{"id":600,"date":"2007-01-19T19:16:03","date_gmt":"2007-01-19T23:16:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.benzilla.com\/?p=600"},"modified":"2007-01-22T10:40:04","modified_gmt":"2007-01-22T14:40:04","slug":"james-sturm-at-app-state","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.benzilla.com\/?p=600","title":{"rendered":"James Sturm at App State"},"content":{"rendered":"

[With the deadline for Midnight Sun<\/em> #3 looming over my head like the proverbial sword of Damocles throughout the tail end of \u201806, I\u2019ve only now had a few moments to write about my excursion up to Appalachian State University to hear a presentation given by cartoonist (and friend) James Sturm.]<\/p>\n

It was dark, raining and generally miserable on the evening of November 30th<\/sup> when I set out up the mountain towards Boone, N.C., home of App State, as it\u2019s called colloquially in these parts. Among the things I most dislike in the arena of driving are: driving in the mountains, driving in the dark, and driving in the rain\u2014and yet, I was having a pretty enjoyable trip, thanks to newly added PART bus route<\/a> by means of which which one can travel from Winston-Salem to Boone for the low price of eight measly dollars. Every once in a while I\u2019d give a maniacal laugh as I glanced out the window of this brand spanking new bus at the poor rubes in passing cars pulling their hair out trying to drive in the maelstrom; I, meanwhile, was drawing<\/a> in my sketchbook<\/a>. <\/p>\n

After a delicious meal at the local hippy-ass vegetarian restaurant (can’t remember the name of the place, but it’s really good), I wandered with a friend into the University\u2019s Plemmons Student Union hoping someone there could guide me to wherever the talk would be going on. I didn\u2019t need to look far, though; a sandwichboard in the main hallway had the full skinny on Sturm\u2019s talk. Well\u2026 not Sturm<\/em>\u2019s talk exactly, but close enough: \u201cJames Saturn<\/em>,\u201d it said, would be speaking in the Table Rock Room. How does \u201cSturm\u201d get transmogrified into \u201cSaturn?\u201d Who knows\u2014maybe FEMA\u2019s Michael Brown has got a new gig at the App State student union. Needless to say, James was henceforth referred to as \u201cJimmy Saturn\u201d throughout his visit. <\/p>\n

Sturm was at the school as a part of the Hughlene Bostian Frank Visiting Writers Series and had been invited by professor Craig Fischer, who teaches a comics and graphic novels class there. By the time Craig had stepped to the podium to introduce James, the room was pretty well packed. As I said, it was a while back that this all occurred, but I took a few notes while there\u2026 so, what follows is what James Sturm discussed, as best as I recall, along with a few sample pages from his forthcoming graphic novel that he was kind enough to forward to me for purposes of this essay: <\/p>\n

Sturm (For consistency\u2019s sake, I\u2019ll refer to him as \u201cSturm\u201d throughout, despite the fact that this seems somewhat stuffy\u2014and kinda nerdy, in a sort of \u201cI prefer Buscema<\/em>\u2019s Silver Surfer to Kirby<\/em>\u2019s\u201d way) began by discussing the work he\u2019s probably best known for, The Golem\u2019s Mighty Swing<\/em>. He mentioned what he considered to be some of the themes he sought to address throughout, specifically the societal roles of media and identity. In reference to the latter he highlighted the metaphoric parallels between the sport of baseball and Judaism\u2014shared by both the fictional \u201cStars of David\u201d baseball team from the book and by the author himself\u2014mentioning the analogous goals of \u201creturning home\u201d shared by the two, and the less obvious wandering Jew\/barnstorming ball team counterparts. The pages from the book that he showed to accompany this section really struck me in a way that I didn\u2019t recall them doing when I last read the book. I don\u2019t know whether this was just the impact of seeing them projected at such a large scale, or maybe due to the printing of the book itself, these images being presumably the master files from which the book was printed rather than scans of the finished book. I own a first printing of the book and seem to recall Sturm having some misgivings about the way the halftoned grays in the book turned out when it was first published. (I was a student at the Savannah College of Art and Design when Sturm taught there, which was around the time the book was released.) <\/p>\n

Sturm then briefly discussed his influences, citing Harvey Krurtzman in particular. Things he mentioned specifically about Kurtzman were his (Kurtzman’s) consideration of the page as a single unit, the idea of each tier on a page as a \u201csentence,\u201d and the use of darks and lights of his backgrounds. I was a bit surprised to hear Kurtzman cited here since I\u2019ve known Sturm for a while and can\u2019t recall Kurtzman ever coming up in conversation. Kurtzman in one of my \u201ctop three\u201d so I\u2019m sure as heck not protesting the choice, though\u2014and I wonder if maybe Sturm\u2019s recent move into the role of graphic novel director\/editor for the Center for Cartoon Studies-produced graphic novel biography series\u2014a role so much like that which Kurtzman played throughout the latter part of his career\u2014hadn\u2019t brought him a newfound interest in and appreciation for Kurtzman\u2019s work. <\/p>\n

