James Sturm – författare

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.

A rescued archive of vintage New York City from a forgotten ash can artistAfter cartoonist, educator, and editor James Sturm discovered the vintage book Mopey Dick and the Duke, he set off to find out more about the author, the deceased and unknown cartoonist Denys Wortman. Sturm immediately took note of the masterful drawings-casual, confident, and brimming with personality-and wondered how this cartoonist escaped his radar. After some online sleuthing, Sturm connected with Wortman's son, who relayed that an archive of more than five thousand illustrations was literally sitting in his shed in dire need of rescuing. For more than thirty-five years, the illustrations had been fighting such elements as hungry rodents, rusty paper clips, and even a blizzard. Wortman's son also had drawers full of his father's correspondence, including letters and holiday cards from William Steig and Walt Disney. Original artwork by artists and personal friends-including Peggy Bacon, Milt Gross, Isabel Bishop, and Reginald Marsh-were also saved. The fact that Wortman's luminary peers held him in the highest regard, coupled with his artistic prowess, makes his absence from both fine art and comics history puzzling. So Sturm and Brandon Elston set out to create a beautiful tribute to the forgotten master.Denys Wortman's New York is not only a tribute to Wortman; it is a tribute to New York, the city that sparked Wortman's voracious creative output. From coal cellars to rooftops, from opera houses to boardinghouses, Wortman recorded the sailors, dishwashers, con artists, entertainers, pushcart peddlers, construction workers, musicians, hoboes, society matrons, young mothers, secretaries, and students who collectively made the city what it was and is today.

Before penning his acclaimed graphic novel Market Day and founding the Center for Cartoon Studies, James Sturm proved his worth as a master cartoonist with the eloquent graphic novel, The Golem s Mighty Swing, one of the first breakout graphic novel hits of the 21st century. Sturm s fascination with the invisible America has been the crux of his comics work, exploring the rarely-told or oft-forgotten bits of history that define a country. By reuniting America s greatest pastime with its hidden history, the graphic novel tells the story of the Stars of David, a barnstorming Jewish baseball team of the depression era. Led by its manager and third baseman, the nomadic team travels from small town to small town providing the thrill of the sport while playing up their religious exoticism as a curio for people to gawk at, heckle, and taunt. When the team s fortunes fall, the players are presented a plan to get people in the stands. But by placing their fortunes in the hands of a promoter, the Stars of David find themselves fanning the flames of ethnic tensions.Sturm s nuanced composition is on full display as he deftly builds the climax of the game against the rising anti-Semitic fervour of the crowd. Baseball, small towns, racial tensions, and the desperate grasp for the American Dream: The Golem s Mighty Swing is a classic American novel.

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.