The Golem's Mighty Swing

While baseball stories set in the early 1920's can ring false with nostalgia at times, Sturm has crafted a beautiful allegory about a busload of travelling Jews. A great book for baseball and comic fans alike, soon to be collected with other James Sturm works in James Sturm's America: God, Gold, and Golems.

Even though I'm not a believer in the whole theory/vision of baseball as part of the American myth, Sturm does a pretty nice job with the metaphor in this understated but striking graphic novel. Set in the 1920s, the story concerns "The Stars of David", an ostensibly all-Jewish (one ex Negro League star qualifies as a "member of the lost tribe") barnstorming baseball team. With a decent amount of talent, they tour small towns as perpetual visitors, perpetual bad guys, and perpetual outsiders, earning just enough to scrape by. Until the team captain is approached by Victor Paige, of the Big Inning Promotional Agency. Paige convinces the team to create a Golem, "a creature that man creates to be a companion, a protector or a servant" as a gimmick to increase attendance. The gimmick works, but rather too well, as when they arrive in the next town, they are met with hostility and anti-Semitism beyond what they've ever faced before. The outcome is, well, predictable, and a metaphor for the times. The art is a lesson in the effectiveness of elegant simplicity, and captures the movement of baseball amazingly well. As per usual for Drawn & Quarterly, the book is very nicely printed and produced.

This is a wonderful and surprising book. The story is understated yet engrossing (very hard to put down). The artwork is top notch. The author does an outstanding job of mixing frames with dialog, captioning and drawing on its own. I think it's the author's skill in putting together series of wordless frames that really sets the book apart--these help create different atmospheres and add to the dramatic tension and sense of anticipation. It was almost as if I was reading a book and watching a film at the same time.I look forward to Mr. Sturm's next creation!

Comics about history are rarities in this country. Comics about baseball are even more rare. Here, James Sturm has combined both to create an elegant graphic novel about a barnstorming squad in the 1920s. The gimmick behind this squad, The Stars of David, is that the players are all bearded Jews. Kind of.The manager, fierce-looking Noah Strauss, a former bench player for the Red Sox, fields a team that also features his younger brother, Mo, a kid with huge potential if he can keep his head on straight. Mo's a little young to grow a beard, so he improvises. Noah also fudges the lineup by adding a former Negro-Leagues slugger, Henry Bell, billing him as Hershl Bloom, "a member of the lost tribe." Barnstorming is a tough business, and, strapped for cash when the team bus dies, Noah accepts a promoter's offer of a big pay day if Henry will wear the recently acquired monster costume from the contemporary German horror movie smash, THE GOLEM.The proposed match-up with an enhanced upstate New York factory team carries electrifying potential when the hype-machine rouses an anti-Semitic furor. Despite the tension he creates, artist Sturm delivers a narrative that captures the rhythms, suspense, and gamesmanship of a great baseball match. In this tale, he looks at what baseball means to its fans, what America looked like to its immigrants, and how both of these themes lend themselves to great storytelling. All this comes with clean, well-designed artwork that represents an object lesson on the principles of great comic art. Fans of non-superhero comics will enjoy this book for its craftsmanship, while fans of baseball history will love the story.