New Releases by James Sturm

1961. L’esplosiva combinazione del genio di Stan Lee e Jack Kirby da luce ai Fantastici Quattro, i primi super eroi con super problemi, fondamenta dell’Universo Marvel. 2003. L’icona del fumetto underground James Sturm (Americana) e l’inconfondibile Guy Davis (Sandman Mystery Theatre) si pongono una domanda: e se Lee e Kirby si fossero ispirati a persone realmente esistenti? La risposta a questa domanda è Molecole instabili, un capolavoro che mescola mainstream e indy, vincitore nel 2004 del prestigioso premio Eisner, che torna in un’edizione speciale a vent’anni dalla sua prima edizione. [Contiene Fantastic Four (1961) 1, Unstable Molecules (2023) 1]

In this long-awaited third volume in Adventure in Cartooning series, you’ll find everything you need to dream up and draw fantastical worlds for your character to inhabit! The Knight is back and ready for another cartooning adventure with Edward the Horse! As every adventurer knows, you can’t have an epic journey without an epic new world to explore. They could fly to a floating metropolis or swim through an underwater empire, trek across a frozen tundra or climb to the top of a majestic mountain—the possibilities are endless! But before they do, they’ll need to draw it first. Luckily for them, the Magical Cartooning Elf is ready to help, with brand-new tips and tricks that will turn simple drawings into boundless worlds.

This enhanced and expanded edition of Adventures in Cartooning: Characters in Action contains over forty new pages filled with adventure and cartooning lessons! The Knight, Edward the Horse, and the Magical Cartooning Elf are back, and sharing the stage with a cast of kooky characters. The famous director Otto Airs is making a movie, and he’s invited everyone in the kingdom to audition! It’s up to you to dream up and draw new characters to star in the film. Design a disguise for an undercover spy and give a superhero a makeover. Discover how body language can help tell your story, and how unique costumes can make your characters stand out from the crowd. Before long, you''ll have all the tools you need to create original characters for your own comic book!

An expectant father, Mendleman''s life goes through an upheaval when he discovers he can no longer earn a living 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 only stocks cheaply manufactured merchandise. As the realities of the market place sink in, Mendleman unravels. Sturm draws a quiet, reflective and beautiful portrait of eastern European in the early 1900s, bringing to life the hustle and bustle of an old-world market place on the brink of the Industrial Revolution. Market Day is a timeless tale of how economic and social forces can affect a single life.

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.

A new edition of the classic tale of a barnstorming Jewish baseball team during the Great Depression 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 twenty-first 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 fervor 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.

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.

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.

Armadillo is trying to come up with a plan for global domination...but with every new idea, being a bad guy seems a little less fun—especially if ruling the world means losing your best friend. Readers will delight in star cartoonist James Sturm''s tender and just depiction of a friendship in peril. James Sturm is the author of several books for kids, including the Adventures in Cartooning series and the forthcoming Ape and Armadillo Take Over the World. Sturm also helped start a college for cartoonists, the Center for Cartoon Studies, in the small railroad village of White River Junction, Vermont.

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!

Bring the thrilling story of one red bird to life. When an innocent bird meets two cruel kids, their world is forever changed. But exactly how that change unfolds is up to you, in the tradition of Kamishibai—Japanese paper theater. The wordless story by master cartoonist James Sturm is like a haiku—the elegant images leave space for children to inhabit this timeless tale—and make it their own, leading them to learn an ultimate lesson they''ll never forget. James Sturm is the author of several books for kids including the Adventures in Cartooning series (with Andrew Arnold and Alexis Frederick-Frost) and the forthcoming Ape and Armadillo. James also helped start a college for cartoonists, The Center for Cartoon Studies, in the small railroad village of White River Junction, Vermont.

Refusing to be left behind when the Knight befriends a gryphon, Edward teams up with a bat to learn how to fly.

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.

Jon Scieszka''s Guys Read anthology series for tweens turns to nonfiction in its fifth volume, True Stories. 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. A star-studded group of award-winning nonfiction authors and journalists provides something for every reader, all aligned with the Common Core State Standards. Compiled and edited by real-life literature legend Jon Scieszka, Guys Read: True Stories is a mind-blowing collection of essays, biographies, how-to guides, and more, all proving that the truth is most definitely out there. Supports the Common Core State Standards

A story about the magical cartooning elf and a brave knight creating a book for children for Christmas introduces information about story elements, rhyming text, and creating comic strips.

The magic cartooning elf is back--along with the Knight, Edward the hungry horse, and a whole new cast of charming characters. And this time, readers can join in the fun. This activity book leads kids through a story that they help tell by doodling and completing comics activities. Illustrations. Consumable.

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! Like the princess, young readers will discover that they already have the drawing and writing skills it takes to make a comic -- they just need a little know-how. And Adventures in Cartooning supplies just that--Publisher description.

I. The revival : Cane Ridge, Kentucky, 1801 : thousands of pilgrims look towards heaven to find salvation -- II. Hundreds of feet below daylight : Solomon''s Gulch, Idaho, 1886 : the last residents of a mining town continue their descent -- III. The golem''s mighty swing : small town America, the early 1920s : a barnstorming Jewish baseball team create a golem to deliver them from their trials.

This is the secret history of the real world individuals who inspired the fictional Fantastic Four, written by James Sturm, author of "The Golem''s Mighty Swing, Time Magazine"Us pick for Best Graphic Novel of 2001.