"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.
It was interesting to read that his drawing style differed for Scenes from an Impending Marriage when it was for something personal rather than for publication. It makes me wonder if he will create any more works that continue along the same line in terms of style as Scenes. I think each wedding should differ from others as the people who are planning it are different and wish to follow their own styles or customs. I liked reading about the different style of wedding that you and your own wife decided to take, as I find weddings to be interesting. Here is a link to a website that displays different wedding styles and ideas. I found it fun to go through and see what types of weddings other people had the styles that they chose for their special day.
ReplyDeleteJohn, I defiantly agree with you that "Scenes" was a unique compared to his other publications. The fact that he thought his writing was only going to be read by his wedding guests, defiantly helped the graphic novel to be lighter and funnier to read; I enjoyed it thoroughly. As Noel Murray mentions in his post, the graphic novel "is an unexpected return to the mini-comics form". Through "Scenes", Tomine was able to go back to his original roots when he started publishing at a young age.
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