The next topic up was Sturm\u2019s 2004 Fantastic Four mini-series, Unstable Molecules<\/em>, which he wrote for Marvel Comics\u2014his sole outing into the world of \u201cmainstream\u201d comics. He cited his interest in both the X-Men and the Fantastic Four as a youngster and mentioned the FF\u2019s soap opera-like nature as something that contributed to the book\u2019s appeal. The particular jumping off point for Unstable Molecules<\/em>, though, was apparently a line in Kerouac\u2019s On The Road<\/em> in which the Kerouac refers to people\u2014the \u201cmad ones,\u201d as he says\u2014who, \u201cburn, burn, burn, like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars.\u201d Fifties beat culture was of course featured prominently throughout Unstable Molecules<\/em> and the Human Torch imagery evoked by the quote above seems strangely fitting given the era in which the Fantastic Four first appeared. Sturm half-jokingly recalled that throughout the project, the powers-that-be at Marvel kept asking, \u201cWhen are they going to get their powers?\u201d His response, simply: \u201cThey\u2019re not.\u201d <\/p>\n

Sturm then discussed the more general formal considerations of the comics art form that have been shaping his newest work, a 250 page (or thereabouts) graphic novel set in an art school. He discussed first the oft-repeated Chris Ware\/Scott McCloud school of comics aesthetics in which the language of comics is purported to be a visual language which communicates via a semi-shared language of abstract formal shapes. As such, it\u2019s assumed, the art form best performs its duty of pictorial allusion with a simple<\/em> visual vocabulary exemplified by work such as Schulz\u2019s Peanuts<\/em>. Sturm admitted, though, to be at the same time \u201cseduced by the beauty of the illustrative image,\u201d citing an admiration for artists like Thomas Hart Benton (whose influence on Sturm is readily apparent in his work to-date) and New Yorker<\/em> cartoonist, Whitney Darrow, Jr. <\/p>\n

Seeking an aesthetic of rich textured surface similar to Darrow\u2019s, Sturm began working on his new book using the laborious methods Darrow utilized to get his rich, exquisitely composed gag cartoons. Sturm showed a page or two of his book done in this style\u2014black and white with lots of loose marks that appeared to be dry brush, charcoal, litho crayon or the like. Sturm, though, quickly realized that this method\u2014which yielded Darrow a single gag panel per three-week period\u2014was not well-suited for the production of a long-form comics work, and he changed gears, reverting back to the duotone style familiar to readers of his previous work, The Golem\u2019s Mighty Swing<\/em>. He showed a page from the new book done in this fashion as well. Ultimately, though, Sturm decided that this Roy Crane-ish style wasn\u2019t appropriate for the narrative at hand and that it really demanded what he referred to as a \u201ccandy coated\u201d palate. The final results you can see below:<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

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\"11s.png\"<\/div>\n

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Sturm finished his presentation with an demonstration of his work process, using a single panel as an example and showing its progression from thumbnail through to completion. Narrating that here wouldn\u2019t make much sense without the visuals, but my general observation was that his process is as exacting and particular as what I saw of his in-progress work on Golem<\/em> when I was a student of his in Savannah, but that now substantially more of that work is being done digitally. <\/p>\n

A final note of interest to potential Sturm fans is that one item he showed during his presentation was endpapers for a forthcoming collection, James Sturm\u2019s America<\/em>, presumably to be published by Drawn & Quarterly, that will collect Revival<\/em>, Hundreds of Feet Below Daylight<\/em> and The Golem\u2019s Mighty Swing<\/em> in a single hardbound edition. While I chided him later over drinks for \u201cmilking\u201d these stories, since the former two of those books had already recently been reissued as Above and Below<\/em> by D&Q, in all likelihood, I\u2019ll probably wind up buying the damn thing and James\u2014A.K.A. \u201cJimmy Saturn\u201d\u2014will have the last laugh.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[With the deadline for Midnight Sun #3 looming over my head like the proverbial sword of Damocles throughout the tail end of \u201806, I\u2019ve only now had a few moments to write about my excursion up to Appalachian State University to hear a presentation given by cartoonist (and friend) James Sturm.] It was dark, raining … <\/p>\n

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