Inside Out Reviews “Hereville”

Rachel Edidin has given Hereville a glowing review on her blog, Inside Out. I’m very happy — Rachel works for a big comics publisher and is one of the people behind Girl-Wonder, and she’s also plain smart as hell, so she really knows what she’s talking about. Here’s a sample:

Hereville is good. It’s really good.

It’s the kind of good that makes me want to carry a copy with me at all times, just so that I can look at it every few minutes as a reminder that any world that produces books like this one is probably worth the benefit of the doubt.

Comics that can honestly be described as all-ages are few and far between. Knitting a narrative that appeals to adults and remains accessible to and appropriate for kids is no easy feat. Imbuing that story with layers of rich culture and tradition without overwhelming readers, and doing so while slyly subverting both form and trope take serious skill.

There are no spoilers in the full review, but there are criticisms of the artwork which will make more sense to folks who have read the entire story. I certainly agree with Rachel that the art changes (and, imo, gets better) as the story goes on. Rachel also thinks my coloring of the night-time scenes is too dark; I disagree, but I can see what she means, and a lot of people agree with her. I wanted to do something very different for my night-time scenes than I’ve seen other cartoonists do, but it may be I went too far; I’m still a bit of a fence-sitter on that question.

Those of you who are reading Hereville online will have to wait through another month or so of updates before you’ll get to see if you agree with Rachel about the night-time coloring or not. 🙂

Breakfast of the Gods is back! Life is worth living!

Brendan Douglas Jones has begun posting book three of one of my favorite webcomics, Breakfast of the Gods. “The war for Cerealia starts now. Who will live? Who will die? Who will stay crunchy in milk? Read on to find out!”

For folks who haven’t already been reading Breakfast of the Gods, book one starts here. But don’t read it if you’d be offended by graphic violence, or by violation of trademark. Lots and lots and lots of yummy violation of trademark.

(Actually, I think Breakfast of the Gods might fall under “fair use.” If it doesn’t, the law should be changed until it does.)

(Not totally relevant, but I only read yesterday that the vocalist who sings “You’re A Mean One, Mr. Grinch” in the Chuck Jones animated version, was also the voice of Tony the Tiger. I mean, it’s obviously the same voice, now that I think about it, but I never noticed.)

(And listening to that led me to this utterly delicious pop cover of the song by Sixpence None The Richer.)

“How Mirka Got Her Sword,” Page 24

Stumptown was neat

For several days before Stumptown I was feeling nervousness and dread, and I was convinced that no one would buy Hereville. On the drive to Stumptown Saturday I felt so anxious about that, I worried I might vomit.

So things went better than I expected. 🙂

I sold 65 copies of Hereville at Stumptown, which was enough to cover the costs of printing. In fact, between Stumptown sales and some other sales, the first printing of 100 copies is nearly sold out. (!)

Saturday night, Hereville won one of Stumptown’s treasured Trophy Awards, for “outstanding art.” (The winners are determined by a vote of Stumptown attendees.) That made me very happy, since my drawing ability is something I’m very insecure about. My friend Erika received three well-deserved awards for her excellent, funny, sweet, but adults-only strip Dar. The Trophy Awards are great, because the con organizers buy used trophies and relabel them. Mine is a female bowler with — get this — a cross on the pedestal! As you can see, it’s gone straight to my head mantle:

I also met some neat new people and saw some old friends, although less than I would have liked. (Onyxrising has a funny LJ entry about seeing me at Stumptown.) I didn’t get much of a chance to see the convention, because I spent almost all my time at my table pitching Hereville, but I really enjoyed it.

I also got to be a total mooch on my friends, who I relied upon for a lot of free labor. So thank you Jake Squid (ride to the con, day 1, plus setting up), Chris Baldwin (ride home), Kevin Moore (ride to the con, day 2), Jake Richmond, Katie Moody, & Ivy McCloud (sitting in for me when I was away), Charles Seaton (ride home, plus breaking down), and Kip Manley (more rides). (Can you tell I don’t have a driver’s license?)

And I have to shout out to the awesome Rachel Edidin, of the also awesome org Girl Wonder, because several people bought Hereville because she told them to! (She also told me she’ll be reviewing Hereville on her blog sometime soon.) Plus, there’s the knitting… but I think that will be a post of its own, when the time comes.

Finally, I have to sincerely thank the folks whose tables were next to mine — the McCloud family, Larry Marder, and especially Jen Sorenson — for restraining themselves from strangling me after hearing my Hereville pitch hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of times. (Jen and I were joking that when she went home, she’d bewilder her husband by mumbling “it’s about an 11 year old Orthodox Jewish girl” in her sleep.)

(And one more thank you — Photo of me by Jenn Manley Lee!)

How To Find Me At Stumptown!

