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.

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.

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.

“Yet another troll-fighting 11-year-old Orthodox Jewish girl,” says the byline. Well seriously. How was I supposed to pass that up? I’d grabbed a copy of Hereville at an American Library Association conference along with a whole host of other books. I don’t think I even gave it half a glance at the time. Just nabbed, stuffed, and scooted. It was only back in the comfort of my hotel room as I repacked my bags that the byline got my attention. I sat down for a quick look. Twenty minutes later I was still reading, with no intention at all of repacking anything until I was done. In my experience, fantasy novels for children do not like to involve religion in any way, shape, or form. And children’s graphic novels? Puh-leeze. You’re as likely to find a copy of Babymouse wax rhapsodic on the topic of organized religion as you are a copy of Harry Potter. So to read Barry Deutsch’s book is to experience a mild marvel. There is religion, fantasy, knitting, some of the best art I’ve seen since The Secret Science Alliance, and a story that actually makes you sit up and feel something. This is like nothing I’ve ever encountered before, and I think it’s truly remarkable. Without a doubt, this is the best graphic novel of 2010 for kids. Bar none. [...]

Confession: Truth be told, there is very little in this book I do not like. What’s more, it offers me, a children’s librarian, a sneaky way to introduce kids to religions and creeds they might not otherwise have any exposure to in a format they already love. Bereft of any kind of stereotyping you might name, Hereville: How Mirka Got Her Sword could only make me angry if it failed to produce a sequel in the future. Until then, we’ll just have to be content with this. A remarkable little book and, I guarantee, like nothing else you have on your bookstore, library, or personal shelves.

There’s a lot more to her review, but you’ll have to click through to read it.

(Click here for information about preordering Hereville.)

Okay, so let’s see the sequence of drawing. The example panel here comes from page 12 of the graphic novel (I posted the pencils to page 12 here).

Mirka starts out as a stick figure. I usually start with the head, and usually draw it the same way — an eggshell shape first, then a line halfway up the egg to find the level of the eyes, then a 45-45-90 triangle to find the placement of the top of her ear. Sometimes I get lazy and just start drawing the face without those underlying lines, but then I often end up having to erase and start over, so that’s not the best idea.

Then I do a couple of lines to show the placement of her body and the set of her shoulders. This may not seem like much, but it’s actually really important — in a panel like this, where we only see Mirka’s head and shoulders and a little of her trunk, the set of the shoulders is going to do a lot of the work of conveying Mirka’s expression. It’s not uncommon for me to redraw the initial stickfigure “shoulder line” two or three times trying to get it right. In this case, I opt for slumped shoulders, as if the surprise has made her go limp, combined with leaning forward.

Then I added scribbly lines to to show her hair and clothes, and different parts of her body, and more details of her face. Scribble, scribble, scribble, erase, scribble, erase. I erased and redrew a lot at this stage, until Mirka finally looked “right” to my eyes. I don’t use photo reference for figures unless I’m absolutely unable to draw the pose otherwise, and in this case the pose was easy so no need for reference.

Then I drew in the word balloon. I draw all my word balloons freehand, rather than using premade shapes, but in this case I tried to be especially all over the place drawing the balloon, to convey Mirka’s shock and excitement.

At first, I thought that was pretty good. But over time I realized that it wasn’t working for me. Sheila, my editor at Abrams, agreed with me: The drawing didn’t have enough oomph to show how awestruck Mirka felt when she first saw the witch’s tower.

I tried again, this time giving Mirka a more stunned expression. (This is where a cartoony drawing style really comes in handy!). I also changed the “Oh wow” speech bubble to an exclamation point graphic. And I rotated the whole drawing so that she seemed to be leaning back to look up, since the tower ended up being quite tall. (So much for the leaning forward! Oh, well.)

Better. But still not there. And the exclamation point graphic I created looked jumbled and confusing to me, rather than conveying an emotion clearly.

So instead of an exclamation point over her head, I put Mirka in an exclamation-point-shaped panel border. (Doing this cropped out the set of the shoulders I worked on earlier. Oh, well!) I also enlarged the drawing of Mirka a little.

And now my internal “how stunned does Mirka look”-ometer said that this worked. So now it’s time to go on to “inking.”

Of course, since I’m doing all this drawing on computer, there’s no literal “ink” involved. But there’s still a stage where I draw the panel using solid black lines, trying to keep the lines as lively as I can without losing accuracy. Then I send a copy of the page to Jake, and Jake adds colors, using Photoshop on his computer.

And finally, the completed panel!

(Remember, Hereville is now available for preorder!)

“An unusual eleven-year-old orthodox Jewish girl with more chutzpa than Yentl seeks a magic sword, and has an epic battle with a troll, as author/illustrator Barry Deutsch offers up a mitzvah–a graphic novel which has joy, style, lots of Yiddishkeit, adventure, and magic. Not all of it kosher! (There is a goyisch pig after all.)”

–Jane Yolen, author of The Devil’s Arithmetic, Naming Liberty, and O Jerusalem as well as the graphic novel, Foiled.

(Remember, Hereville is now available for preorder!)

Anyway, here are two more of those sketches. You can see a whole bunch of Hereville title page sketches here on Flickr.

And the second one…

Remember, Hereville is now available for pre-order. (Yes, you’ll be hearing me say that a lot in the next two months. :-P )

Thanks to Jenn Lee for making this video!