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A Review of Hereville, Issue 1
By Benor | May 15, 2008
Hereville is a comic with an interesting subject matter to me; that is, an unfamiliar one. The first issue, “How Mirka got her Sword,” spends a lot of time talking about living in a Jewish community, though when and where is unclear-and as far as I can tell, deliberately so. However, it’s not about the community, as much as I would find that interesting. Instead, it focuses on one resident, Mirka, who seeks to become a great hero, regardless of her culture’s view of her gender or the lack of dragons and ogres to slay.
The art for Hereville is interesting to me. Unlike most webcomics, it has a deliberately limited palette, using only red, black, white, and various shades of brown. It’s a striking look, and I think it usually works for the comic. For the most part, the art is quite nice-I especially like the detailed backgrounds, which make the more realistic parts of the comic even better. But the characters aren’t quite as realistic-normally this isn’t a problem, but it leads to a problem with their mouths. Often, when a character is speaking, they’ll open their mouths very wide, and they look like a Muppet. This is more of a problem in the beginning than in the recent pages, but it can still be seen.
As I noted in the beginning, the story for the first issue of Hereville is about Mirka, who wants a sword she can use to fight supernatural creatures with. On the surface, this seems like a silly wish, and this is reinforced by most of the other characters. However, Mirka saves an odd looking woman, who tells Mirka how she can obtain a sword to use against monsters. For the first 10 or so pages of the comic, I thought that Mirka’s “sword” was going to be a metaphor-a reference to how Mirka became confident in herself, and fought against others. In retrospect, this idea seems silly, considering how combative Mirka is from the start, but the setting is very realistic, up to a point. Mirka’s encounter with the woman, however, introduces magic and the supernatural, and while the story doesn’t suddenly become high fantasy, it starts to take on a very different tone. I think the story is quite good, myself-as jarring as the change in tone is, it still seems appropriate, and works well to me. I do wonder if future issues will have as much of a focus on the supernatural, though. I think the time the comic spends on the community (such as the explanation of its Shabbat rituals) serve an important purpose in grounding it in reality, and I wouldn’t want to see the comic move too far away from that grounding element.
The characters in Hereville don’t get a lot of definition in the first issue of the comic. We get a clear sense that Mirka herself is rather headstrong and argumentative, as is her stepmother Fruma. And Mirka has more than one argument with her brother, Zindel, especially after Mirka becomes set on getting a sword. Beyond that, we don’t get to learn much about the characters-but as an introductory issue, that’s not a knock on the comic. I just hope that when the next issue starts, we get to learn more about the characters outside of a stressful situation.
I think the writing of Hereville is strong, though there are a lot of elements that don’t get explained. For example, we are introduced to Fruma, Mirka and Zindel’s stepmother, on the first page, and see her again in the Shabbat section. But while he’s mentioned several times, we never meet Mirka and Zindel’s father. We also don’t learn the location of Aherville, or what time it’s set in-though we can reasonably assume it’s in the 20th century, since electric lights are in use. All of these things create a sense that there’s more to tell, but they also become a little frustrating, like we might have missed a page that explained it. Of course, these things might be explained when the first issue ends and the second begins, but I wonder. However, I also found myself being absorbed in some of the details-I thought the Shabbat section was especially charming, and some of the arguments Mirka and Fruma had were very amusing.
The best way I can describe Hereville, from my perspective, is as a brief glimpse into a culture I don’t know about from experience, with a little magic mixed in. Fortunately, the comic also has a strong story to go with this glimpse, which makes it more than an interesting look. Some people might feel like there isn’t enough information in Hereville, and I can understand that concern. But I enjoyed the comic a good deal, and I’d like to see what the second issue will be like. I give it 8 out of 10.
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