Adrian Tomine's Optic Nerve #12: exclusive preview

I've been waiting a long time for issue #12 of Adrian Tomine's comic book, Optic Nerve. It'll be available on Wednesday.

Find a local comic shop that sells it. Order it directly from the publisher.

In the new, long-awaited Optic Nerve #12, award-winning Shortcomings cartoonist Adrian Tomine returns to the multiple short story format familiar from early issues of the iconic series. These full-color stories showcase Tomine’s trademark humor and observational skill, making Optic Nerve #12 a great entry point for new readers. “A Brief History of the Art Form Known as Hortisculpture” deftly manipulates traditional comics idioms to tell a story of horticulture, patents, and misunderstood art forms, while "Amber Sweet" is a disconcertingly modern tale about a case of mistaken identity. Full color, 40 pages

Meet Adrian at these upcoming events:

BROOKLYN Sunday, Sept 18th
Special Guest at the Brooklyn Book Fest, Signing at D+Q Booth

BROOKLYN Thursday Sept 22nd
Official NYC Launch at Desert Island!

SAN FRAN Saturday Oct 1 & Sunday the 2nd
At Miami Book Fair"
At the MBF with Daniel Clowes & Seth!

BROOKLYN Saturday December 3rd
Brooklyn Comics & Graphics Festival
The best comics festival in NYC!

• Adrian Tomine’s “Scenes from an Impending Marriage”
• Cartoonist Adrian Tomine interviewed on Bat Segundo Show
• Adrian Tomine on Sound of Young America

• [sweetcraspy]

  Is this a thing that happens to people?   Not being mistaken for well known TV or movie stars but being associated with particular internet-specific porn stars? 

  • [Ambiguity]

    s this a thing that happens to people?   Not being mistaken for well known TV or movie stars but being associated with particular internet-specific porn stars?

    Happens to me all the time. Honestly, I don’t know who this “Ron Jeremy” guy is, but he must be pretty hot!

    • [Slightly Askew]

      Sorry, only in the locker room is that a compliment.

    • [Halloween Jack]

      You laugh, but there’s an actor in the movie of Godspell who’s a dead ringer for a young Ron Jeremy; when “The Hedgehog” was younger, thinner and had a full head of hair, he was actually pretty handsome. (And just to make things even weirder, veteran porn actor Paul Thomas (not to be confused with Paul Thomas Anderson, director of Boogie Nights) was Peter in the movie of Jesus Christ Superstar, under his birth name, Philip Toubus.)

      • [Ambiguity]

        (And just to make things even weirder, veteran porn actor Paul Thomas (not to be confused with Paul Thomas Anderson, director of Boogie Nights) was Peter in the movie of Jesus Christ Superstar, under his birth name, Philip Toubus.)

        And that, sir, is why I love the internet.

• [Julian Fine]

  Isn’t this the comic from Kramer’s Ergot 7?

• [tylerkaraszewski]

  Her entire school is familiar enough with that particular internet porn star to recognize her on the street? Man, that’s one porn-loving campus.

  • [Pip_R_Lagenta]

    We are talking Van Nuys here.  So, yes, a porn-loving campus.

  • [technogeekagain]

    All it takes is for one frat jock to make the connection and show/tell all his buddies next time they’re drunk, and for enough of them to think it’s amusing/salacious enough to be work passing along. “We’ve got a porn star on campus — here, I’ll show you” would get folks to look who normally wouldn’t.

    Especially likely if someone she turned down at some point who is brain-damaged enough to want to damage her reputation.

    So: Surprising when considered from her point of view? Certainly. But I don’t find it at all unbelievable that some student, at some school, at some particular time, would be the victim of such a broadly-spread false association.

• [ChrisRR]

  I wonder if the “Repo! The Genetic Opera” reference is intentional.

• [Alessandro Ribeiro]

  Fantastic!!

• [Chang Terhune]

  The thing about Tomine’s work that drives me nuts is – and I’m sure he’s a nice guy – but it looks so much like Dan Clowes work I can’t but feel it’s derivative.  But then I read it and I like his work.  But still…  it unnerves me.

  • [greybird]

    more like the love-child of chris ware and dan clowes.

  • [noah django]

    That’s fair to say, though I was getting out of comics before I was introduced to Clowes.  I found Tomine first, but it looks like he might just be a biter.  I notice that they both got a more refined, classic illustrator style these days, too (maybe because they started getting hired by the New Yorker?  or NYer hired them after their style changed?)  Kinda damning evidence in view of your comment.

    Anyway, I still have Optic Nerve #4 and a bunch of strips I tore out of Tower Records’ PULSE, and I kinda wish Tomine’s stuff still looked that way.  Seems so bland now.  Though it does fit the stories.  That sounds like an insult, but I don’t mean it that way.  I LOVE the stories.

• [Phikus]

  Man, this happens to me all the time, especially when I go out in my skinny boots and thong.  What does Pene Grande even mean?