On January 14, 2011 · Comments Off
“Books We Love,” the blog of the Park Ridge Public Library, has posted an interview with me. Here’s a sample:
I love the character of the pig-what made you choose a pig and not some other animal?
In retrospect, it’s silly how long I spent trying to decide on the right animal to be in the Witch’s yard. Wolf? Huge housecat? Giant ferret? But then I thought of pig, and obviously a pig was the perfect antagonist, just because a pig is the iconic “non-kosher” animal that Jews avoid eating. And once I had that, the pig’s grumpy, over-the-top personality fell into place.
Do you have any subjects that you’re dying to write about, but haven’t yet? Any non-Hereville books that you have percolating away in your head?
I have a few non-Hereville ideas. But Hereville is also a very broad canvas — after all, hundreds of people live in the town of Hereville. So I think I could happily do many, many more Hereville books, and be able to fit in a huge range of stories and characters.
I’d be really eager to do a story with a positive, fat character as the protagonist. I was really disappointed when the TV show “Huge” was canceled.
Click through to read the entire interview! And my thanks to Sarah Hagge for doing such a great job conducting the interview. By the way, Sarah also wrote a very nice review of Hereville back in December; you can read that review here.
On January 13, 2011 · Comments Off
Fanfic writer Jade Lennox has great taste — just look at her list of fandoms, which includes Slings and Arrows (my favorite TV show), Buffy the Vampire Slayer (another favorite of mine), Castle Waiting (a wonderful comic book by Linda Medley which I think most Hereville readers would enjoy), Love and Rockets, Wonderfalls, Farscape, Veronica Mars… I have to admit, by “great taste,” I just mean that she (he?) likes a lot of comics and TV that I like.
Anyway, I was thrilled when Jade Lennox recently wrote “Who Needs A Gallows When You Have A Sword?,” a Hereville short story featuring Mirka, Fruma, Zindel, Rochel, Gittel, and a brand-new character, Fruma’s brother Feter Gedalya. It’s well-written and fun to read, and in some ways it parallels thought I’ve had about Hereville characters (I’ve often thought that Mirka would resist the pressure to dress as Queen Esther!).
By the way, if you find the format or font difficult to read, click on the “Hide Creator’s Style” link near the top of the webpage, towards the right, and that should fix things.
Today is World Fair Use Day, which makes it an especially auspicious day to link to some fanfic. My thanks to Jade Lennox, for writing such a terrific story. And to my friend TeaOtter, who requested a Hereville story.
On January 12, 2011 · Comments Off
The blog “Hey, Women! Comics!” has posted an interview with me.
Here’s a bit from the interview; there’s more at the link.
HWC: What sort of woman do you think Hereville best appeals to?
BD: I’m not sure! I’ve noticed that most of Hereville’s reviewers are female, though, so there must be some appeal there.
I intended Hereville to be a feminist book – not in the sense of being over-the-top or preachy, but int he sense of writing a book with a kick-ass but not perfect female protagonist, and with a lot of female characters who actually matter to the story (especially Mirka’s not-at-all-evil stepmother, Fruma.) I often read books to my two honorary nieces, Sydney and Maddox, and they’re always very aware of if a book has girl characters they can relate to or not; without any prompting from me, they’re always asking “is this one a girl?” and pointing to the female characters and saying “I’m her!” So I think it’s important.
I think any reader who likes fun, character-based fantasy stories could enjoy Hereville.
On January 11, 2011 · Comments Off
Heidi Estrin — a librarian who knows more about Jewish kids books than pretty much anyone on Earth — interviewed me for her podcast, “The Book of Life.” It was a really fun interview for me (and only the second interview I’ve done face-to-face, rather than via email or phone), and considering the depth of her knowledge, I’m super-flattered that Heidi has been supporting Hereville.
You can listen to the interview here, on Heidi’s website. It’s about 19 minutes long.
The Sydney Taylor Book Award is given once a year by the Association of Jewish Libraries for the best Jewish kid’s book. It’s given in three categories: younger readers, older readers, and teen readers.
The AJL blog has just announced the winners, and Hereville is this year’s winner in the “books for older readers” category!
This is the first time a graphic novel has ever won a Sydney Taylor, incidentally. I’m sitting here grinning from ear to ear.
