Optic Nerve #13

Optic Nerve #13

by Adrian Tomine

Optic Nerve #13 contains: "Go Owls" is a dark comedy about 12-step programs, drug dealing, and minor league baseball. "Translated, from the Japanese" is the diary of a young Japanese mother caught between her home country and a new, strange land, and hovering on the precipice of divorce. And "Winter, 2012", is an autobiographical glimpse into Tomine's home life and his ongoing struggles with the modern world.

Genres: Comics, Short Stories, Graphic Novels, Graphic Novels Comics, Fiction

40 pages, Unknown Binding

First published July 1, 2013

About the author

Adrian Tomine was born in 1974 in Sacramento, California. He began self-publishing his comic book series Optic Nerve. His comics have been anthologized in publications such as McSweeney’s, Best American Comics, and Best American Nonrequired Reading, and his graphic novel "Shortcomings" was a New York Times Notable Book of 2007. His next release, "Killing and Dying" will be published by Drawn and Quarterly in October 2015.

Since 1999, Tomine has been a regular contributor to The New Yorker. He lives in Brooklyn with his wife and daughters.

Reviews

[Mika Lietzen]

Tomine's latest 'floppy' offers three stories, all very different, all so very good.

The first segment is an autobiographical lament for all things non-digital, from Bristol board to buying books at a bookstore instead of Amazon. Wry observations abound.

The second story, "Go Owls", is vintage Tomine, with a misfit couple bonding over their support for the titular baseball team. Told in a matter-of-fact tone, presenting the facts and nothing but the facts, the story skips smoothly from humorous to tragic to humorous in muted colours. The characters' numerous failings and their consequences are left for the reader to ponder.

The third offering is "Translated, from the Japanese", a sequence of superbly illustrated colour images with narration by a female character travelling by plane with her son to California. It's an elegant piece that requires some concentration from the reader, but the emotional punch is quite rewarding.

A good trio of stories, then, with a remarkable variety of narrative and visual styles. Grab it while you can.

[Eric T. Voigt]

First half plus a few pages is great. The preface is touching and self-depreciating and then "Go Owls" is such a great handful of sad moments with sad sacks. The last bit about travel and strained family life wasn't nearly as fun and I got more wrapped up in the style of the drawings than I ended up engaged with the story. I wanted another "Go Owls," I suppose. Shout-outs to Marc Alice for lending this to me. I'd like the rest of Tomine's work. I wanna see where this guy started. Liked where he's ended up.

[Juanchi Maffeo]

Otra vez, Tomine me sigue sorprendiendo con su talento para crear personajes redondos y tramas que, en la superficie parecen mundanas, pero bajo su pluma (y trazo) se vuelven algo mucho más grande. Parecido al issue #14, la primer historia es la mejor de las dos, con una narrativa que al principio me parece un toque inverosímil, pero después la remó como un campeón y la terminó con un bang de ambigüedad. En la segunda historia está zarpado el arte, pero la narrativa es un poco bland.

[Teo Suzuki]

mostly logging this because I reread "Go Owls," which is arguably my favorite comic of all time, but everything else here is also incredible

[Tucker Stone]

The previous issue of Optic Nerve wasn’t Tomine’s debut as a humor cartoonist, but it did serve as a sterling reminder to many (well, me, at least) of how funny he can be, making issue 13 feel like a victory lap, albeit one taken two years later. Returning to the Charles Schulz-gone-Harkham style that made 2011’s “Hortisculpture” such a charming story despite its lead being such an uncharming man, Optic Nerve 13’s majority is devoted to the love story of a couple of damaged people who meet in group therapy. That story, “Go Owls”, is almost routine in its excellence, and I’ll leave it up to my betters to discuss it in more detail–what I’ll be taking away from this issue is A) the stupid perfection of Tomine’s depiction of a mustached art supply clerk in a v-neck sweater who can’t help but recommend that Tomine abandon paper for a Cintiq tablet (I recommended this issue to a freelance superhero artist, and after reading those panels, he immediately said that he knew exactly what kind of paper Tomine was talking about, and he knew “that fucking Cintiq guy” as well) and B) how rare it is for a cartoonist to use sincerity to such a degree. There’s an interview with Chris Ware and Gary Groth where the two of them bemoan the popularity of sincerity in comics, and while all of their complaints are right on, that abundance of drivel makes the more successful attempts more welcome when they arrive. “Translated from the Japanese’ is a quiet sidewinder that closes the issue, telling the story of a mother and child on a trip to see an estranged father through a series of frozen illustrations and fat blocks of perfectly lettered text. The influence of Tomine’s work for the New Yorker is keenly felt, with each panel landing with the clean, heavy confidence of an illustrator who understands how to make the eye want what you’re showing it without feeling led. The basic plot could have been stolen from a thousand and one Raymond Carver imitations, but here, with these images, it’s maddeningly personal, a story that feels stolen from its unseen narrator for the purposes of our illicit pleasure. It feels like the work of a spy. It’s my favorite thing by him I’ve ever read.

[Paul]

Another solid issue from Tomine, as he continues to stretch his storytelling muscles a bit.

For years, Optic Nerve offered up very carefully written and drawn vignettes of single people in their teens or twenties. Tomine had a gift for presenting the angst of youth with the subtlety and seriousness of, say, a New Yorker short story. With this issue and previous one, through, Tomine has both expanded his subject matter and his storytelling toolbox. The first story, "Go Owls," gives us a middle-aged couple who have lived hard lives before coming to find one another. Like many of Tomine's protagonists, they're fuck-ups, but these mistakes have caught up to them, in a way that's both a bit sad and absurd. Perhaps taking inspiration from the comic strip pastiche the previous issue, his style here is a bit looser, yet presented in a very tight twelve panel grid, creating a very nice rhythm to the page.

The second story, "Translated from the Japanese," is a lightly sketched character study of an immigrant mother, presented entirely from her literal point of view with only narration, no dialogue. The reader sees very carefully drawn environments: planes, airports, skylines, but never sees any character directly, not the narrator's son, family, or even herself. The result is a study in disconnection and interiority, a bit less involving than the first story, but an interesting change in storytelling from Tomine. It's been great to see Tomine take his considerable skills beyond the very narrow (but excellent) tone of his early career. Can't wait for the next issue.

[h hive]

I was at home reading this. It was quiet, but now I feel like I'm in a tomb, deathly silence, a void. Not really a feeling I revel in. Can't say I'll ever pick up anything by Adrian Tomine ever again. I'm going to listen to some music now, make sure I'm not dead.

[Carolee Wheeler]

I'm most amazed that so many people would take the time to write to Adrian Tomine (letters page) and tell him his work is "not that good."

[Jesse Vaughan]

My favorite optic nerve so far.

[Gavin Paul]

So rewarding. Tomine flexes all kinds of different muscles here. I hope he keeps the floppies coming--while all others get stashed away in boxes, Optic Nerve issues stand proud on my bookshelf.

[Amar Pai]

Been a while since the last