The Unfinished Corner - Interview with Writer Dani Colman

 Finally, finally. Almost as a reward for wading through "less than ultimate" review books, I have been blown away by an amazing graphic novel, and I will have to keep checking my thesaurus for different words for "amazing."

Published in 2021 by Wonderbound, The Unfinished Corner creators are

Dani Colman - Writer

Rachel "Tuna" Petrovicz - Artist

Whitney Cogar - Colorist

Jim Campbell - Letterer

The graphic novel is such a great format for an adventure story like this one. The combination of illustrations and text, the different formats -- panels, double spreads, etc., and the mythical characters, will hold the reader's attention.

As a fan girl, I could go on, but I had the privilege of asking writer Dani Colman some of my questions.

I want to be very careful not to reveal spoilers, because I know readers will be delighted when they encounter some of the amazing (stunning? astounding?) things in the graphic novel.

LILAL: I will give a hint that there is a scene which to me was a combination of the television show “Glow Up” and Mirka, of Hereville fame, versus the dragon. There is also a vehicle which reminds me of either The Magic School Bus or the Mystery Machine van from Scooby Do. Have others noticed this?

Dani Colman: The book is absolutely full of references for the eagle-eyed! I very much wanted to pay tribute to Hereville; there are very few proudly Jewish graphic novels for younger readers, and the Hereville books are so witty and adventurous and fun. Reading them was huge to me in proving that yes, this kind of story can be done. There are also references to many of the stories that influenced me growing up, from The Iron Giant to The Land Before Time to Herschel and the Hanukkah Goblins. Part of this is just a love letter to the stories that made me: I wouldn't be the writer I am without all of these wonderful influences. But I was also conscious of the fact that, as a millennial, some of the parents reading this book to their kids will be around my age, and will have grown up with the same stories. Nostalgia is such a powerful force, so I hope that including these little shoutouts to meaningful stories will help these parents and other adult readers tap into that childhood sense of wonder and adventure as they read.

LILAL: My short summary would be: Miri Feigenbaum, a talented art student, is swept into a bat mitzvah vision quest to save the world from demons. What’s yours?

Dani Colman: The way I pitch it to new readers is this: "It's a fantasy adventure based on Jewish mythology, in which four children are kidnapped by a rogue angel who wants them to finish the corner of the Universe that G-d forgot." What I've found works really well about this description is that it has three moments of surprise in it: three moments where I can see a potential reader's eyebrows go up with intrigue:
"...based on Jewish mythology..."
"...rogue angel..."
"...corner of the Universe that G-d forgot."
By the time I get that third eyebrow raise, they're usually reaching for the book!

LILAL: There is so much Jewish content: Kabbalah, Midrash, folklore, Jewish prayer. Two questions:
How did you research the graphic novel?

Dani Colman: I started by just reading everything I could get my hands on: books, articles, poorly-researched reddit posts - you name it! It's been a long time since I attended cheder, and I also knew I wanted to explore parts of folklore and the non-canonical texts that weren't part of my Jewish Studies curriculum as a teen, so I just absorbed as much as I could. Over time, I zeroed in on a couple of books that collected the kinds of stories that felt right for a fantasy adventure. Howard Schwartz is a renowned folklorist who's spent decades exploring Jewish mythology, so several of his books became foundational texts for The Unfinished Corner. From these foundational texts, I'd pull on threads I found interesting; sometimes they led to more of the same, but just as often I'd find some obscure piece of arcane text that gave the stories additional dimensions or context. One of the things I love about Judaism is that it's a culture of interpretation: the Talmud is literally the product of years of scholars debating the meaning of every line of the Torah! That means that for any given folktale or piece of commentary, there are tens of different versions and hundreds of different interpretations. There's very little "right" or "wrong": there's "doing the best you can to find a meaning that makes sense and upholds Jewish values".

LILAL: How did you weave it all together – across time and space?

Dani Colman: I knew where the story had to start, and I knew where the story had to end, and I knew that one stop in the middle was non-negotiable from the outset - I won't spoil it here, but it's a rare Jewish folktale that's very familiar to many non-Jews as well, so including it would instantly make the book more accessible to a wide variety of readers. From there, it was a question of which of the stories I'd researched would help the children in their journey: who's going to give them new information, or a way to traverse something impassable? Which characters will get in the protagonists' way, but in a way that forces them to be creative and learn something new? Which pieces of mythology can I draw on to exploit the specific strengths of my characters, or trip them up in interesting ways? Some folktales lent themselves really well to the epic journey nature of the story, such as the travels of Bar Bar Hanna (a sort of Jewish Sinbad figure); others, as much as I loved and wanted to include them, just didn't mesh well with the story I was trying to tell, and got put in the "maybe for a sequel" folder.

LILAL: How do you think non-Jewish readers will react to the story?

Dani Colman: I knew from the get-go that this book had to function as a fun, engaging adventure first. Readers are sensitive (and rightly so) to soapboxing, so if the characters aren't relatable and the story isn't gripping, any attempt to teach readers a little about Judaism will fall flat. So far, the response from non-Jewish readers tells me the book has succeeded in that! Readers enjoy the fantastical adventures, and I've had more than a few people tell me they were inspired to go out and read more about Judaism after they finished reading The Unfinished Corner. Reading stories based in other cultures was a huge part of my upbringing, from folklore to other religions to stories based in parts of the world I'd never seen. Every time I read a book that introduced characters living lives that were unfamiliar to me, I was motivated to read more, learn more, experience more. I can only hope that The Unfinished Corner does the same for non-Jewish readers!