My deepest thanks to the AJL committee — I am honored and thrilled. And moziltov to my fellow winners, Howard Schwartz and Kristina Swarner for their book Gathering Sparks (younger readers), and Dana Reinhardt for her book The Things a Brother Knows (teen readers).
From the AJL blog:
Deutsch will receive the 2011 gold medal in the Sydney Taylor Book Award’s Older Readers Category for Hereville: How Mirka Got Her Sword, published by Amulet Books, an imprint of Abrams Books. This is the first graphic novel to win the Award. Committee member Aimee Lurie noted, “Mirka is a clever, headstrong and imaginative heroine who will appeal to a wide audience. Teens who feel like they don’t fit in will have no trouble relating to her balancing what is best for her family versus her desire to fight dragons. Grounded in her religious beliefs, she is willing to put her fantasies aside to celebrate Shabbat. The illustrations strike the perfect balance of showing a realistic Orthodox community, while creating the perfect backdrop for a fairytale.” [...]
A blog tour, featuring interviews with winning authors and illustrators, will take place in early February, with participation from a wide range of children’s literature, family interest, and Jewish blogs.
What a way to start a Monday morning!
On January 7, 2011 · Comments Off
I have an ongoing offer to do a ten $25 dollar sketch for people who buy a copy of Hereville from me. It’s fun for me to do, and I think people enjoy having a one-of-a-kind drawing done just for them.
With only a couple of exceptions, these were drawn entirely on computer, and then printed out with a high-quality art printer. (This is the same way I draw Hereville; I hardly ever draw directly on paper nowadays!). Some of these were requests (“draw a Wren in the picture,” for example, or “something to do with Twilight”), others were just me drawing whatever I felt like (which turned out at least twice to be Mirka in a tree).
Click on any of the drawings to see them bigger.
[Note: I'm sorry, but I've raised the price to $25. Sorry, but these just took me too long to produce to justify $10!]
On January 5, 2011 · Comments Off
The terrifically-named “Please Don’t Read This Book!” blog has a review of Hereville! (I’m a bit late in posting about this, because… well, to tell you the truth, I’m just like that.)
The format is very neat — it’s sort of a dialog between two bloggers. Here’s a bit that I was particularly fond of:
I have a confession to make. Even if I’d never read and enjoyed a single graphic novel, I would’ve suggested that we consider HEREVILLE. Why? Because of its tagline: “Yet Another Troll-Fighting 11-Year-Old Orthodox Jewish Girl.” Who could resist that? Even my seventy-five-year-old businessman of a father–who is *never* tempted by children’s literature–picked HEREVILLE up off my coffee table when he saw that tagline. And started reading. And didn’t stop until he’d finished–at which point he proclaimed it marvelous! I so enjoyed that moment.
Awesome!  Please click through to read the rest of their review (which did include some criticism, by the way — in particular, they found the ending rather abrupt).
On January 4, 2011 · Comments Off
Thanks to Tanya of Books4yourkids.com for this terrific article about Hereville. I’m very glad to be recommended by Books4yourkids, and had a really fun interview with Tanya when she was prepping to write the article.
On December 27, 2010 · Comments Off
Thanks to Blam’s Blog for this nice review of Hereville. It’s a nice review that reproduces plenty of art, but I have to admit my favorite thing about this is the title of the blog post: Braids Of Glory. That may be my favorite title of any Hereville review so far!
On December 22, 2010 · Comments Off
Another “best of” list — Graphic Novel Reporter’s. I’m especially thrilled to see Hereville on this list, because it’s not a specialty list — it’s not for kid’s graphic novels, or Jewish graphic novels, but simply a list of their favorite graphic novels. And the other cartoonists on the list are simply awesome!
Here’s the list’s description of Hereville:
In a word: brilliant. Barry Deutsch’s webcomic about a young girl in an Orthodox Jewish community gets wider exposure in this collection. Hopefully, as broad an audience as possible will find its way to this utterly clever book, which follows Mirka as she faces a witch, a mean pig, and a troll in an effort to win a sword…and begin her life’s mission of slaying dragons. The explanations of Jewish culture and language that run throughout the book are always helpful and never intrusive. This is another book for kids that adults will love too.
Thank you so much, Graphic Novel Reporter!
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