OR – Unterzakhn Signing

Leela Corman signs at Powell’s Books on Monday April 9, 2012 at 7:30PM.

Unterzakhn (Schocken) is Leela Corman’s mesmerizing, heartbreaking graphic novel about immigrant life on New York’s Lower East Side at the turn of the 20th century. With brilliant illustrations that capture both the tumult and the telling details of the street life of the time, Unterzakhn tells the story of Esther and Fanya, twin sisters for whom the difference between mere survival and great success involves painful decisions with uncertain consequences.

Powell’s Books
1005 W Burnside, Portland, OR

SF – Unterzakhn Signing

Press Release:

The Cartoon Art Museum welcomes cartoonist Leela Corman on Thursday, April 12 from 7:00-9:00pm for a discussion and book signing of her latest release, Unterzakhn, published by Schocken Books/Pantheon. This event is free and open to the public.

About the artist:
Leela Corman studied painting, printmaking and illustration at Massachusetts College of Art. Her book Queen’s Day earned her a Xeric Award in 1999 and was called “music to my eyes” by Scott McCloud. She has created two more graphic novels including her latest, Unterzakhn, published by Schocken/Pantheon. In her successful illustration career, she has illustrated books for major publishers on crafts, fashion, gardening, dating and other topics. She is also an accomplished bellydancer and bellydance instructor. Corman and her husband, Tom Hart, are the founders of The Sequential Artists Workshop, a non-profit organization dedicated to the prosperity and promotion of comic art and artists, offering instruction in comic art, graphic novels and visual storytelling in vibrant Gainesville, Florida.

About the book:
A mesmerizing, heartbreaking graphic novel of immigrant life on New York’s Lower East Side at the turn of the twentieth century, as seen through the eyes of twin sisters whose lives take radically and tragically different paths.

For six-year-old Esther and Fanya, the teeming streets of New York’s Lower East Side circa 1910 are both a fascinating playground and a place where life’s lessons are learned quickly and often cruelly. In drawings that capture both the tumult and the telling details of that street life, Unterzakhn (Yiddish for “Underthings”) tells the story of these sisters: as wide-eyed little girls absorbing the sights and sounds of a neighborhood of struggling immigrants; as teenagers taking their own tentative steps into the wider world (Esther working for a woman who runs both a burlesque theater and a whorehouse, Fanya for an obstetrician who also performs illegal abortions); and, finally, as adults battling for their own piece of the “golden land,” where the difference between just barely surviving and triumphantly succeeding involves, for each of them, painful decisions that will have unavoidably tragic repercussions.

Cartoon Art Museum
655 Mission Street, San Francisco, CA 94105

FL – Unterzakhn Signing

Leela Corman signs at Barnes & Noble on Monday April 16, 2012 at 7:00 PM.

About this Author

LEELA CORMAN has illustrated books on subjects ranging from urban gardening to the history of the skirt, and her work has also appeared in The New York Times, on WNET/Thirteen, and in The Boston Phoenix, Lilith, Bust, and Tikkun. She studied painting, printmaking, and illustration at Massachusetts College of Art. Leela is also a professional belly dancer. Her radio show, “Ecstacy to Frenzy” airs weekly on GROWRadio. She lives in Florida.

Barnes & Noble – Butler Plaza West
3910 S.W. Archer Road, Gainesville, FL 32608
352-372-3535

MA – Unterzakhn Signing

Leela Corman signs at Brookline Booksmith on Wednesday, April 4th at 7pm.

Press Release:

Illustrator and cartoonist Leela Corman (Subway Series, Queen’s Day) is a graduate of MassArt and has had her work in The New York Times, The Boston Phoenix, and Bust Magazine, among others. In her debut graphic novel, Unterzakhn (Yiddish for “underthings”) she tells the story of two identical twin Jewish immigrant girls growing up in turn-of-the-century New York.

Brookline Booksmith
Coolidge Corner
279 Harvard Street, Brookline, MA 02446-2908