I’m not the best person to analyze any kind of evolution in my work, but I do feel like it’s been an ongoing struggle to basically teach myself how to tell the kinds of stories that interest me in comics form. And now, somehow, all those days have added up to almost twenty-five years. I mean, I was embarrassed by that title by the time I was seventeen! I’m usually just thinking about my work on a day-to-day basis, focussing on immediate problems that need to be solved-how to draw a certain panel, or which colors to use in a cover image.

It’s absolutely chilling to think that I’ve been working on a comic-book series called “Optic Nerve” since I was sixteen. Can you discuss some of the ways your comics have evolved over time? You started “Optic Nerve” as a teen-ager, and now you’re married with two children. In a way, it was an attempt to confront some of my fears as a husband and as a father. A lot of the story is about certain questions one faces as a parent: how to handle hardships, and how much to encourage and support the whims of your children. “Killing and Dying” is the name of one of the stories in the next issue of “Optic Nerve,” about a family-there’s an illness that has to be dealt with, and there’s also a burgeoning interest in standup comedy that has to be dealt with. I spoke with him recently about how the series has evolved over the years, the new respectability of graphic novels, and the connection between making comics and drawing covers.Ĭan you talk a bit about “Killing and Dying”? Adrian Tomine, the artist behind several New Yorker covers, will publish a book later this year titled “ Killing and Dying.” It is the newest collection of his comic-book series “Optic Nerve,” which Tomine began self-publishing at the age of sixteen.

Shortcomings adrian tomine summary