James Sturm

A TIMELESS MEDITATION ON ART AND COMMERCE SEEN THROUGH THE LIFE OF AN EARLY-TWENTIETH-CENTURY JEWISH RUG MAKER Mendleman's life goes through an upheaval when he discovers that he can no longer earn a living for his growing family doing the work that defines him—making well-crafted rugs by hand. A proud artisan, he takes his donkey-drawn cart to the market only to be turned away when the distinctive shop he once sold to now stocks only cheaply manufactured merchandise. As the realities of the marketplace sink in, Mendleman unravels. James Sturm draws a quiet, reflective, and beautiful portrait of eastern Europe in the early 1900s–bringing to life the hustle and bustle of an Old World marketplace on the brink of industrialization. Market Day is an ageless tale of how economic and social forces can affect a single life. An award-winning cartoonist of the books Golem's Mighty Swing, James Sturm's America, Satchel Paige: Striking Out Jim Crow, and Adventures in Cartooning, Sturm is a true visionary, having cofounded the Seattle alternative weekly The Stranger and the Center for Cartoon Studies, the country's premier cartooning school.

Market Day

Richard Adams

Joe Sutphin

The Graphic Novel

Watership Down

Alexis Frederick-Frost

Center for Cartoon Studies

Andrew Arnold

Once upon a time...a princess tried to make a comic. And with the help of a magical cartooning elf, she learned how--well enough to draw her way out of an encounter with a dangerous dragon, near-death by drowning, and into her very own adventure!--From publisher description.

How to Turn Your Doodles Into Comics

Adventures in Cartooning

Rage. Depression. Divorce. Politics. Love. A visceral story that you can see, taste, and feel. How could this happen? The question of 2016 becomes deeply personal in James Sturm’s riveting graphic novel Off Season, which charts one couple’s divisive separation during Bernie Sanders’s loss to Hillary Clinton, Clinton’s loss to Donald Trump, and the disorienting months that followed. We see a father navigating life as a single parent and coping with the disintegration of a life-defining relationship. Amid the upheaval lie tender moments with his kids—a sleeping child being carried in from the car, Christmas-morning anticipation, a late-night cookie after a temper tantrum—and fallible humans drenched in palpable feelings of grief, rage, loss, and overwhelming love. Using anthropomorphized characters as a tactic for tempering an otherwise emotionally fraught situation, Off Season is unaffected and raw, steeped in the specificity of its time while speaking to a larger cultural moment. A truly human experience, Off Season displays Sturm’s masterful pacing and storytelling combined with conscious and confident growth as the celebrated cartoonist and educator moves away from historical fiction to deliver this long-form narrative set in contemporary times. Originally serialized on Slate, this expanded edition turns timely vignettes into a timeless, deeply affecting account of one family and their off season.

Off Season

Fantastic Four

James Sturm pens this richly evocative graphic novel set in the 1920s. The Stars of David, a barnstorming Jewish baseball team, travel from town to town earning a living by playing local squads. They all sport beards, a gimmick to attract patrons but when financial difficulties threaten to end their season they cast their lot with a Chicago promoter who has just seen the hugely successful German silent film Der Golem... With the golem, a baseball game is transformed into a mythical pageant. Fear and curiosity fills the stadium, but it also stokes the flames of anti-Semitism. Winning the game for the Stars of David becomes less important then surviving it. With a sepia-tinted cinematic style, this compelling book reminds us that making it home is at the heart of baseball.

The Golem's Mighty Swing

Baseball Hall of Famer Leroy "Satchel" Paige (1905? – 1982) changed the face of the game in a career that spanned five decades. Much has been written about this larger-than-life pitcher, but when it comes to Paige, fact does not easily separate from fiction. He made a point of writing his own history…and then re-writing it. A tall, lanky fireballer, he was arguably the Negro League’s hardest thrower, most entertaining storyteller and greatest gate attraction. Now the Center for Cartoon Studies turns a graphic novelist’s eye to Paige’s story. Told from the point of view of a sharecropper, this compelling narrative follows Paige from game to game as he travels throughout the segregated South. In stark prose and powerful graphics, author and artist share the story of a sports hero, role model, consummate showman, and era-defining American.

Satchel Paige: Striking Out Jim Crow

Startling Stories

Chistmas special

Adventures in cartooning

The fourth installment of the hit Adventures in Cartooning series features a whole parade of crazy characters - and you'll learn to create your own!

The knight, Edward the horse, and the Magic Cartooning Elf introduce the concepts of quirky characters and how body language and expression can be combined with interesting characters to create action in comics.

characters in action!

God, Gold, and Golems

James Sturm's America

Sight Unseen

A portrait of the people and their dreams that make up this country are presented in a trilogy--"The Revival," "Hundreds of Feet Below Daylight," and "The Golem's Mighty Swing"--that focuses on less sensational times in American history.

The knight and her horse, Edward, have made a startling discovery: there are three huge ogres asleep at her doorstep! When they wake up, the kingdom is in big trouble! The knight, Edward, and some garden gnomes fight back, not with swords and shields, but with potato peelers and spoons. It turns out that ogres are pretty friendly when they have full stomachs!

Ogres Awake!

All day long, the Knight peels turnips. This isn’t what she had in mind for her first magic lesson. She wants to make a magic potion, not soup! Things get a lot more exciting when she steals the wizard’s magic wand and spell book. Her potion transforms Edward into a giant worm—and he’s hungry! Hocus Focus offers more sweet, goofy storytelling from the creators of Adventures in Cartooning. With simple how-to-draw tutorials on the endpapers, these cute picture books are a playful extension of the hit instructional series.

Hocus Focus

The Knight and his trusty horse Edward go on a camping trip, but the Knight cannot sleep when he discovers he has left his beloved teddy bear behind.

Sleepless Knight

The Knight's best friend is her horse, Edward. They go everywhere together and do everything together! But when the Knight gets a gryphon, suddenly all she talks about is how awesome her new pet is. Edward can't help it--he's jealous! But the gryphon turns out to be more of a peril than a pet, and it's Edward who comes to the rescue in the end. It turns out that gryphons aren't so great...but Edward sure is! The second of four adorable picture books from the creators of Adventures in Cartooning, Gryphons Aren't so Great is a sweet and accessible story in the Adventures in Cartooning universe.

Gryphons Aren't So Great

Baseball Hall of Famer Leroy "Satchel" Paige (1906 - 1982) changed the face of the game in a career that spanned five decades. Much has been written about this larger-than-life pitcher, but when it comes to Paige, fact does not easily separate from fiction. He made a point of writing his own history . . . and then re-writing it. A tall, lanky fireballer, he was arguably the Negro League's hardest thrower, most entertaining storyteller and greatest gate attraction. Now the Center for Cartoon Studies turns a graphic novelist's eye to Paige's story. Told from the point of view of a sharecropper, this compelling narrative follows Paige from game to game as he travels throughout the segregated South. In stark prose and powerful graphics, author and artist share the story of a sports hero, role model, consummate showman, and era-defining American.

Striking Out Jim Crow

Satchel Paige

Sy Montgomery

Candace Fleming

Thanhha Lai

Jon Scieszka

Jim Murphy

Douglas Florian

Nathan Hale

Elizabeth Partridge

T Edward Nickens

Steven Sheinkin

For use in schools and libraries only. The fifth installment in the Guys Read Library of Great Reading features ten stories that are 100% amazing, 100% adventurous, 100% unbelievable--and 100% true.

James Sturm

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