The Self Cartoon

What does Adrian Tomine think of himself?  His tintin-esqe portrayal got me thinking about how cartoonists decide to portray themselves in their comic strips.

For a man who is not in the public a lot (except for a few interviews here and there), he certainly has exposed himself a lot via his books.  Perhaps more obvious to those who actually know him;  he cannot escape that part of being an author that reveals one-self, as he said in his New Yorker Interview:  "It's hard to get away from being autobiographical." (Kaneko M., 2012).

It seems that Adrian tends to go for a more of a caricature approach, as he doesn't seem to make himself look particular unattractive, or attractive, just very much like himself...  kind of a dork, (like me)!

Lets take a look at some of Adrian's contemporaries.  Stormingthetower.com compiled a nice list of some web comic cartoonists and the cartoon versions of themselves. I think it helps create a nice contrast when looking at Adrian's portrayal.

James Kochalka

Erika Moen

Jeffrey Brown

See the rest of the list here.

Adrian: Bearded

Okay, so maybe the accuracy I thought was there, isn't completely there.  I love the attention to detail.  The beard, no eyes (huh?) a little tuft of hair sticking out on his head, and a pencil behind the ear.  For your enjoyment, here is a snippet from Scenes from an Impending Marriage, and please notice the glasses, lack of eyes, the beard, and overall unkempt look.  

Excerpt for "Scenes"; when the couple try to find
for their wedding reception.

I'm pretty sure I would have been frustrated if I'd had anyone other than my brother in law attempt to make the playlist for my wedding.  I probably looked just as unkempt as Adrian around the time leading up to the big day.  Adrian has a very casual look, sometimes calm, sometimes frustrated or overwhelmed.  He almost always looks a little annoyed to me.  There isn't a lot of exaggeration... although I did notice he does not make it completely apparent that he is Asian in any way.  I think this may be intentional, as he leaves his race ambiguous, as if to say, it doesn't really matter. 

Going back to the thought about being autobiographical.  Unless you're writing about things you've never done, and have never happened, that have nothing to do with anything you've ever done before... wait, I shouldn't say that.  What we write always contains something of us, it's what we choose to write, and there are reasons for it.  If we try to write about something we've never done, then we're telling the world, hey, I've never done this, albeit that tells us less than choosing to write about something we have done. 

Adrian seems to write about things he's done in a comical fashion, giving us little snippets, and perhaps altering the reactions a little bit.  Sometimes when you're planning a wedding, things really don't seem all that funny, but Adrian captures these moments well.  His techniques went for something of a cartoonist style.  Short and to the point renditions of wedding planning, in chronological order for the most part.  Each phase had a different title to it, such as "Invitations" (Tomine, 2011). 

I find I'm wishing for more Adrian in cartoon form.  I want to see more of his life than just his marriage.  His art style is interesting, and he's able to find the humour in his life, and he's genuinely funny. 

I believe everyone should have a chance at some point in their lives to make a cartoon of themselves, and tell their story through it.  Regardless of skill level.  Just an honest story.  I think that will be my next challenge. 

Review of "Scenes" - Part 2

In the first part of my post I talked about the overall plot of Scenes from an Impending Marriage and my main thoughts on it. I mentioned how I was surprised about how the memoir came to be, and how I enjoyed its ending. In this post I will be continuing from where I left off in part 1, and talk about what I think the purpose  of "Scenes" is, and talk about the aspects I liked from the memoir.

Although "Scenes" is written as a graphic novel and has a lot of humor in it, it also contains a purpose. The first one that comes to mind, is the importance of compromise in a relationship, in any given situation. Tomine's memoir greatly emphasizes this aspect on multiple occasions. Many times Sarah Brennan and Adrian Tomine have disagreements with each other in "Scenes", and they both have a different stand point on resolving a problem.

Excerpt from Scenes from an Impending Marriage; Sarah loses her temper

This can be in the first seen "Guest List", for example. Adrian tries to get rid of a bunch of people from the guest list saying they would be doing them a favor, while Sarah wants to invite a lot of guests so she can reconnect with old friends (Tomine, 2011). They both decide that they should cool down their extremities, and try to resolve the problem by voting with "Yes", "No" or "Maybe" to invite the guest. In this they were able to make a compromise and found a way to deal with their problem (Tomine, 2011). I believe this is something all relationships need to be successful, and it is one purpose Tomine's memoir is trying to get at; both ends have to meet somewhere in the middle. Of course no couple is perfect and sometimes they just end up losing their temper; even Sarah and Adrian (see except above).

