Product Description

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #247787 in Books
• Published on: 1998-02-01
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 96 pages

About the Author
Adrian Tomine was born May 31st, 1974 in Sacramento, California. His uneventful childhood was spent in various small towns along the West Coast. He currently resides in Berkeley, where he studies English at the University of California and continues to write and draw Optic Nerve.

Customer Reviews

where it all began
A wonderful collection of Adrian Tomine's earliest published stories. If you have read none of his work before this might not be the way to be introduced to this great writer and artist. Look to any of the Optic Nerve collections for that. But if you want to see the evolution of an important writer and see where things began then this is the book for you.

These early stories hint at the stories that come later. They offer insight and humor and it is fascinating to see how Tomine's art began.

funny, sparse, tales
adrian tomine does a fantastic job of capturing the mundane, everyday details of life- turning them into funny little slices.

don't expect a strong narrative to run through the book. each of the 32 stories run from 1-6 pages and only carry a few repeat characters.

the stories are 32 tiny vignettes capturing little bits of life- random thoughts, dreams, small experiances (which manage to capture a much larger picture, and that's the brilliance of it), etc.

don't be dismayed if the first few comics aren't that great; once you get further into the work it's fascinating to see how tomine's art and story arcs mature.

my only complaint, and the reason i gave the book 4 instead of 5 stars, is that i finished the book in about half an hour. although it's well worth reading, and something i'll pick up and read again, i strongly suggest buying the cheapest copy you can find. 90 odd pages (and they're small pages)of drawings do not add up to the fairly high retail price.

do try to pick a copy up. tomine has a voice not to be missed.

The Birth of a Talent
The 32 stories collected here reprint the self-published first seven issues of Tomine's "Optic Nerve" comic, spanning 1991-95. While his Tomine's work is always enjoyable on at least some level, reading his earliest work in chronological order allows us to witness him grow as a writer and artistýwarts and all. The earliest stories tend to be short two-page pieces, while the last stories tend to be longer narratives.

The stories fall into a few rough categories: dreams (Adrian Tomine's 10, 533rd Dream, Haircut), the Amy quartet (Solitary Enjoyment, Rodney, Two In the Morning, Leather Jacket), autobiographical vignettes (Sean's Story, Disappointment and Despair, Back Break, This is A True Story, Adrian Quits Hi Job, Psycho Cook, An Everyday Triumph, My Appearance on the Jane Pratt Show, Allergic, The Sell-Out), and moodier stories that deal with loneliness, alienation, and relationships (Lifter, Smoke, Happy Anniversary, Stammer, Laundry, Dine and Dash, Grind). There are also some crude attempts at social commentary (Patriotism is Alive and Kicking), reportage (Heat Wave Death), biography (Kerouac's Life With Comics), and an amusing tirade against sleep (Sleep = Waste).

Over the course of the book, we can see Tomine's increasingly sophisticated take on alienation and relationships. His artistic progression progresses from crude to totally exacting and precise, a style that reinforces his themes and storytelling. This trend is continued in his subsequent collection, Sleepwalk and Other Stories, which is more bleak and stark. Tomine is often compared to Raymond Carverýsince I've never read any Carver I won't do that, however, I will say he is brilliant and his work deserves a wide audience.