TOMINE'S LONELINESS OF THE LONG-DISTANCE CARTOONIST ...mostly, we just talk about our lives

Somehow, Adrian Tomine still feels like a young cartoonist to me, yet he's had a long and varied career - from his experimental strips in the self-published Optic Nerve, to his studies of loneliness, alienation, and simmering rage in... well, most everything he wrote afterwards.

In his most recent work however, Tomine seems to be more charitable to his characters (which, in The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Cartoonist, is mostly himself) while charting their insecurities. Perhaps that's the benefit of knowing that, in the end, things turn out okay - while the younger characters depicted in books like Sleep Walk, Summer Blonde, and Shortcomings aren't so sure.

The other thing about Tomine is that his work often feels like a catalyst for self-reflection. At least, for us...