“Hereville: How Mirka Got Her Sword”, written and drawn by Barry Deutsch, is an independently-produced 57-page comic book that tells the story of Mirka, an 11-year old girl living in the fictional ultra-Orthodox Jewish community of Aherville. (”Hereville”, to the goyim.)

This is not a Marvel comic book filled with iron-jawed superheroes, though Mirka yearns for heroics - dreaming of dragonslaying as she tends her younger brother, knits with her stepmother, and prepares the Shabbat meal with her family. “Hereville” explores themes more adult than its protagonist might wish for in a comic book - primarily, coming of age, the role of women in traditional societies, a subtle exploration of how communities on the margins of a larger society nonetheless view themselves as the center, with their own set of outcasts and marginal figures, and the struggle faced by an independent, somewhat nonconformist young girl faced with a social role not of her choice or to her liking.

The story of Mirka begins with a friendly argument, and climaxes in a debate whose outcome could mean death to Mirka - or could, if we didn’t presume from the title that our heroine would prevail in the end. In between, Mirka saves an outcast woman (a “witch”, according to the local boys) from a beating, and is offered a reward for her service - a reward that takes the form of a quest to retrieve a sword from the local troll. But before Mirka can battle the troll, she must keep her brother from ratting out her plans to their ever-protective parents, celebrate the Shabbat, and find a way to get out of the house at night without being detected. These obstacles and travails are drawn with wit and warmth, and the reader is drawn into the oddball world of “Hereville” without a backwards glance. (A world of trolls, witches, electric lights and vacuum cleaners? Don’t ask questions - just enjoy it!)

“Hereville” is in some ways an experimental work. Deutsch attempted an ambitious method of displaying night-time scenes, using a dark palette and brown/black backgrounds to distinguish the approximately 1/3 of the book that takes place outdoors at night. This choice makes the night-time scenes quite distinct and recognizably “night”, but at the cost of washing out much of Deutsch’s distinctive linework style. The occasional frames with starlight and moonlight, or with a character’s eyes shining, make a dramatic contrast and are really very lovely.

“Really very lovely,” in fact, is a fair descriptor for most of the artwork of “Hereville”. Other reviewers have noted that the artwork improves through the course of the book’s 57 pages; I would not characterize it as an improvement, but as an evolution of the stylistic choices Deutsch made. “Hereville” began life as an online serial comic, with one or two pages appearing over the course of a week, and some stylistic modifications are to be expected. In the beginning of the book, the artist uses a lot of lined backgrounds, but by the end of the work he seems more confident in the foreground’s ability to carry the frame. Some of the individual frames and composite frames are absolutely beautiful; the four-page scene depicting Mirka’s struggle in the final conflict of the story is simply brilliant work, as are many of the individual frames preceding it. (Indeed, much of my complaint with the night-time scenes is a lament that I’m being deprived of the full enjoyment of the linework.) All of the artwork throughout the book is attractive and works well as settings for the story.

And “Hereville”, despite the beauty of the artwork, is primarily a story. Unlike some independent comic book authors who seem to feel the need to add thirteen layers of ironic detachment to their work, Deutsch is presenting a tale. It is a tale with context and subtext, and the reader will add much of their own worldview to the reading (this reviewer had assumed that the residents of Aherville were speaking a mixture of English and Yiddish, and was brought up short towards the end when the context abruptly shifted and it became clear that all of the previous dialog had actually been pure Yiddish, rendered in English simply for the benefit of the reader) - but Deutsch is content to let his characters tell their own story, without heavy-handed editorializing. Deutsch is a better artist than he is a writer - many authors with that balance of skills would provide us with gorgeous visuals illustrating vacuity. Instead we have a good story made brilliant by its artistic sensibility.

The book is not without its flaws. The troll, when he makes his eventual appearance as the story’s ultimate villain, is not particularly impressive or frightening, despite his very real power. Mirka is not always drawn with perfect consistency, particularly her nose, the changes to which would seem to require Aherville to employ its own full-time cosmetic surgeon. Plot-wise, the denouement could have been handled better; Mirka’s eventual victory feels somewhat contrived. Artistically, the beginning and middle of the book feel more lovingly handled than the end, which despite the power of many of its constituent panels, feels somehow rushed.

But these are minor critiques for the most part, akin to noting that a fantastic rose has a thorn on the stem or that a gorgeous dimpled infant’s hair is tousled. “Hereville” is a gem of a book, one that whets the appetite for more - and more is promised, for Deutsch has announced that the second chapter in Aherville’s saga will commence in January of 2009. Readers everywhere should delight in this news, set their bookmarks, and wait hungrily for the next pages of this ongoing work. It will be a long year - but in the meantime, we have “Hereville” to read and re-read.

“Hereville” can be read online at Deutsch’s comic site, or purchased as a paper book.