Send me an email telling me who you’d like a sketch of, and reminding me what email address you used when you bought a copy. Or, if you haven’t bought a copy yet, tell me that stuff when you do buy a copy.

Yeah, I’m asking for a personalized, signed copy. Do you do that? I promise I’ll keep it in very good company :-)

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.

I hadn’t really thought about how sepia tone suggests old, and how legends about dragon-slaying and trolls are deemed to refer to an older era. For people who read enough fantasy and magical realism, the relationship between fantasy and “the old days” gets pretty attenuated.

But this issue calls to mind various remarks in comments: Some people seem to think that Mirka must live in some by-gone day because … well, basically because she doesn’t live exactly like we do.

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.

Does “not always a seamless transition” = “conflicted with my expectations”? Sure, in the first 13 pages I imagine we’re in Fiddler on the Roof land. Why? ‘Cuz that’s my association with Orthodox Jewish communities. After all, I assume that contemporary Western people don’t live like that, don’t use such terms, aren’t isolated from popular concepts such as “trolls.” Starting at p. 14, I get an awakening: oh, yes they do. This is “not a seamless transition” the way my discovery that Le Guin’s Ged had red-brown skin was not a seamless transition. It reveals a dissonance – not within the text, but between the text and my unstated assumptions. That ain’t a bug; it’s a feature.

Weird huh?

And then you can sell out to Disney, like I know in your secret heart of hearts you really wanna do. It’ll be live action, recast at a Kibbutz in Israel and starring a Fanning as Mirka. I want bed sheets with a troll pillow.

There are still a lot of surprises left for you in the troll’s scenes.

Like the fact he’s based on Daffy Duck.

The box of “Herevilles” for the Stumptown con should hit UPS tomorrow, and get to me by a week from tomorrow. I have no idea how much it will weigh. :-)

As a UPS insider, can you give me any idea how reliable the standard five-day-shipping is? (If I get it by the 25th, I’m fine; but any later than that and I’m totally screwed.) Should I pay extra to get the three-day shipping?

Oh, that is a slight spoiler, now that you mention it; sorry I missed that. I’ll add a spoiler warning. Don’t worry, though: There are still a lot of surprises left for you in the troll’s scenes.

When confronted by a troll, Mirka is taken aback by its civil and sophisticated manner of speech.

Which isn’t a huge spoiler. But it was enough to make me quit reading the review: I figure that if someone posts a minor spoiler, then odds are likely that they’ll post a major one later on. You’re right that he doesn’t give away anything else.

Sorry…I’m a little sensitive ever since that fucktard Gene Seymour gave away the ending of Million Dollar Baby in his review in the LA Times.

Did I mention that Gene Seymour is a fucktard?

Mirka never does save the witch’s life, anywhere in this comic — but she does rescue the witch from being pelted with mud and perhaps worse, in the pages that have already been released. Is that what you’re thinking of as a spoiler?