It's Been A Good Year For James Sturm!

This past April saw the release of the original graphic novel MARKET DAY by James Sturm, and just last month, we published James' "side project" DENYS WORTMAN'S NY (how many side projects can one man have?). People, you know you have had a good year when both of your projects merit their own NY Times article or review. Not to mention that each of the titles ended up on a handful of Best of 2010 lists including MARKET DAY on Amazon's and DENYS WORTMAN'S NY on NY Mag's Vulture. Avid D+Q blog readers may recall that James spent most of the Spring offline, while blogging (offline) for Slate, so for James and for everyone, here's a recap of pretty much the astounding press the book received.

George Gene Gustines notes about MARKET DAY: The splendid artwork in “Market Day” manages to evoke — depending on the scene — wonder or sadness, though the color palette mostly stays muted. Mendleman has the soul and vision of an artist.

NPR's Books We Like said: Throughout, Sturm's prose is straightforward, his art spare and deceptively simple; together, however, his words and images achieve the quiet lyricism of the folktale, the fable. And like many fables, the feeling Market Day leaves on us is one that's quiet, wistful and elegiac, one that even offers — though you really have to look for it — the slenderest thread of something like hope.

Booklist came in with the first review: The timeless dilemma of balancing artistic integrity and the dictates of the marketplace is addressed with compassion and sensitivity in this recounting of an eventful 24 hours in the life of a rug maker in eastern Europe in the early 1900s.

The Jewish Press said: Sturm is...a master of suggestion...Could there be a better metaphor for the struggles of the shtetl than a rug maker, so proud of the gorgeous detail of his black, white and gray rugs?

Publishers Weekly gave Market Day a Starred Review: Although the details of rural Eastern European Jewish life at the turn of the century ring true, the book is less rooted in a specifically explicated setting than some of Sturm's previous historical fictions, allowing Mendleman's dilemma to function as a broader metaphor for the perpetual struggle between independent creativity and impersonal market forces.

Of course, I particularly like what the Oregonian said: Sturm illuminates the rug maker's exile and his odyssey with sobering eloquence, and the detailing of the book reminds us that Drawn & Quarterly still cares about quality, even if Finkler's son-in-law doesn't. This is the best graphic novel, to date, of 2010.

Torontoist stated: Sturm’s style is economic and simple...But what is drawn is very expressive....The economic use of colour stands out. There is a fantastical atmosphere – despite the starkness of the drawing style, there is a sense of the unreal.

The Burlington Press asked the following questions after reading the book: Why does the artist create? How much can one day change an entire life? In what or who should we place our faith? These questions all arise on one trip to the market.

The Onion's AV Club gave the book an A-: Market Day is a meditation on the commercial concerns of artists, and how the industrial revolution made some craftsmen obsolete too soon, robbing them of their dignity. But it’s also about the joys and pains of creation itself, and how that sometimes trumps the need to make money.

Esteemed Comics critic D. Wolk reviews for Techland: James Sturm's splendid new graphic novel Market Day also makes a great deal of its sense of place and time, although it doesn't specify exactly when and where it's set--it's a fable, rather than a piece of invented history.

The jewish journal Zeek ends its thoughtful review with At 88 pages Sturm’s book may be small, but it is a masterpiece in miniature.

James went on tour for the book and when he stopped in his former home of Seattle, his alma mater (child?), The Stranger, glowingly reviewed the book: Market Day is a sublime bit of cartooning. Passages of large, postcard-sized panels stretch Mendleman's long walk to and from the marketplace into a picturesque journey.

At his stop on Portland: The Mercury states A STOMACH-DROPPING PARABLE crammed into a slim hardback graphic novel, James Sturm's Market Day distills anxieties about art and commerce, supporting a family, and how precarious life in a market economy can be.

The Willamette Weekly compares James to Herge and Beckett: A lyrical vignette that feels like Samuel Beckett by way of Hergé, Market Day follows an introspective rug-maker who’s trying to balance dreams and responsibility

News of MARKET DAY reached Halifax's The Coast: with this trip to the old country, he masterfully lays out the countryside and cobblestone streets of a village in eastern Europe.

Cliff Froeligh of the St Louis Post Dispatch offers: Although a sober work, "Market Day's" overall gloom is relieved by earthy humor, and the gorgeous artwork, with its muted colors and evocative landscapes and street scenes, conjures a world as beautiful as it is believable.

School Library Journal recommends it for 10th Graders and Up: With expressive and moody imagery, Sturm’s story is at once original and universal. The struggle to maintain one’s identity after losing a job is a tough one, and the author does an excellent job conveying

International retailing juggernaut, Forbidden Planet, who, by the way, have the best comics retailer site this way of our own 211 blog,: Market Day is a book that stays with you well after the final page, it’s power and heart lies in the beautifully observed character studies Sturm creates through some wonderfully powerful artwork. A quiet, thoughtful, understated classic of a book.

The Montreal Gazette states: Sturm renders the lost world of early 20th-century Eastern European Jewry with sombre-hued economy; as a writer, he unfolds his narrative with the deft, unforced momentum of an Isaac Bashevis Singer story...Market Day gets this reviewer's vote as graphic novel of the year.

And what is perhaps the best way to end the year? Well, when Al Jaffee weighs in with not only the best things to say about your book but it reminds him of his own childhood: [Market Day] particularly affected me because I spent my childhood between the ages of six and twelve in an environment that was very much like the one in the book...To me the characters became three dimensional and were living life as I remembered it.

MARKET DAY was James' first book in, let's just say a few years, but he has the best reason of any artist of why it took him a few years to get the story out of him--just that he and Michelle Ollie started the country's only school devoted entirely to cartooning and awards MFAs, The Center for Cartoon Studies in White River Junction, VT. The school is a non-profit, and if you would like to give money to its annual appeal, visit here and read a comic by CCS alum Joe Lambert. The comic addresses teh following statements: 1) Why I Came to the Center for Cartoon Studies 2) Why We Started A School, 3) Why CCS is important to Vermont 4) Why Comics Are Important and Why I Support CCS with testimonials from a wide and diverse list including Vermont's governor, Lynda Barry, Bill Boichel, as well as host of former and current students.

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