Forget plot, theme, character and all that for a moment: Market Day is just a great work of esthetic beauty.

This is the latest graphic novel by cartoonist (and sometimes blogger) James Sturm and it’s simply a joy to page through. The art is simultaneously direct, beautiful and evocative. That it also scrupulously serves its story, underlines the author’s mastery of graphic narratives.

This is a simple tale, affectingly told, at each turn involving us deeply in what happens next. It follows rug maker Mendleman, as he leaves town for the market. The period seems early 20th century, the setting somewhere in Eastern Europe.

Mendleman is a proud artisan who expects one merchant to take every rug, as he so often does. But Mendleman discovers the merchant has sold the shop, and so his rugs are no longer required.

What’s wrong? Can’t people recognize quality? Well yes, they can. Another merchant asks: Who will pay so much to wipe their feet?

In a blink, Mendleman’s world shatters. There’s a terrifying sequence in which he suddenly becomes aware of the wretched in his midst; will he soon join them?

Sturm holds us firmly in his grip throughout. Mendleman’s journey is successively foreboding, poignant and cheerful — then utterly devastating, without warning. It’s brilliant storytelling.

But back to those visuals. A two-page spread of Mendleman with a horse-drawn cart, silhouetted upon a bridge, is just one example — elegant composition, with the heavy clouds and a scraggly tree completing the stark tableau.

Cartoonist Bernie Krigstein claimed that only when each panel is an individual work of art, can all the panels work together. That’s a challenging standard, but Sturm meets it with independently marvelous frames that still support the overall structure. Yet, it seems so effortless.

And what feeling Sturm evokes: using expression, composition and colour scheme, Market Day is rich in sombre atmosphere. Take the panel where Mendleman’s beard, hair, hat and clothes merge with the impenetrable shadow, the only positive visual element being the flesh of his face. Or the melancholy series of wordless land and townscapes, emptied of human presence.

This is clean, classic cartooning. The market scenes showcase a minimalist realism: The work is detailed, but only just precisely so. What’s included in the frame is carefully selected, with all superfluous elements banished. There’s nothing to distract from the action.

The fusion of graphics and narrative also facilitates moments of poetry, as when Mendleman marches towards dawn’s pink sliver, contemplating how he could visualize it in a rug. “A small streak of colour slicing through a large block of grey,” he thinks.

And so we glimpse Mendleman’s soul: He’s a sensitive artist who wants to share the beauty he perceives. Except no one cares. Quality is nothing; price is everything. With the world so revealed, can Mendleman survive?

Like Seth’s George Sprott, Sturm’s Market Day is a sublime work, both in content and presentation. It’s one of those graphic novels that is a perfect introduction to the possibilities of the medium, while being a tribute to it.