"Adrian Tomine has been creating comics for more than half his life. Published first at the precocious age of 15, Tomine has supplied a new generation of comics readers with sophisticated narratives about mundane habits and passive aggression. Now, in addition to creating his comic, Optic Nerve, Tomine has edited The Push Man and Other Stories (Drawn & Quarterly), the first book by legendary manga artist Yoshihiro Tatsumi to be published in America."
Excerpt: "Since self-publishing his first issue of Optic Nerve at age 15, Tomine, now 30, has received steady recognition as something of a boy wonder of comics. The California native is included in the ranks of serious literary cartoonists like Daniel Clowes (Ghost World) and Chris Ware (Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth). He's done illustrations for Time, Esquire, and Rolling Stone and is a regular contributor to the New Yorker. But it is Optic Nerve's tales of loneliness, alienation, and attempted connections among teens and 20- and 30-somethings that have gained Tomine a cultlike following."
Introduction: "Adrian Tomine is the author of Optic Nerve, A critically acclaimed comic book that has grown since 1991 from self published and photocopied sheets to collected hardback edition. After three years of 'filling orders, hassling store owners for the five bucks they owed me' while attending and graduating high school Tomine signed a contract with Drawn & Quarterly at the end of 1994 and his work found a world wide audience."
Excerpt: "'I wanted to focus in on things that I thought were true to my experience but were not generally thought of in terms of the stereotype of the teenage boy, ... like [in] American Pie,' he recalls. '[The cliché is that] all the teenage boys — they’re dying to have sex. They want to get drunk. They’re very extroverted. They want to grow up. They want to be crazy. For me, I was just completely terrified. I just wanted to stay a kid.'"