Comics creator inspires budding graphic novelists

By Scott Nicholson

nicholson@wataugademocrat.com

For James Sturm, the funny papers don’t have to be laugh-out-loud hilarious, and can even be downright serious.

He gave a presentation on his work at Appalachian State University Wednesday, sharing his experiences and artwork. Sturm writes and draws his own material and also does collaborative work as well as assignments. He said he was a junior in college, wondering how he could make a living, when he realized he wanted to draw cartoons. He read a lot of Marvel comics in high school and said one of his early career ambitions was to draw those types of superhero comics.

Sturm started out penning a daily comic strip for his college newspaper in Wisconsin, then earned an MFA in graphic arts. He worked in alternative and underground comics and started his own comics imprint. He spent several years developing a trilogy of historical novels highlighting greed in American culture and his “The Golem’s Mighty Swing” was named Best Graphic Novel of 2001 by Time.com. He recently published a miniseries for Marvel Comics featuring the popular Fantastic Four and started the country’s only school for graphic novelists, the Center for Cartoon Studies, now in its second year.

He said there are a number of fields for writers, and said the comic field was expanding to include lots of different types of material. “I get really bored easily, so when I work on a project, I like that it presents lots of challenges for me,” he said.

He said his early work was heavily influenced by underground comics, covering sometimes-controversial material. He then began working with the formative version of The Onion, now one of the most popular parody and humor magazines in the English language. He continued pursuing a comics career while working at newspapers and teaching.

Sturm said his comic, “The Cereal Killers,”  was ambitious but turned out to be a failure. He based it on the different mascots used to advertise cereal. Sturm advised the college students in attendance that their early work wouldn’t be very good.

“I think the best you can walk away with is the extent of your own ignorance,” he said, adding the discovery of interests was a good platform for later work and he preferred to be engaged on a number of intellectual levels. He does a number of drafts so he can “synthesize” the material in his head.

He downplayed his writing and drawing skills and said his biggest strength was doggedness. “You get a bone in your mouth, and your jaw locks,” he said. “You see it through.”

Sturm began reading American myths and stories, working in issues of faith and “the profane pursuit of material wealth.” He said society often seems to value “the bottom line” more than anything and he started researching religion. “The Golem’s Mighty Swing” was a tale about a Jewish baseball team that evolves into a story about prejudice, wrapped in a metaphor of returning home.

He described his experience working with Marvel Comics as that of “a sausage factory,” and he wanted to make changes that slowed production. While it fulfilled a childhood dream, he said the process was frustrating. He similarly described his experience with Hollywood consideration of his works as “the equivalent of winning the lottery.”

“I can write a lot faster than I can draw, so a lot of times it’s just boxes with stick figures,” he said of his first drafts. Through the process, he learns about the story and makes significant changes, sometimes making numerous versions of the same drawing. He also said even something as simple as doodling was a spiritual practice.

“Ultimately, it’s just being aware of your own process and being intimate with your own process,” he said. “A lot of times I have to learn it all over again. The only way to gain that knowledge is just do it over and over and making so many stupid mistakes.”

He said he enjoys some of the movies made from comic books, and these days he is glad just to see someone excited about comics. “Whatever the genre and whatever the medium, I like good better than I like bad,” he said.

Strum’s appearance was part of ASU’s Hughlene Bostian Frank Visiting Writer Series. Scheduled for next semester are writer and poet Tony Grooms, playwright June Guralnick, poets Vona Groarke and Conor O’Callagan, nonfiction writer Lee Gutkind and poet Diane Gilliam Fisher.