LILAL: Many characters that are usually villains or “the bad guys” in Jewish lore are portrayed somewhat sympathetically. For example, Lilith (my son told me not to say her name out loud!) seems pretty reasonable. Are she and the Nephilim (fallen angels) just misunderstood?

Dani Colman: Jews are traditionally quite good at seeing other people's point of view; we're generally not dogmatic. It's built into our liturgy and tradition, from the Noachide commandments for ethical living for non-Jews, to the mitzvahs of taking care of guests and not making non-Jewish household members or staff work on Shabbat, to stories of even our more traditional villains (like Achashverosh) being brought around by wisdom and lateral thinking. I had some conversations with my editor very early on about whether it would strengthen the story to include a more traditional "Big Bad", but at the end of the day, it just didn't feel authentically Jewish to do so. There's also the fact that Jews have been cast as villains in so many anti-Semitic narratives and we as a people are - of course! - much more complex than that. The vast majority of us are ordinary folks just doing our best; just like any group, we've also got truly good people and people who are...not. For any non-Jewish reader who's got a little unconscious anti-Semitism floating around in their brain, making sure the nominal antagonists of the story are complex and empathetic is a way of countering that bias.

LILAL: My library colleagues usually assign graphic novels to the “middle grade” section of the library, but as an adult, I appreciated so many references, for example, Hadassah singing “Three Little Maids” from “The Mikado” in the back seat, that I don’t think they would appreciate. Who do you see as your target audience?

Dani Colman: Our recommended reading age is 8-13, and we've had a pretty good response from that demo, even with the occasional Gilbert and Sullivan! That said, I feel strongly that "all ages" material should be truly for all ages. Younger readers will probably read this book with their parents, which means that there should be jokes and references for the parents to enjoy too. Speaking purely for myself, there's also something so satisfying about returning to a book I enjoyed as a kid, and finding something I could only appreciate as an adult - it's like the author left a gift for me. A book like Watership Down is meaningful to me because every year I've read it - and I've read it almost every year since I was eight or so - I've discovered or understood something new. That's the mark of good kids' or teens' literature for me: a story that grows and matures with the reader.

I also should probably mention that Miri's family is lovingly inspired by my own parents and siblings, and gathering around the piano with my dad to sing Gilbert and Sullivan was a proud family tradition. The bat mitzvah-scene rewrite of "Modern Major General" was directly inspired by my own siblings' b'nei mitzvah, in which - in lieu of speeches - I sang The Bat Mitzvah Rag to the tune of "Tom Lehrer's Vatican Rag," and my siblings sang The Rabbi Cometh to the tune of Flanders & Swann's "The Gas-Man Cometh."  It's just what the Colman kids do!
There's also a musical joke in the middle of the book that I expect exactly one person (outside the creative team) to get, and that's my dad. Hi, Dad!

LILAL: The Association of Jewish Libraries maintains a Jewish Values Finder. From that values list, I obviously saw Tikkun Olam/Repairing the World and Cleaving to Friends. What other values would you like readers to take away – both personal and communal?

Dani Colman: Lifnei Aver - inclusivity - is the big one. The four main characters are very different, and have unique strengths and weaknesses. In writing the story, I was very careful to make sure that for each character, there was at least one point where the story could not progress without them; that, without Judith's worldliness or Avi's studiousness or Miri's stubbornness or David's open-heartedness, the foursome would stop dead. This in turn plays into the broader theme of not just valuing each other's differences, but actively making space for them, and it helps the children come to the realization that those they think are the villains of the story actually have much more to offer.

T'shuvah and s'lichah - repentance and forgiveness - are also really important. Growing up is making mistakes, and these characters do that: they keep secrets, they behave selfishly, and they lash out when they're hurt. It takes acknowledging their failings, understanding how they've caused hurt, and willingness to forgive and be forgiven for them to come together in strength and persevere.

LILAL: Any plans for a sequel or related graphic novel?

Dani Colman: There are so many places I want to take these characters! The stack of fun ideas I had to leave out for space is bigger by far than the stack of ideas that made it into the book. Given the opportunity, I could explore the infinite corners of Judaism with these characters for the rest of my career. Right now, though, this is a debut book from a brand new imprint, so we're still watching how it does out in the world. When the time is right, we'll be ready!

Thank you Dani.

And now, one of the best parts of the graphic novel world...

FREE SWAG!!!!!

Watch the trailer here.

Click here to download a preview of The Unfinished Corner.

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Click here for a chat with Dani Colman and Wonderbound Managing Editor Rebecca Taylor

Some sad news from The Real Cats of Israel. One of our own Real Cats, JoJo, has ascended to Kitty Heaven. We saved JoJo when he was a kitten, and he was in our lives for five years. While this feisty Tom reminded us of a teenage boy -- run around, eat, sleep, he definitely crawled into our hearts.

Happy Reading!