Another important aspect (purpose) I found to be conveyed in the memoir is when the couple begin to sink deeply into their world, and forget what really is important. This is seen in "Poor Us (part one)", when the couple get overwhelmed with all the tasks they have to do (Tomine, 2011). When Sarah first mentions to Tomine, the fact that a charity is being held, where they could help and volunteer to cook and serve food for those with HIV and AIDS, Tomine rules it out. He says they are to occupied with planning their wedding and Sarah then realizes that he is probably right. After, they realize how selfish they were, and they decide to help out, seeing how fortunate they are; they decide that they should help out every month (Tomine, 2011). This aspect is one I found to be important because it reminds us how much we can get caught up in our own world (me included). Instead it reminds how we should take a look and see how fortunate we are and how we can help the more unfortunate by giving them our time.

Excerpt from Scenes from an Impending Marriage; Sarah drags Adrian off the bus

Moving onto the aspects I enjoyed in the memoir; there are a couple. As I have mentioned in my posts multiple times, the greatest aspect I enjoyed in the memoir is the fact it had a lot of humor. Even though sometimes the situation may have been serious for the couple at the time, Tomine makes the reader appreciate and laugh about it, as a bystander (see except above). He takes his memories with his wife, and the frustrations they were going through as they were getting ready for their wedding and tries to make the best of them. It helps the readers who are married to see that they are not alone, but also allow singles to see what they could be getting themselves into, in the future.

The other aspect that I enjoyed, is the way the memoir was presented; in a graphic novel form. Although the drawings are not detailed, they are able to convey a clear message. Readers like me, are able to follow the text easily by looking at the drawings but at the same time have clearer image of the scene being presented. Not to mention, the humor in the memoir could not have worked, without the drawings and vice versa; they worked in perfect unison. This aspect for me, as a person who enjoys seeing things visually and reading short passages, was a seamless combination.

Overall if I were asked to rate the book from 1 (being the lowest) to 10 (being the greatest), I would give Tomine "Scenes" a 9/10, only because I am not currently married and cannot relate to it as much. However as I have mentioned, even for someone like me, it was a pleasure to read. I would defiantly recommend the memoir for anyone who is getting or is married to get a crack out of it, and for anyone who enjoys comics and humorous memoirs. To get more out of "Scenes" and another perspective on the memoir, here is Rachel Cooke on her positive review of Tomine's Scenes from an Impending Marriage.

Review of "Scenes" - Part 1

As I have mentioned in my previous posts, Scenes from an Impending Marriage turned out to be a pleasure to read. Although I am not a fan of memoirs, nor reading in particular, Tomine's presentation using graphical comics to show everything that lead up to his big day, was very uniquely presented. It kept me entertained throughout the whole reading because he uses humorous jokes and comical drawings as way to represent his real-life experience with his wife.  It allowed me, and most likely other readers as well, to enter into his world, and experience the typical circumstances couples are faced with when making decisions between each other; especially when preparing for a wedding.

Excerpt from Scenes from an Impending Marriage; how the memoir came about

When I first read through "Scenes", I found out that the graphic novel was not originally created for Tomine's readers but for his and Brennan's wedding guests. After Adrian Tomine and his wife Sarah Brennan, realized they needed to give a wedding gift for their guest during their wedding, they tried to come up with a few ideas. At first, Sarah wanted to give their guests custom chocolate bars, with their names printed on it. However, after Adrian's disapproval, she comes up with another idea, and asks him to create a bunch of short comic strips for their guests about their preparation for the wedding (see the excerpt above). After this idea, Tomine liked the idea of chocolate bar far better, however in the end, "Scenes" came to fruition, as Tomine wanted to make his wife happy (Tomine, 2011).

The creation of "Scenes" allowed the readers to hear about all the frustrations the couple went through, as they planned their wedding. First it was creating the guest list, then finding a reception venue, then creating invitations, and thereafter finding a D.J. More events followed until the pair finally arrived at their wedding day. At all these points, the couple shares their opinions and disagreements, and in the end try to come to an agreement. Some of their arguments are very funny to read because of the way they react and are portrayed. After all this, the readers get to read about their wedding experience and their wedding night in the epilogue.

