Famous Quotes & Sayings

Adrian Tomine Quotes & Sayings

Enjoy the top 100 famous quotes, sayings and quotations by Adrian Tomine.

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Famous Quotes By Adrian Tomine

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Without fail, every cartoonist that I asked advice from bent over backward to be helpful and encouraging. It took many forms: some of it was just an implicit acceptance, like being invited along to the dinner with all of the good cartoonists, or sitting down at a drafting table with an artist and him showing me how to draw backgrounds and perspectives. — 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. — Adrian Tomine

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All my stories take place on the West Coast - not the beach, but smaller inland towns. I feel homesick, and I find inspiration in capturing that. — Adrian Tomine

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Just in terms of being able to be a professional artist, but also it's nice to not have to dread introductions. "What you do for a living?" It used to be easier just to tell people that I was a magazine illustrator than try to explain that I did comics, but not the kind of comics that they were used to, and no, it's not pornography, etc. And now people even of our parents' generation are familiar with the term "graphic novel," which is kind of amazing. — Adrian Tomine

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The basic work schedule for me is whenever I'm not doing anything more important, like taking care of my kids or something. So, it's most of the day, five days a week, most evenings and sometimes on the weekends. — Adrian Tomine

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I'm getting to a point in my life where my whole attitude about the relationship between myself and the audience is totally different. — Adrian Tomine

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I've always published a range of responses to my work in the letters section of my comic book. — Adrian Tomine

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In general, daily strips were just a regular part of my childhood. So even if I wasn't a huge fan of most of those strips, I still read them religiously every morning while I ate my cereal. — Adrian Tomine

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I started my career so early and developed in print for better or for worse, so I think there's a sense some of my earliest readers are kind of copilots on this voyage with me. — Adrian Tomine

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I wanted all the responsibility to rest on the content of the story. I tried to make the visual style almost invisible. — Adrian Tomine

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I started publishing my comic while I was still living with my parents. — Adrian Tomine

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I think it's harder for each generation. Even I just feel completely separate from teenagers today who have access to the Internet. And I'm amazed that this interest in video games has never gone away. It just keeps growing. — Adrian Tomine

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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. — Adrian Tomine

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'Peanuts' is a life-long influence, going back to before I could even read. — Adrian Tomine

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I intentionally approached each story in 'Killing and Dying' in a different way, and that includes the writing process. — Adrian Tomine

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

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I grew up with a very romantic, idealized vision of New York, probably because of all the books I read and the movies I watched. — Adrian Tomine

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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. — Adrian Tomine

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I think, to its credit, this is one of the last forms of popular entertainment that I don't sense to be discriminatory in any way. I think there's this general hunger for greater diversity, where publishers are really excited about finding different voices than what has been done. — Adrian Tomine

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It's important to make a distinction between becoming more precise and becoming better. — Adrian Tomine

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I was just taking my sketchbook to Kinko's and making photocopies and hand-assembling them - folding them over and stapling them. — Adrian Tomine

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A lot of the qualities in 'Killing and Dying' is sort of a response to work I'd done previously. I wanted to push myself in some different directions. — Adrian Tomine

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I'm not the kind of person who would throw himself into some exciting or dangerous situation just to get material. So I tend to go about my normal, boring life and just try to look at things a little more closely. — Adrian Tomine

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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. — Adrian Tomine

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In terms of e-books, though, I haven't quite gotten to the bottom of it yet, but for some reason everybody I know seems to want to engage me on that topic, or convert me. I think there are a lot of people who just want to hear me embrace e-books or finally say, 'OK, I bought an iPad and it's awesome! There are a lot of people who would get a kick out of it, that's for sure. — Adrian Tomine

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There were certainly some people who wanted me to do a feel-good story that affirmed a lot of very commonly held beliefs. — Adrian Tomine

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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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I'm Japanese, but restaurants in my hometown served the most sanitized versions of California rolls. I grew up eating a lot of Japanese food at home that my parents or grandparents made. — Adrian Tomine

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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. — Adrian Tomine

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New York is a brutally expensive place to live, and the kind of person who might have the dedication and esoteric taste to make the comics that I would really love is finding it more relaxing to live elsewhere. — Adrian Tomine

