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.

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.

“Hereville” Reviewed on “A Blog About Comics”

Getting a webcomic reviewed is more difficult than I would have imagined. I even made a preview website with the entire story, so reviewers could read the whole thing before making a judgement.

When I think about it, though, it makes sense that it’s hard: There are tens of thousands of webcomics out there, and precious few reviewers. I sent requests to a lot of reviewers asking them to consider critiquing “Hereville,” but until today, no dice. (I’m still hoping, though.)

Which brings me to some news: Deniselle of A Blog About Comics has posted a review of “Hereville” — the very first review of the complete “How Mirka Got Her Sword” story that’s ever been published. I’m feeling a bit gushy about that.

And it’s a positive review (phew!), fairly lengthy with some interesting analysis. Deniselle read a preview copy of the whole first story, so she’s read some stuff regular “Hereville” readers haven’t seen yet, but don’t worry, she was careful to avoid spoilers.

Mirka’s fixation with being a dragon-slayer is unexplained, which is interesting. It seems to arise from her personality, not be some fate cast upon her (Lord of the Rings style) nor a burden she has to come to terms with. She wants to be a dragon slayer because it’s who she is. Whether or not she’s meant to slay dragons is interestingly ambiguous.

Please head on over to Deniselle’s blog to read the whole thing. :-)

Sketchblogging: Self-Portrait As Muppet

“Hereville” Comic Book Convention Banner

This is a design for the banner that I’ll be hanging behind my table at Stumptown, where I’ll be premiering the dead-tree edition of Hereville. The banner is planned to be eight feet wide by three feet high (gulp). I’ll be hanging it from a mounting device I’m building myself out of PVC pipe. It feels more than a little embarrassing — there’s nothing in the world I hate more than selling myself — but I’ve decided I really want to go all-out on this.

So the first question is, what do folks think of the design? It’s really just a variation of the webpage header.

And my second question is, how high off the ground should I get this? The plan I downloaded is for an eight foot high display, so the banner would start at five feet off the ground and end eight feet off the ground. Is that high enough, or should be using a nine foot or ten foot plan instead?

Any advice would be appreciated.

UPDATE: Here’s version two:

Podcastle Premieres!

PodCastle is the world’s first fantasy audio magazine. Each week we bring you short stories across the spectrum of fantasy from leading authors and new discoveries. Like our sister podcasts, Escape Pod and Pseudopod, PodCastle is entirely free to listen and share.

(This is a paying market, so any fantasy writers reading this, take note.)

Podcastle is edited by fantasy writer Rachel Swirsky, who is one of my best friends, and whose help and input on “Hereville” has been utterly invaluable.

The premiere podcast features one of the biggest names in fantasy fiction, and a short story I was once obsessed with: “Come, Lady Death” by Peter. S. Beagle.