Excerpt from Scenes from an Impending Marriage; how the couple ended up hungry

As I think about the plot of the memoir, I found it surprising and interesting how Tomine included the aspect about how his memoir came to creation, and the fact that the whole story as a whole was the gift for their wedding guests. It was something I had not anticipated when reading, as I thought it was just a memoir Tomine decided to write for his readers; I found that aspect very creative to include. I also liked how Tomine represented the hard work he and his wife had to go through to make their wedding a success but in the end, had no food to eat for themselves as they were busy with their guests and wedding photos (see the excerpt above). They ended up eating fast food on their wedding night. It showed how the couple always were busy doing something, even during their wedding, but finally got to enjoy themselves and relax during their wedding night. It was a nice way to finish off the graphic novel.

In my next post I will be continuing my review, and talk about what I think the purpose of the memoir is, and  more details about the things I liked about it; so stay tuned! In the meantime, enjoy the video I found with Tomine, where Leanne Shapton interviews him and asks some questions about his memoir. Some things he mentions, include: how the book was not supposed to be published originally, how some parts of the novel were added on later (such as the epilogue), and how everything in the memoir actually happened but were sugar-coated at times (StrandBookStore, 2011).

A Look at Adrian Tomine's Life as an Adult

This time I am going to talk some more about Adrian Tomine and his life as an adult. At the age of 15, Adrian Tomine started working on his first “serious” work and self-published Optic Nerve. However it wasn't until he was 20 when Drawn & Quarterly offered to publish Optic Nerve as a full-sized comic book when he became a professional comic book artist ("Adrian Tomine Biography", n.d.). 

Optic Nerve: front page

After graduating from high school, Tomine moved from Sacramento, California to Berkeley, California in order to attend UC Berkeley. He started off as an art major; however he felt that it was interfering with his comic work, so changed his major over to English literature (Magazine, 2012). In the interview he says that it "...was a good way to keep my academic life and artistic life separate" (Magazine, 2012). He lived a very collegiate lifestyle while in Berkeley – staying in the same apartment that he had since his college days and living a lifestyle very much like a college student (Terzian, 2012).  During this time, he continued with his work as well as, met and started dating his current wife, Sarah Brennan. After the initial move to the city for school, this became his home for the next 15 years, until he left for New York to begin the next chapter in his life.

Sarah with her 's and Tomine's baby; Nora Emiko Tomine 

As I mentioned in my last blog post, the reason for his moving to New York was, in fact, because of his desire to start a family with his girlfriend at the time, Sarah Brennan. After he moved to New York in 2004, the two got married – this led to the creation of Scenes from an Impending Marriage.  On October 31, 2009, the couple had their first child, Nora Emiko Tomine ("Shortcomings", 2009). Before their child was born, Adrian was constantly out and about in the city experiencing all that it offered. For example, he would be out to see shows, exhibitions and to watch concerts (Kaneko, 2012). However once his daughter was born, he took joy in becoming a stay at home dad and experiencing new things about the city that he wasn’t aware of before having his child. Concerts, shows and trips to go see different exhibitions turned into walking around the city with his daughter, going to the zoo or going to go see puppet shows (Kaneko, 2012).

Here is a video that I found on YouTube that gives the top ten attractions to see and do while in New York for those who are visiting there.

As for what Adrian Tomine is doing these days, I imagine that his life is busy and full with spending time with his beautiful wife, raising their loving daughter, and continuing to work on more short stories to come out with for the public to read. From what I know, the 13^th Optic Nerve is to be coming soon for all to enjoy.

Adrian Tomine signing his books, and his daughter with him

Artist in Review: Adrian Tomine - Part 2

"We thought there had to be at least one fist fight, which didn't occur...", were  Adrian Tomine's exact words in one of his interviews at a Strand Book Store event (StrandBookStore, 2011). He revealed how he and his wife, Sarah were hoping for at least one fist fight to at least occur during their wedding (Adrian says this in laughing tone). The specific interview digs deep into the making of Scenes from an Impending Marriage, and seems to shed some extra light on the events that occur within it, which makes it seem that more favorable.

Adrian didn't really want to make the book, and never planned on publishing it.  He explains that this is where the raw and more intimate and loose drawing style may have come from.  An interesting thought...

As an author, if you want to write something that really has a lot of you in it, just make sure you believe it will never be published!

