I exceeded the artist of comic strips Adrian Tomine more than once in the street in Park Slope, Brooklyn, where I drop and I appreciate my son of the school. Although I would like to believe that I recognize him from his drawings and self -portraits – I met his comic strip in series now, now legendary, Optic nerveIn the 1990s – it is more likely to various discussions that I saw it gave over the years. No matter: I don't mind. I have never been the type in Fangirl and besides – especially – I am almost sure that he also wants to be left alone in his work thoughts, as I do in mine.
Tomine, it turns out that it is a conductor follower – or at least his last book, Q&RSuggest so much. Recently published by its longtime publisher, Drawn & Quarterly, the book is a call and a talkative answer between tomine and its readership through a series of questions extracted from an open call published on social networks by the publisher and the artist himself. Requests range from more complicated reflections on the process to “do you never do sketches for fans?”
Engage with the work of an artist and know them as a person are two extremely different proposals, especially in the era of parasocial relations. As an artist whose characters' emotional fugue states are formed, Tomine has maintained a career flirt with an autobiography in his largely published work (the New York Presented its illustrations and covers since the late 90s), which allows readers to easily feel a feeling of false intimacy with an artist who works in a mainly lonely manner. Previous publications – Scenes of an imminent marriage: A prenuptial memory (2011) and THE Long -distance caricaturist lonelinessPublished in 2020 while the COVVI -19 pandemic has reached a fever height – suggested an even greater sense of personal generosity towards the reader. We certainly knew Adrian Tomine after reading these books.
Although we can predict the opposite, Q&R is not a confessional. As the spare design and the pocket shape of the book itself reflects, it is an honest and anecdotal dialogue that can be read as a tactical game book sometimes despite its intimate tone. Unlike practical guides from past school days, Q&R makes no promise. Of course, we could swallow up the list of beloved Tomine's beloved drawing supplies – described in the book alongside fetish photographs of each element – or try to adopt its idiosyncratic methodologies as well as its own. The generosity of tomine is the opposite of self-aggregation: he simply hopes that his readers find their own path as an artists.
Tomine has reached an inflection point in his work, the form of which has developed more recently to include the film. Paris, 13th district (2021) adapted several of his news, and he wrote the script for Gaps (2023), the interpretation of his eponymous 2007 graphic novel. Q&R This turn follows in his practice which could simply be described as social. The artist is no longer seated alone behind his office.
The environment of a career – whether or not we are recognized by its peers in a particular field (or neckline, in the case of the art world) – presents a fork on the road, where we tend to double on professional grievances deeply held in so many years or – and it is the direction that Tomine is heading, if Q&R is all indication – start to fully achieve a feeling of self -awareness and common decency in the way we deal with others.
Being the biggest person is a battle that Tomine has apparently fought throughout: he has regularly responded to his readers since the start of his career for several decades. Q&R Do not postulate a new form for his work, but is rather a natural extension of something he does. It is a gesture of recognition and even gratitude, delivered to a self -confident distance to his readership – people who do not know him at all, but nevertheless feel a feeling of kinship. I was surprised and delighted to find my own question about the presence of comics for children on page 141. Thank you, Adrian, by far.
Q&R (2024) by Adrian Tomine is published by Drawn & Quarterly and is available online and via independent booksellers.