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I sense a real difference in my work from the time I was younger and single and more involved in the world of music and going out to bars and all that. There were points at which I was trying to use my art to reflect positively on myself, to almost be flirtatious through the work. — Adrian Tomine

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'Shortcomings' was me figuring out who I am. — Adrian Tomine

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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. — Adrian Tomine

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I do think that many Americans have a limited view of what constitutes Japanese cartooning based on what gets translated, so it's great to see an increase in diversity. — 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. — Adrian Tomine

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It's a strange thing to be a so-called alternative cartoonist, because in the early part of my career, I was really tethered to the superhero world. — 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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I think a lot of the bells and whistles that become available to you would be impossible to resist for some people, so it's just never going to be a real stand-in version of your comic. People will have to take advantage of the ability to have sound, or zoom in and out, whatever it is. — Adrian Tomine

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When I talk to people who have teenagers now, their rooms are filled with screens. There are their phones and their DVD players and TVs and all these things to produce distractions for them, and I think it would be hard to find the time to create something. I think that's really changing something about adolescence. — Adrian Tomine

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I've always liked the tradition of publishing work serially in the comic-book 'pamphlet' format and then collecting that work in book form, so I've just stuck with it. — Adrian Tomine

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There's also an immediacy to everything that has changed everybody's expectations. Now if I can't get a hold of somebody on their cell phone I'm, like, angry with them. And in my mind, all the things that I really value in terms of art, really good novels or films or comics, I know they all take a long, long time to create, and they take a lot of concentration and dedication ... and I just feel like the training for that is becoming more and more rare when people are used to seeing things like YouTube clips, and being able to acquire things instantly. — Adrian Tomine

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There's a lot of books that I've purchased simply because of the cover design. On the other hand, there's certain books that, even if I'm very curious about the content, I can't bring myself to buy if I really dislike the cover. — Adrian Tomine

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When I started publishing my work, one of the biggest surprises to me was the recurring question about my background and why I wasn't doing more stories about Asian-Americans. — 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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When email and the Internet came along, I never publish an email address. I just stuck with this P.O. Box address. — Adrian Tomine

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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. — Adrian Tomine

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I think in terms of getting new artists who are not in that sort of stereotypical teenage boy demographic; there's been a lot of progress recently. And I shouldn't make a definitive statement about this, but my impression is that the main impediment to progress in that regard is the number of people who are choosing to make a go of it. — Adrian Tomine

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My responsibility is to present things in a way that is realistic and true to the multifaceted world I've known ... This is how I think the world is, not how it should be. — Adrian Tomine

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A lot of my fears come out in my work rather than life. — Adrian Tomine

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I think it's nice if someone respects whatever their endeavor is, whether it's dance or art or stand-up comedy, to not assume that they're gonna be an overnight sensation, that it's this great craft that takes a lot of hard work to get good at. — Adrian Tomine

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To be perfectly honest, if it was up to me, I would be invisible as an artist. — Adrian Tomine

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I don't pick up my work at all. If it's something that's still in progress and I have the chance to make some edits on the material or think about the order, little things like that, I'll keep those stories at hand and go through them. But once it exists as the book, it's locked away in a vault, and I kind of put it behind me. — Adrian Tomine

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

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My early comics are really reflective of being kind of a befuddled, single loser in the Bay Area, and I think having kids has been by far the most profound impact on me as a person and as an artist. — Adrian Tomine

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Look, there's no denying that comics have moved dramatically into the mainstream in North American culture in the last 10 years, and for someone like me who's always tried to make a living at it, it's been great, I'm very grateful for it. But at the same time, it's not a subculture-y thing anymore; it's something that's in the New York Times and the New Yorker. — Adrian Tomine

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Fortunately, I've never had to be too critical of my own work, because the world is critical enough. — Adrian Tomine

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The first time I did a reading/signing thing at Cody's, the woman who did the introduction said something like that, and I wasn't the only one cringing. I remember looking out into the audience and seeing people's faces and people whispering to each other, and thinking like "Ugh, can we just cancel the whole thing? I can't go out there after she said that." — Adrian Tomine

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Basically, I know there's no turning back the clock, and it's sort of pointless to mourn what has passed, but I don't know if the alternatives now really replicate the learning experience that I had, in terms of what I gained from making mini-comics. There were certain components of it that are completely gone because of being able to just throw stuff up on your blog the minute you're done with it. — Adrian Tomine

