Comic Review: Hereville: How Mirka Got Her Sword

I had heard of this book a few times before I found it at the library (I believe over at unshelved and The Enchanted Inkpot ) and it sounded like a fairly interesting book. Specifically, in an interview with the author (Barry Deutsch) he mentioned that his inspiration for the final battle scene came from the two-page spread of ballet in the manga Swan (which I loved) and that turned out to be even more amazing than the interview said it was*.

Hereville: How Mirka Got Her Sword by Barry Deutsch

Summary: Mirka is an orthodox Jewish girl growing up in the Jewish village of Hereville but she wishes that her life was a bit more adventurous. In fact, she wishes to go dragon slaying and after an encounter with a witch and her talking pig she might just get her wish.

The Good: Most middle grade^ and YA books don't deal with religion at all so it's interesting to see a story not only make religion a major theme in the book but to also make it a really accessible story for anyone who isn't an orthodox Jew. The story doesn't shy away from using Yiddish vocabulary in the character's speech (which helpful notes at the bottom of each page) and it's clear that the religion is a big part of all the character's lives and really does influence in them (ie, religion is the setting for this story and works beautifully as one). Mirka is a fun protagonist who does some stupid things for very understandable reasons and acts like a real kid would, really hoping that Deutsch publishes more stories about her.

The Bad: There are a few plotholes in the book, or at least details that aren't fully explained. Mirka's stepmother warns her away from the witch quite vehemently but never offers any explanation for why she reacted that strongly. Was it just because she was a witch or was there a deeper reason as well? Also, at one point Mirka's mother appears to her and she spends some time worrying that her mother is an unhappy ghost and her stepmother just waves it off, saying that "when people hold their breath for a very long time they see some very strange things. " Again, was that all there was to it or was there more to Mirka's vision? Yes it's explained but it's not satisfying to see a one panel explanation for a multi-page problem.

The Art: The art leans more towards Western comics than manga but the art style feels very distinctly it's own. It's a color comic but most pages use a color scheme based around shades of one color (such as orange or purple) and this helps give the story more of a fairy feeling. The lines are smooth and the simplistic designs are consistent, it feels like the perfect artwork for this story.

This book actually reminded me of a lot of books I read back in middle school (back when I got a lot of my reading recommendations from the amazing literary magazine Cricket) and I would have loved this just as much back then as I did last week. It's not a "must buy!" for me but I'll certainly keep an eye out for it and try to grab a copy sometime.




*Additionally, if he thinks the two page spread ballet "fights" in Swan are interesting he should really check out Princess Tutu since that takes the idea and runs with it even farther.
^recently I read that "middle grade" books are actually books for high school students, not middle school students as I had previously thought (since, you know, they both have the word "middle" in them). However, since I've said before that YA books are not about "young adults" (people over the age of 18 but not much more) but rather "children"-who-are-almost-adults I'll continue to call books aimed more at the 11-14 year old crowd "middle grade" books.

Comic Review: The Big Kahn

Another book I picked up at the local library over winter break and not for any really good reason. Sometimes I feel like I read too much fantasy and try to read some realistic fiction to balance it out but usually I find myself feeling more annoyed than balanced after reading it.

The Big Kahn by Neil Kleid and Nicolas Cinquegrani

 Summary: On the day of his funeral, David Kahn's brother reveals to his family that David was never Jewish and spent the past forty years as their Rabbi living a lie. The congregation is now mistrustful of the entire family and the family has to rethink how they viewed their husband and father and determine just what this means for them.

The Good: The book focuses on Kahn's wife and three children (with more emphasis on his oldest son and rabbi in training Avi) and their reactions to the whole situation felt very real. I didn't agree with how any of them ended up dealing with the problem but I think that's just from having different religious and cultural views, their final decisions were very in character. It's a well done character study and an interesting take a religion/culture that is different from that of mainstream America.

The Bad: While the internal struggles of the family were done well (even if I didn't agree with them) the outside conflict with the congregation felt forced. In the very first chapter it's established that Jewish ancestry is traced through the mother's line (so all the kids are Jewish, regardless of what their father was) and all of them were raised Jewish as well. So seeing the rest of the synagogue make comments about how they really aren't Jewish was frustrating, yes I know that people really can be that mean but people are also logical. Seeing the entire congregation (and yes, it appears that almost no one is on their side) change their views about them so quickly feels unnatural and instead of making me sympathize with the family more it just left me feeling rather annoyed. Maybe the point of the story was how Kahn was more Jewish than those who were born Jewish but I really don't think it was and I feel that subplot could've been dropped from the story without any negative effect on it.

The Art: Fans of animation are probably familiar with the terms "key animation" and "in-between animation." Key animation are the important frames, the ones that people actually see,  and inbetween frames are the ones that link them together and, since they are less important, they are drawn by less skilled animators/outsourced which has lead to some screenshots of horribly off model characters and just badly drawn in general. That's what Kahn looked like for most of the time sadly and you can't even say it was because of the artist's style. They were clearly going for a fairly realistic style yet the characters often looked awkward and unnatural and this could happen at any point in the book, not just the emotionally charged moments (if it had been only then then I could've made a case for it being the style). I was actually surprised how bad it looked in places, most of the webcomics I follow have more consistent art than this does.

Not connected in any way to this review but the Fractale simulcast is back! So, short of this turning out to be the worst noitaminA show ever, except a review that come April.