I’m currently dipping into Tomine’s 2024 book, Q&A, in which he answers questions posed to him sent to his publishers about his life, his career, his techniques, the business of cartooning and more. The very first question is how do pronouce your family name? (He is Japanese-American) – I now know it’s ‘Toh-mee-neh’ if you’re Japanese, but California-born Adrian with his US accent says ‘Toe-MEE-neh’. (I’d thought it could be Tom-een before!)
Which brings me to his memoir, told in graphic novel form, printed on thick, blue-chequered paper with black boards and an elastic strap, making it like a moleskine sketchbook, it’s a gorgeously produced book.
He tells his story with a prologue starting as a child in Fresno starting at a new school, where the jocks bullied him for his love of comics, but he soon found an ally – phew!
We move to Adrian as a young adult, now a cartoonist, trying to find his place in the world, but rejection is hard, when his work is criticised. There are many comic book conventions in the US, Europe, and Japan and many author events – mostly disappointing to Adrian in one way or anyother – but he’ll keep striving. There’s a running joke throughout the book in which he is mistaken for Daniel Clowes, another slightly more prominent cartoonist. (See right).
Then he meets Sarah at a New York convention and they hit it off. He’ll move to New York – Brooklyn in fact (and this is what triggered my Brooklyn authors and books post last week). They’ll marry and have a daughter, Nora (they now have a second). He delights in being a father. This part of the book is much happier, although there are still opportunities for Adrian to comically fail.
He goes to do a talk to Nora’s junior school class about what he does for a job – and trying to engage them in how he makes drawings show action, draws a poo – then adds flies and smell lines (left) – resulting in a precautionary letter home to parents from the teacher! That really made me laugh, as I saw Adam Kay talk to a hall full of 9-10 year olds about his kids body book – and it was all about poo…
Tomine is so self-deprecating in this book, but is consistently droll. You really sympathise with him and are really happy for him when he finds . He does, however, bring home the loneliness of being a freelance writer/artist, the difficulty in marketing oneself and how building a career isn’t always straight forward.
He went on to design many front covers for The New Yorker including his iconic one ‘Missed Connection’. (right) The New York Puzzle Company make jigsaws of many covers from The New Yorker, but have yet to do one of Tomine’s. I might just write him a question (for his next Q&A?) on whether he’d let his designs become puzzles…
I loved this book, although some others have found his downbeat experiences of the many conventions etc a little repetitive. For me, they reinforced the difficulties of making it in this field. His graphic novel of short stories, Killing and Dying is also a great read.
Source: Own copy. Faber hardback 2020, 162 pages. BUY at Amazon UK or Waterstones via my affiliate links
