Sturm has imposed on sequential art—crisp illustration, compelling storyline, and believable human characters. But the more remarkable achievement of MD is Sturm’s translation of the (decidedly non-novelistic) literary tradition of skaz [ed., better definition in Russian here] to a visual form of storytelling.It is a form well-suited to narrating a day in the life of protagonist Mendleman, a nineteenth-century artisan rug maker who faces impoverishment as incipient industrial weaving operations offer potential customers a cheaper option to put underfoot. Nostalgia for the pre-industrial shtetl is laid on rather too thick, but who can blame the artist for dreaming of a world in which craftsmanship was recognized and valued?
