Quote

I've always been really impressed with some of the longer graphic novels and thought it would be really amazing if one day I could try something like that.

Adrian Tomine

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Adrian Tomine
Age: 50
Born: 1974
Born: May 31
Cartoonist
Comics Artist
Illustrator
Novelist
Sacramento
California
Really
Impressed
Always
Novels
Would
Amazing
Like
Novel
Longer
Thought
Trying
Something
Graphic

More quotes by Adrian Tomine

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I wanted to try to create characters that happen to be Asian but who are pretty different from those we generally see in our culture, in our commercial culture.
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I think a lot of the criticism had to do with disliking the characters - which, again, I take as something of a compliment.
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For a stretch of time, I got really caught up in the idea that what people liked about my work was that I was a young guy who was trying to be cool by writing about young people and a certain kind of Bay Area culture that I was tangentially a part of.
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And also, as a consumer now, it's weird that when I used to go to a book signing I would leave with a stack of pamphlets people had made to show off their work, and now I just leave with business cards where people have the URL to their websites.
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I guess there's just a part of me that's not very enthusiastic about finding myself ten years from now halfway through a story that may or may not be any good.
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I was very aware of the fact that there are a lot of comics out there that I love, because I've grown up my whole life reading comics and I know every little nuance of the language and all the implications.
Adrian Tomine
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It's cold water in the face to realize you're not nearly as special and as unusual as you might have thought when you were an alienated teenager.
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I think when I finally got it in my head that I was going to do the story, I wanted to avoid doing what I thought people wanted me to do.
Adrian Tomine
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I was just a guy who did adult or alternative comic books. And then suddenly to be, like, a New Yorker cover artist was a different thing.
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If you're changing diapers and going to the playground, any ambitions of being a cool guy have to fly out the window.
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For me, like, the more interesting a letter is I just get more excited and I know that this going to be great for my friends who are looking forward to reading that in my comic.
Adrian Tomine
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Underground and alternative comics existed in a vacuum for years, where money really wasn't an issue. No one would get into doing a black-and-white comic because they thought it might be a route to riches.
Adrian Tomine
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That partially due to the world of media and commerce, the idea of a comic book has been lost in the ghetto, whereas the graphic novel is now being held up as something to aspire to and as something that's respectable for adults to read.
Adrian Tomine
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I think most cartoonists are solitary, lonely kids who use their work as a way to try to connect with the world. If I had any other skills that were more performative - if I could have been a musician or an actor - I'm sure I would have pursued that instead in order to get that instant feedback and to hear applause.
Adrian Tomine
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You start to get nervous when the value of a comic book or graphic novel is relative to the achievements of some other medium.
Adrian Tomine
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One of the by-products of being allowed to start my professional career prematurely is that the evolution of my work is really evident.
Adrian Tomine
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I set myself up for a lot of trouble by wanting to tell a story that is fairly earnest and emotional and expressive, but to do it in the most subtle, realistic way.
Adrian Tomine
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There are certain artists and filmmakers who, I get the impression, are trying to show off how bad their characters can be, how immoral their characters can be.
Adrian Tomine
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I feel like if people are going to go to the effort to get a stamp and, you know, put it on an envelope that, you know, it's a big effort these days. So I often write back.
Adrian Tomine
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Maybe you're not even in a position to really judge how good your kid is at that endeavor.
Adrian Tomine