A grown-up Charlie Brown
Clowes's wife, Erika, was in an English class with Tomine and recognized him from his self-portrait on a mini-comic. Clowes, then already a superstar in the comics world, befriended the 19-year-old. "He was a goofy kid, but I liked him right away," says Clowes. "He was one of us: a work-obsessed perfectionist with a dark sense of humor." Although he says he offered Tomine little cartooning guidance, Tomine credits Clowes with helping reach a new maturity in his work and introducing him to other artists. "Pretty much all my favorite cartoonists are also my best friends--Richard Sala, Dan Clowes, Chester Brown, Seth, Ivan Brunetti, Archer Prewitt, and Charles Burns," says Tomine. " I have young friends and we go out to clubs and see shows, but I have this group of old fogy cartoonists, and we sit around and talk about comics."
Tomine recently took a hiatus from Optic Nerve to edit the English-language publication of one of his heroes, Japanese postwar cartoonist Yoshihiro Tatsumi, who never achieved great fame in either his home country or America. "Tatsumi wanted to go underground and write personal, shocking stories," says Tomine. "And he relegated himself to a career on the fringe." It's a testament to the current literary climate that Tomine himself has already left the fringe, but his success hasn't come without resentment. On a cover for the Comics Journal in 1998, Tomine parodies the less charitable view of his accomplishments: Literally sitting on top of the world, he's pictured leaning against a huge sack of fan mail, green bills wafting all around, while hovercrafts filled with screaming girls and paparazzi vie for his attention.
But perhaps a panel from his Scrapbook offers a more accurate portrait. A Tomine-like figure sketches while sitting squeezed between two strangers on a subway car. A stylish young woman fixes him with a mildly icy glare. Rising over Tomine's head like a cloud, a thought bubble reads: "If I could turn myself invisible, I'd have the best sketchbook ever."
Born: May 31, 1974
Education: B.A., Univ. of Calif.-Berkeley
Publications: Optic Nerve Nos. 1-9; Sleepwalk: And Other Stories ; Summer Blonde; Scrapbook--Uncollected Work: 1990-2004.
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