"Hereville: How Mirka Met a Meteorite" by Barry Deutsch

Hereville: How Mirka Met a Meteorite is the second "Hereville" book from Barry Deutsch. In the first book the heroine Mirka outwitted a witch, won a magic sword, and defeated a goblin. In “Meteorite,” Mirka re-ignites the feud between the witch and the goblin, and ends up bringing down a meteor on Hereville.  Fortunately for the town, the witch changes the meteorite into a twin of Mirka, called Metty.  The girl and the meteorite decide to share Mirka’s life, until  Metty shows herself as extremely competent at everything, and Mirka feels useless.  She challenges Metty the meteorite to three tests. If Metty loses to Mirka on any one of the tests, the meteorite girl must return return to space.  Unfortunately, Metty is so good at everything, Mirka starts to despair whether she will ever get her life back.

“Meteorite” does a nice job of expanding Hereville. It seems more like an amalgam of modern life (or, maybe the 60's) overlaid with a template of 1900s rural living.  For example, at one point the goblin refers to NASA, but Mirka doesn’t seem to know the acronym.  She is also confused by a design tattooed on the witch’s arm.  All the clothes look like handmade articles, but a scene of Mirka running down a street of craftsman bungalows with a VW Bug parked at the curb looks like NW Portland. Could it be that Deutsch is dropping these small hints as he prepares for a larger story?

The ultimate resolution to Mirka's predicament is as clever, exciting, and satisfying as any fairy tale. And it is a fairy tale -- witch, goblin, magic swords and all.  But, it is also a modern story. Mirka is a self-rescuing princess, and the world she comes from is woven from a rich tapestry.  Like the first book, I enjoyed the infusion of Jewish culture into the story.  Deutsch annotates many of the pages with footnotes translating the Yiddish words that the characters use.  The effect adds a solid touch of the exotic to Hereville.

The artwork is competent, clean and engaging.  His mastery of the characters shines through. For example, Metty is drawn neater, happier and more confident than Mirka, who has a slightly frazzled look.  The slapstick feeling of the art enhances the story, and the final sequence in space goes completely off the rails, shedding all rules of physics and biology. But that’s OK. We still feel for Mirka, and want her to return to her life safely.  And, hopefully, for a third Hereville story!

"How Mirka Met a Meteorite" has been nominated for the 2014 Oregon Book Awards (OBA) in the Graphic Novel category. You can read a preview of the book online.