The contrast between Adrian's "Scenes" vs. his other works is stark. The tone is lighter and funnier - truly something that would be more appropriate at a wedding. In true memoir style, some of the short vignettes seem a little glossed over, perhaps a little lighter than the actual event...

My own wife and I could not decide on how to run just one event, or even ruthlessly cut our guest list down, and so we just included everyone, and planned 2 very open and unstructured events with food, music, pictures and some socializing.  Adrian's short morning newspaper comic strip style pages go into detail of deciding on whether they should have Taiko Drummer or Bagpipe players...

Perhaps we all get into our fun projects a little more than we initially intend to, but perhaps this is also the best way to come up with something people will love!

After Adrian's book showed up on eBay (in it's original Wedding format, as a little comic book, without the epilogue added to the published version), he realized it might be something to publish. This sketchbook project that turned into a published work seems to mark a kind of pause in Adrian's career.  It's still about relationships, but it's different.. It's still about life, but again, it's just .... different!

Looking back at some of Adrian's previous work :

Optic Nerve

Vs.  Shortcomings

vs "Scenes"

It's great to have something like this pop-up in an artists collection of work.  I'd make the trip over to Beguiling comics in Toronto to find his older work, and maybe onto Amazon.com to find "Scenes".  

As Adrian says in the before mentioned Strand Interview (which you can find on YouTube), it was this vs. Chocolate bars with their faces embossed on them. I actually did Chocolate bars with Wrappers for my wedding guests, which had our names on it, and ingredients like Love and Hanky Panky.

If you get a chance, check out some of Adrian's work at your local bookstore, or at your local library, or here.  He definitely provides some entertaining reads.  

Review of Adrian's Most Recognized Publications

In the last post I wrote, I talked about Adrian Tomine's success as a writer and producer of his own graphic memoirs and fictional autobiographies  Through his hard work and determination, his success was acknowledged by the community through different awards and nominations, as I mentioned last week. After researching some of Tomine's most known publications, my interest peeked. I wanted to find what the core of these works are about. In this blog I will be sharing my findings and what I think about them based on their description. 

I will be starting with Tomine's iconic series Optic Nerve. It is the comic book series that began Adrian Tomine's career; his first issue was published in 1995. His latest issue being #12, was published September 2011, which comes packaged with two tales: "A Brief History of the Art Form Known as Hortisculpture" & "Amber Sweet" ("Products by Adrian", n.d.). I also found that a new issue will be coming out this September making its debut in the Brooklyn Books Festival. Each issue has something different to share with different characters, and is packed in a short story format ("Drawn and Quarterly", n.d.). 

Excerpt from Optic Nerve - Issue #12

The first issues of Optic Nerve were only focused on Tomine's life story. However, as more issues were published, they began to evolve into a more fictional genre, but notably are still very personal to Tomine. 32 Stories, as I mentioned in the previous post, is a collection of stories from the the first few rare issues of Optic Nerve ("Products by Adrian", n.d.). Based on what I read, Optic Nerve is a series that I think I would enjoy, mostly because it is in a short story format (my personal preference), but most importantly gives something fresh in each issue.

Moving onto Sleepwalk and Other Stories, which is another composition of Optic Nerve (the first 4 issues), is a series that contains "sixteen concise, haunting tales of modern life" ("Products by Adrian", n.d.). Each story goes deep into the lives of Tomine's characters, that from far would appear to be well-adjusted. However when reading, their faults are revealed, which is their inability to make a connection with those close to them ("Products by Adrian", n.d.). Just like the Optic Nerve series, it would appear to keep a short story format, and I believe the humor level would be equal to Scenes from an Impending Marriage. Summer Blonde was next to follow, with four short stories about "beautiful and haunting tales that illustrate with great sympathy the loneliness and bleak humour of modern life" ("Adrian Tomine", n.d.c). Both writings appear to be a good read in my opinion. There are life experiences we would take seriously at a certain time, but then we like to take a look back and find a way to laugh about it; these works seem to accomplish that.

