Victory Parade

Victory Parade cuts between the Brooklyn Navy Yard, the wrestling ring, and the astral plane above Buchenwald — a triptych held together by Leela Corman’s liquid watercolor-and-gouache brush. Set in 1944, it follows two Jewish women on the home front: Rose, whose stoic husband is fighting overseas, is raising their young daughter and working in a parachute factory while slipping into an affair with a wounded veteran; Ruth, a German refugee in her early adulthood, is haunted by flashbacks and can’t hold a job until she’s discovered by a manager who recognizes “the look of one who has good reason to smash something.” She becomes “Ruthless Ruby, the Killer Kraut” — a lady wrestler whose rage in the ring is the closest thing she has to peace.

Corman paints entirely by hand — watercolor, gouache, and acrylic — in a style that directly channels the Neue Sachlichkeit (New Objectivity) painters of Weimar Germany, particularly Otto Dix (whose painting “The Skat Players” she copies within the book). The Nazis deemed this art “degenerate”; Corman reclaims it as the visual language of Jewish survival. Publishers Weekly gave it a starred review, calling it “the finest work yet from an always formidable artist,” and the book was named one of 2024’s Best Graphic Novels by the Washington Post, NPR, Publishers Weekly, and The Guardian. It earned three 2025 Eisner Award nominations: Best Graphic Album, Best Writer/Artist, and Best Publication Design.

Perfect for fans of Art Spiegelman’s Maus, Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home, and Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis — graphic novels that wield the medium’s full expressive power to confront history, trauma, and the cost of survival.

Created by Leela Corman.