Virtual Memories Show 583:
Leela Corman
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“My positionality when I work with the Holocaust is not insular; it is my way of carrying my little corner of humanity’s coffin at the funeral.”
At long last, artist Leela Corman joins the show as we celebrate her breathtaking new graphic novel, VICTORY PARADE (Schocken Books)! We talk about how the book brings together the women welders of WWII-era Brooklyn Navy Yards, professional wrestling, and her lifelong obsession with the Shoah, how discovering her watercolor style was like the portal between life and death opening, the art school experience that derailed her, and how the artistic ground start shifting beneath her as she got serious about her comics. We get into her life-defining visit to the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the sacred responsibility of teaching, the influence of New Objectivity (& a bazillion other styles and modes of art & storytelling) on her work, why she brought characters from her earlier GN Unterzakhn into Victory Parade, her twin polestars of Primo Levi & Lisa Carver, and her music-comics collaboration with Thalia Zedek. Plus we discuss the Gen X practice of warts-and-all autobio comics, transgenerational trauma and the next book in her ‘Birnbaumiad’ triptych, the BS of artist’s statements, the revelation of Neko Case’s music, and a lot more. Give it a listen! And go read VICTORY PARADE!
“RAW made me realize how much I wanted to make comics, and WEIRDO made me realize I could.”
“I didn’t make this book because of the 2016 election or of fascist politics on the rise; it was already percolating. But things can converge sometimes.”
“I love performance, and backstage, and costumes, and the weird intersection of the pubic and private that performance is.”
“Fuck permission. The world should consider itself lucky that I’m here to tell these stories.”
Enjoy the conversation! Then check out the archives for more great episodes!
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About our Guest
Leela Corman is a painter, educator, and graphic-novel creator, working in the realm of diaspora Ashkenazi culture and third-generation restorative work. Her books include Unterzakhn, which was nominated for an Eisner Award, a Los Angeles Times Book Prize, and Le Prix Artémisia; won the 2015 Romics Prize for Best Anglo-American Comic; and received a 2023 MoCCA Arts Festival Award of Excellence, and the short comics collections You Are Not a Guest and We All Wish for Deadly Force. Her work has appeared in many publications, including The Believer, Nautilus, and The Nib. She is a founding instructor at Sequential Artists Workshop and an instructor at Rhode Island School of Design. Her new book is Victory Parade.
Follow Leela on Bluesky and Instagram, and support her work on Patreon.
Credits: This episode’s music is Fella by Hal Mayforth, used with permission from the artist. The conversation was recorded at Leela’s home on a pair of Blue enCORE 200 microphones feeding into a Zoom PodTrak P4 digital recorder & interface. I recorded the intro and outro on a Heil PR-40 Dynamic Studio Recording Microphone feeding into a Zoom PodTrak P4. All processing and editing done in Adobe Audition CC. Photo of Leela by Dena Rosenberg. It’s on my instagram.