IT’S ALWAYS BEEN HERE: A Comic by Leela Corman
I was inspired by a place I visited in western Turkey called Meryem Ana (Mother Mary). The claim is that it’s where the Virgin Mary lived out her last days, and there’s a little chapel there with a constant line of pilgrims, and a wall of prayers. But there is also a much older keyhole-shaped pool (god, I hope I’m remembering that right), and my friend and I thought the place must have been a much earlier site of worship. So I saw it as a spot that has always been used for the prayers and petitions of women, throughout time, regardless of the deities who might be associated with it.
When you go to very old places, you feel their layers of spiritual practice strongly—they just wear different masks.
(illustration adapted from Women’s Review of Books)
About the Author
Leela Corman is a painter, educator, and graphic novel creator. Her books include Unterzakhn (Schocken/Pantheon, 2012) and the short comics collections We All Wish For Deadly Force (Retrofit/Big Planet, 2016) and You Are Not A Guest (Field Mouse Press, 2023). Her graphic novel Victory Parade, a story about WWII, women’s wrestling, and the liberation of the Buchenwald concentration camp, will be published by Schocken/Pantheon in 2024. Her short comics have appeared in The Believer Magazine, Tablet Magazine, Nautilus, and The Nib. She is a founding instructor at Sequential Artists Workshop, and an instructor at Rhode Island School of Design.
Author photo is (c) Dena Rosenberg.
