A Look at Adrian Tomine's Early Life

Before I get started I would first like to introduce myself, as this my first blog post here. My name is Peter Chmura and am 19 years old. My parents were born in Poland but I was born in Canada. In my spare time I enjoy playing guitar, gaming, hanging out with friends and surfing the net...but that's enough about me, since this is not the place nor time. I would just like to give a heads up that this my first time writing a blog post; so please try to bare with me. 

When I read Scenes from an Impending Marriage by Adrian Tomine I found his memoir to be humorous and entertaining. He writes about the typical process a couple goes through to prepare for their wedding and the disagreements they have between each other. Though I cannot relate to his experience, it does give me a good glimpse of what I can expect if I get married in the future.

After reading his memoir I was curious about Tomine's past and how he got to be a writer in the first place. When I began searching online I came across a post by Melissa Hung who read Tomine's comics Optic Nerve in which he reveals his life story. I will share what I found to be the making of Adrian Tomine's early life through her post and summary.

On May 31st, 1974 in Sacramento, California, Adrian Tomine was born to his parents and became the fourth generation Japanese-American in his family. His mother is a psychologist and his father is the head of civil engineering at the department of Cal State Sacramento (Hung, 2002). From what I read, both of his parents are artistic and encouraged their art talents to their kids. His mother makes documentaries, whereas his father likes to take photographs and play music.  Unfortunately Tomine's parents divorced when he was two and he ended up moving many times with his mother; he spent summers with his father in Sacramento (Hung, 2002).

When Adrian Tomine was a kid he liked to read comics such as spider-man and make drawings. He recalls saying "I can remember being a little kid and feeling my artwork wasn't quite right. I had an idea of what it should look like, and I was not attaining it" (Hung, 2002). After reading this  I realized that from the beginning Tomine had it in him to make drawings and that he enjoyed comics. However when he got a little older he apparently lost interest, thinking he outgrew comics and began to skateboard as a hobby. Though this all changed again when he was thirteen and began reading the comic Love & Rockets, by Gilbert and Jaime Hernandez (Hung, 2002). From what I found, Tomine realized that he didn't lose interest in comics but only in the superhero genre. When he went into high school, he didn't have a pleasant experience and did not have a lot of friends. However thanks to this, the negative experiences got him to write his future collections of comics 32 Stories. Going further into the future, Tomine went to university and eventually changed his major to English literature (Hung, 2002). This was the base of his early life and what began Tomine's career as a writer.

I found it interesting how Adrian Tomine's early life played out. His inspiration from comics is defiantly evident in Scenes from an Impending Marriage. From the start, his drawing skills were going to become his future in presenting very entertaining and comical, graphic novels.