Excerpt from Shortcomings

Among other works from Adrian Tomine, there is Shortcomings. It is Tomine's longest writing to date, which focuses on the story of Ben and Miko and their relationship. Miko moves to New York while Ben is left behind, and in the meantime he meets a new employee, Autumn. He soon becomes confused as to whether he should join Miko in New York. This work represents present-day life and the common problems that occur in relationships ("Adrian Tomine", n.d.c). I have watched many films and heard many stories with the same theme Shortcomings talks about. Although this writing may be more lengthy from all of the other writings Tomine has produced, it appears to present typical problems that occur in relationship, in comical way (note the excerpt above); just like Scenes from an Impending Marriage, which made it that much more interesting for me to read. Not only that, it helps me see the importance of commitment in a relationship and gives me an idea of what to expect when I'm in a relationship.

Overall, Tomine's publications take a very unique format, the comics allow the reader's to put themselves in the character's place easier and adds to the humor when one reads them. This is a very effective way to mingle real-life experiences and fiction in one great package. That is something that allowed me to enjoy reading Adrian Tomine's work; I am not one who normally reads memoirs/fictional autobiographies or enjoys reading a lot in the first place, so this was nice for a change. 

Based on all these publications I looked at, I think I would chose Shortcomings as the next writing to read from Tomine's collection. Its set up, seems to be very similar to Scenes from an Impending Marriage, which I thoroughly enjoyed. 

If anyone really likes Tomine's art and drawings, Scrapbook takes a decade of Tomine's works and mashes all his comics and art together into one book ("Products by Adrian", n.d.). Further details about Tomine's recognized works can be found and purchased here.

Tomine's Works and Accomplishments

Since Adrian Tomine turned 16 his long road of creating and writing fictional autobiographical stories had begun. He knew what he was going to do with his life at that age, and was going to make good use of his talents. The fact that he was already publishing his own mini comic, Optic Nerve which was sold in local stores and mail order, was already a big accomplishment at the time ("Adrian Tomine", n.d.b). This is something I find to be remarkable; he was only in high school, but had already begun his lifetime career. In comparison I was nowhere near the position Tomine occupied at his age. I was still unaware of what I was going to be, and how I would make good use of my talents, for a bright future.

As years past, Adrian would continue to write about his life experiences and share them to the world through his publications. After doing more research I found that in 1994 (the year I was born), Tomine's Optic Nerve mini-comic became a regular comic book series for Drawn & Quarterly (D&Q). At the time, Adrian Tomine was only 20, which I find to be a very rare age for any writer to become successful ("Adrian Tomine", n.d.b). He plotted himself on the writer map early-on and through his success, he won the Harvey Award for "Best New Talent" in 1996 ("Adrian Tomine", n.d.a). His name and award is listed in a post I came across on the Comic Book Resources webpage. The post also includes many other graphic writers who won the same award over the years.

Excerpt from 32 Stories

In 1995, 32 Stories was released, which was composed of Adrian's early comics based on fan favorites. Two years later Sleepwalk and Other Stories was released by D&Q which was composed of the first 4 issues from Optic Nerve. From what I gathered it continues to be the best-seller for the company ("Adrian Tomine", n.d.b). At the time Adrian Tomine was probably around 23, which I find to be a great accomplishment, as he is now 39 years old ("Adrian Tomine", n.d.a). 

As the years went by, Tomine's work continued to show up in places including albums and magazines such as The New Yorker and Time. In 2002, Summer Blonde was released and won critical notice from The Los Angeles Time, among many others ("Adrian Tomine", n.d.b). In the same year he was nominated for Best Writer/Artist (also nominated for this in 2005) and Best Single issue for Optic Nerve as can be seen here ("2002 Will Eisner", n.d.). Though he had not won any of these awards, he was recognized for his work and still accomplished a great victory. 

Among recent publications, Tomine has of course released Scenes from an Impending Marriage (2011) which exposes Tomine's preparation for his wedding and New York Drawings (2012), a story where two strangers in New York meet ("Adrian Tomine", n.d.a). Tomine goes further into detail about this publication and the considerations he has to make when writing, in the video below:

After watching the video I realized the details that Tomine and other writers have to consider when writing memoirs or any other kind of publication. They have to make sure to keep the essence of an autobiography but at the same time not make it evident that it's from their life-story. The video also shows how Tomine transitioned from being a immature teen to a responsible adult; as he grew up, so did his writings. From a liking of superhero comics, to the writing his own memoirs, fictional autobiographies, and comics, Adrian Tomine has put good use to his talents and has accomplished much over the years. His future writings show great promise but in the meantime, we can enjoy the great deal of publications he already has made, listed here.