“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.

Another positive review of “Hereville,” On “Broken Frontier”

This review came out the same day as the “Blog About Comics” review — but it does contain a minor spoiler, so don’t click over if you’re allergic to even small spoilers.

On Broken Frontier, Eric Lindberg writes:

Hereville also has a distinctly left-of-center approach to fantasy that I found appealing. Mirka’s stepmother Fruma challenges the view of dragons as an evil force, likening their man-eating tendencies to any other predator in nature. When confronted by a [slight spoiler deleted by Barry!] These are nice offbeat touches that contribute to the individualism of this comic and its voice.

The mixture of influences is not always a seamless transition however. The placement of fantasy elements in this setting makes it a bit difficult to pinpoint the rules of the world of Hereville. Electricity and alarm clocks co-exist with monsters out of European legend. Some characters speak of trolls as if they are commonplace, while others have never heard the term and consider them a goisch (gentile) concept of no concern. Do these people and creatures truly co-exist? Is it all in Mirka’s head? Presumably, future Hereville storyarcs will more firmly establish Mirka’s world and how it works.

Deutsch’s style of cartooning bridges the gap between old-fashioned and modern sensibilities. His elongated figures with their exaggerated puppet-like expressions brought to mind the work of E.C. Segar (creator of Popeye), adding a fun and loose sense of charm to the proceedings. The sepia tone coloring lends a timeless feel to the story while the panel layout and storytelling techniques are more contemporary. This combination is an appropriate choice for the subject manner, reflecting the mix of Old World and New in the characters’ culture.

There’s more — head over to B.F. to read the whole review.

My first reaction: Whoo-hooo, I got compared to E.C. Segar! The comparison flatters me more than I deserve, but I don’t care — because I love Segar! (I have a reproduction of a pre-Popeye “Thimble Theater” strip on my wall).

My squeeeee!!-ness aside, it was a good review — not because it was positive (although I’m of course happy for that), but because it went deeper than just thumbs up or down. Thanks, Eric.

“How Mirka Got Her Sword,” Page 22

Fruma has all sorts of odd knowledge.

I’m very happy with the colors in the first panel of this page. When I originally drew the panel, I did a ton of cross-hatching on Fruma’s right hand, and then I took 90% of it out when I colored.