Quotes from Adrian Tomine

It's absolutely chilling to think that I've been working on a comic-book series called 'Optic Nerve' since I was sixteen.

I think that if you are looking at a comic that's made by one person, that there's just a level of intimacy that I don't really see anywhere else.

I wanted to be as invisible as possible as an artist. I wanted to differentiate between myself and who I'm writing about.

For a lot of the time I was in Berkeley, I was single. I was living in a kind of collegiate apartment by myself - it was like a protracted summer vacation. So at least in hindsight, I have gloomy emotions attached to Berkeley, whereas I started coming to New York because I was dating someone, and it was very exciting and romantic.

I really love New York, but I have to say, the humidity during the summer is a nightmare for a cartoonist. Not only am I sweating in my studio, my bristol board is curling up, the drafting tape is peeling off the board, my Rapidograph pens bleed the minute I put them to paper... it's a disaster.

Most of my work - including everything from my own comics to the covers I've drawn for 'The New Yorker' - is the result of taking some personal experience or observation and then fictionalizing it to a degree.

I'm an unabashed fan of 'The New Yorker.' I do feel proud when I see my artwork in there.

The art editor in charge of the covers at the 'New Yorker' is Francoise Mouly. She's very familiar with the eccentricities and personalities of cartoonists, so working with her is very easy.

I think the response I get to one 'New Yorker' cover outweighs five books that I publish.

The comics work is very slow, and it basically involves working for sometimes years in isolation and not knowing how the work is going to be received.

I used to live in Chris Rock's former apartment. I've got some junk mail for him if he wants it.

The most impactful comics that I've read are the ones where the artists swung for the bleachers and tried to immerse you in their world.

If anything, I feel a bit of pressure to write about less disenfranchised people, because I'd probably sell more books that way and would've already had some hot property that I could've sold to Hollywood.

There have been a handful of assignments over the years that I've had to turn down due to time constraints, and I was fairly envious when I saw the finished product, beautifully illustrated by someone else.

What was a very private childhood hobby turned into a very a public, professional job, and I think that there's a lot of inhibition that can grow from that.

I had relatives who would go to Japan and bring back random stuff they bought at the airport or whatever - 'Ultraman' and 'Speed Racer,' stuff like that.

'Drawn & Quarterly' has always given me complete editorial control over my books and comics, so any decision about what to include or exclude from the book was my own.

The type of cartooning that I think is generally referred to as 'alternative' or 'underground' is usually - the distinction is usually in terms of whether it's made by one person, the entire thing is done by one hand or more of a production line process, which is how the comics that we grew up reading were made.

Most normal boys, as they're growing up, they - in order to become attractive, they might, you know, get good at sports or join a rock band or develop good social skills, and for some reason, I thought that drawing comic books might be my route.

When I first started drawing the earliest incarnation of 'Optic Nerve,' I hadn't even been on a date; I hadn't had a romantic relationship of any kind yet, so in a way, I was almost writing science fiction.

I was thinking about what it was like for my parents to have a strange kid with a hobby or a pursuit that maybe they weren't that familiar with. It must have been a strange experience - nerve-wracking, in some ways.

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.

I think there's a lot of evolution that's happened in intangible ways, in terms of how I think about the work or how I plan it out.

One of the by-products of being allowed to start my professional career prematurely is that the evolution of my work is really evident.