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My 20s were peaceful, privileged, but still I felt the desire to write angsty dramas. — Adrian Tomine

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There's never been a moment where I sat down at my drawing board and thought, 'I'm a pro!' — Adrian Tomine

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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. — 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 some people who may not like precision in their art. They may like it to be grittier and more gestural, more of a direct expression in the way that a painter would put his strokes on canvas. — Adrian Tomine

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When I'm sitting at my drafting table in my studio, I could really be anywhere. — Adrian Tomine

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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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I would honestly be elated if I could wave a magic wand and eradicate my back catalog and then have a fresh crack at some of those ideas. — Adrian Tomine

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I'm always a little apprehensive about 'decoding' fictional stories. — Adrian Tomine

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I get nervous about the effect that the high speed of everything will have on creativity. It's already sad for me to see that a lot of young aspiring cartoonists are putting stuff on the web, doing animation on the computer rather than making zines or mini-comics, which seem to be going the way of the dinosaur. — Adrian Tomine

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THE EXPERIENCE OF READING A COMIC SHOULD NOT BE THE TIME IT TAKES TO TURN EACH PAGE. — Adrian Tomine

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It's psychologically a weird experience to be so aware of the fact that the real time of your life is moving much faster than the fictional time you're trying to depict. You start to feel very weighted down sometimes. — Adrian Tomine

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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. — Adrian Tomine

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

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There's a part of me that feels like it gets really frustrating to keep working in the manner that I made the book 'Shortcomings,' where everything is pretty accurate to the real world. — Adrian Tomine

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Especially for people of our generation, who really celebrated certain attitudes - the outsider, the loner - it can have a real impact on the art when they realize, I have friends, I'm married, or I have kids. That's certainly happened to me. — Adrian Tomine

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I wanted it to be as readable as possible. I had the ambition of reaching a broader audience. — 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

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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. — Adrian Tomine

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I never go home and take out those business cards and go to those websites. But if there was a mini-comic here in my hand, I'd read it while I ate my lunch. I'm also probably one of the few remaining holdouts who hasn't consented to making the e-book versions of all my work, which is annoying to some of my publishers. — Adrian Tomine

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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. — Adrian Tomine

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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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On a very basic, concrete level, there have been times when my work, regardless of the content, has harmed relationships because I made that work such a primary priority in my life. — Adrian Tomine

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I think comics can be the basis for great films, but I think the focus of such a project should be on making the film as good as possible, not on painstakingly replicating the comic. — Adrian Tomine

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Readers often bring a different set of criteria to the work based on the format. — Adrian Tomine

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I had a mundane, happy childhood, without much struggle. — Adrian Tomine

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When I started creating my work for publication, I just assumed that the focus would be on the work itself and that there wouldn't be a lot of interest in who was creating the work. — Adrian Tomine

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Even though I'm usually not conscious of it, I think drawing has always served a sort of therapeutic purpose in my life. There's something about the process of translating the messy chaos of real life into a clean, simple drawing that's always been comforting to me. — Adrian Tomine

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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. — Adrian Tomine

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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. — Adrian Tomine

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To me, one of the big fears of doing a big huge graphic novel is locking yourself into one style and getting halfway through it and going, 'Oh I made the wrong choice,' which is a recurring nightmare I have. — Adrian Tomine

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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. — Adrian Tomine

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For a long time, I was very resistant to the idea of online publication or even e-books or something like that. — 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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The story entitled 'Good-Bye' is probably Tatsumi's most well-known work, and I think it's a good representation of many of Tatsumi's skills and stylistic tendencies. — Adrian Tomine

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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. — Adrian Tomine

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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. — Adrian Tomine

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I'm always pointing things out to native New Yorkers that I think are weird about this place and their culture and all that. But I feel like my friends and family from California feel like I've totally "become a New Yorker." — 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'm not the best person to analyze any kind of evolution in my work, but I do feel like it's been an ongoing struggle to basically teach myself how to tell the kinds of stories that interest me in comics form. — Adrian Tomine

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I think that artists, at a certain point, can either become defiant and say that the audience is wrong, readers don't get them, and they're going to keep doing it their own way, or they can listen to the criticism - and not necessarily blindly follow the audience's requests and advice. — Adrian Tomine

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