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Inside Out Reviews “Hereville”

Posted by Ampersand | May 2nd, 2008

Rachel Edidin has given Hereville a glowing review on her blog, Inside Out. I’m very happy — Rachel works for a big comics publisher and is one of the people behind Girl-Wonder, and she’s also plain smart as hell, so she really knows what she’s talking about. Here’s a sample:

Hereville is good. It’s really good.

It’s the kind of good that makes me want to carry a copy with me at all times, just so that I can look at it every few minutes as a reminder that any world that produces books like this one is probably worth the benefit of the doubt.

Comics that can honestly be described as all-ages are few and far between. Knitting a narrative that appeals to adults and remains accessible to and appropriate for kids is no easy feat. Imbuing that story with layers of rich culture and tradition without overwhelming readers, and doing so while slyly subverting both form and trope take serious skill.

There are no spoilers in the full review, but there are criticisms of the artwork which will make more sense to folks who have read the entire story. I certainly agree with Rachel that the art changes (and, imo, gets better) as the story goes on. Rachel also thinks my coloring of the night-time scenes is too dark; I disagree, but I can see what she means, and a lot of people agree with her. I wanted to do something very different for my night-time scenes than I’ve seen other cartoonists do, but it may be I went too far; I’m still a bit of a fence-sitter on that question.

Those of you who are reading Hereville online will have to wait through another month or so of updates before you’ll get to see if you agree with Rachel about the night-time coloring or not. :-)

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2 Responses to “Inside Out Reviews “Hereville””

  1. nobody.really Writes:
    May 2nd, 2008 at 1:56 pm

    Given that you were “feeling a bit gushy” when A Blog About Comics gave you a positive review, I expect you’re a veritable geyser over this one. If modestly requires you to bury the lead, I’m only too happy to exhume it:

    I’ve been working on this review for a while, and it’s been giving me a lot of trouble, because when I try to express my thoughts on Barry Deutsch’s Hereville: How Mirka Got Her Sword, I usually end up bouncing up and down and making enthusiastic noises of inarticulate glee. These are behaviors that are generally frowned upon in critical circles, and they translate poorly to text….

    I’d again add my congratulations, but they seem too … dry and static for the occasion.

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  2. Dylan Thurston Writes:
    May 2nd, 2008 at 4:34 pm

    I bet the nighttime colors depend very much on the viewing computer. I presume that review was based on an electronic version? The gamma correction makes a huge difference, especially for the darker colors.

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