Look for the ridiculously huge “Hereville” banner…. I’ll be the one sitting under it.

I hope I’ll see you there!

Sketchblogging: Dog, Triangle-Head, and Random Weird Face

Triangle-Head is a character who shows up again and again in my doodles, and I’ve occasionally done cartoons about her, such as this 24-hour comic, which I see I drew an entire decade ago. Yipes! (That comic probably isn’t appropriate for all ages, by the way.)

About that dog, I’ve never been good at drawing that moving-back-and-forth-quickly effect — there’s been a bunch of times I’ve drawn it into my comics, only to redraw the panel without it because I didn’t like how it turned out.

“How Mirka Got Her Sword,” Page 23

And another two reviews of Hereville!

I hope everyone celebrating Pesach this week is enjoying it! (And for everyone else, I hope you’re enjoying eating your soft, moist, delicious bread!)

The Angry Geologist has posted a review of Hereville, and — fortunately — doesn’t seem too angry about it.

First, I’ve been unable to nail down the time period and place this is supposed to be set in. We could be talking about an insular community in post-war Europe, or a 1950’s Levitton, or ten years from now. I mean I can nail it down a little bit- they didn’t have electric stoves or lightswitches in the 1400’s. Stuff like that absolutely fascinates me. And as far as we can tell from the kids’ point of view, magic more than exists in the world.

Second, the cast is entirely Orthodox Jewish (with the exception of the possible witch that Mirka and her brother meet, but you’ll have to read it to find out what’s up with that), and the creator Barry Deutsch really brings their family traditions to life. You don’t see too many of that particular faith in comics, and it’s a refreshing change of pace.

There’s more — you’ll have to go over to Angry Geologist’s place to read the whole thing.

Meanwhile, the blog Jewish Comics — which is exactly what it sounds like, a blog about Jewish comics (both Jewish creators and Jewish characters) — has very kindly linked to Hereville and posted a round-up of some other folks’ reviews. I had forgotten all about Mary Ellen Slayter’s Washington Post article from a few years back, and her pithy one-line description of “Hereville”:

What do you get when you cross “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” and Isaac Bashevis Singer?

As a “Buffy” fan, I was very pleased with that. 🙂

So please check out those links — and for anyone interested in the general topic of Jews in comics, you may enjoy browsing through the Jewish Comics archives.

“Hereville” paper edition to premiere at Stumptown Comics Fest

Many of you know this already, but I thought I’d make an “official” announcement that the paper edition of “Hereville: How Mirka Got Her Sword” will be premiering at Stumptown Comics Fest, this Saturday and Sunday, in Portland, Oregon.

The print edition contains 57 full-color pages of comics, and sells for $12.95. I’ve now seen a copy, and frankly, it looks good — the art and color reproduced very well, and the paper is a decent stock as well.

I’ve attended Stumptown every year since it began — in fact, I helped start it — and it’s an exceptionally good comic book convention, with a strong focus on creators (rather than three bazillion tables of dealers with long boxes). So I highly recommend attending — it should be both cheap and fun.

And if you do go to Stumptown, please stop by my table and say “hi.” (I’ll be the one sitting under a huge banner that says “Hereville”).

And by the way, if you’re not going to be able to make it to Stumptown, you can always buy Hereville directly from my website, in both paper and electronic editions. Plus, I hope to soon have a Wowio edition available — I should have news to post about that sometime in May.

Two more reviews of “Hereville”!

Less than a week ago I was complaining that no one ever reviewed Hereville… Sometimes it’s nice to be proven wrong. Two more reviews of “Hereville” have appeared.

Sam at the ZenKatzen Times writes:

It’s glorious, deep, clever, and intelligent; finally, a take on the hero’s tale which doesn’t look like it was cribbed straight outta G.I. Joseph Campbell. Mirka won me over from the start.

If you’re comic cognosenci, you know about it already. I just have to go on record and say how much I like this work. It’s nifty.

Alas for me, I’m pretty sure Sam’s comment about the “cognosenci” isn’t true — hardly anyone reads “Hereville” yet. But I’m really optimistic about the growth in readership (I now get around 500 visitors a day — a month ago I was lucky to get 100), and reviews like Sam’s can only help.

And at Comic Book Thoughts, Ragtime writes:

The comic is called “How Mirka Got Her Sword,” and is about a young Orthodox Jewish girl who sets out to slay dragons, which has all the elements that my little Raggirls will love, and looks to be the first comic book to crack our Bedtime Story Ritual since The Courageous Princess.

Ragtime also picks out page 11 as her or his favorite page of Hereville so far. I often don’t like my own work, but that page is one I’m fond of. My favorite part of it is probably the teeny, tiny Mirka and Dragon figures falling to the ground in the last panel — they give me the giggles.