet moments concerning Mirka and her deceased mother. It’s a multi-faceted comic, offering not only adventure but depth and emotion.

In other words, I’m ready for more Mirka!

Thanks, Inge! I’ve gotta say, Inge’s reaction is exactly the reaction, in every way, I’m hoping for. 🙂

I really hope that Hereville will find some fans among Orthodox Jewish families. (Hereville the webcomic had several Orthodox readers, who made many very helpful comments.) We’ll see.

Eisner and me

In a sort of postscript to her School Library Journal review of Hereville, Elizabeth Bird mentioned Will Eisner’s landmark A Contract With God. That really, really pleased me.

I took a class from Eisner at School of Visual Arts, which is a privilege I wish I had appreciated more at the time. Eisner’s work — not so much his Spirit work, as the work he did in the last three decades of his life — is a frequent, conscious inspiration to me while I draw. Especially when it comes to drawing people, my never-met goal as a cartoonist is to make my figures as full of life as Eisner’s.

Eisner did have some weaknesses as a cartoonist, especially when it came to writing; his characterization could be thin, and his dialog was often clunky. At his worse, he used embarrassing stereotypes (don’t lend Life On Another Planet to any Italian friends you have). But his strengths — his page layouts, effortlessly leading the reader’s eye, and his astonishingly fluid, graceful drawing — put him in the top rank of all cartoonists who have ever set brush to paper.

In her review, discussing page layouts in Hereville, Elizabeth singles out a two-page sequence in which Mirka is visualizing a math problem. In that sequence, I was deliberately imitating Eisner’s 1990s work, in which he minimized the use of panel borders, instead letting elements of the panels provide the divisions between panels.

Here’s a page from Eisner’s Invisible People:

And here, for a perhaps unfortunate comparison, is one of the Hereville pages Elizabeth discussed in her review.

Related link: My 2005 obituary for Eisner.