Adrian Tomine
April 02, 2016
What's your creative process? For example, do you write the story first, or sort of make it up as you go along?
I do a lot of "pre-work" before I actually start drawing. This involves wandering the streets and thinking, sitting on my couch and thinking, filling up notebooks with ideas, filling up sketchbooks with drawings, etc. When I feel like I've got a pretty good story worked out in my head, I sit down and do what I consider to be the hardest work. I get the scenes all organized, and I write a very rough version of all the dialogue. Then I convert those words into comics form. On a small tablet of graph paper, I break down all the dialogue into panels and pages, tinkering with the dialogue and quickly indicating characters with stick-figures.
Finally, I draw the actual pages that get printed. I often continue to change scenes and dialogue as I draw it because new ideas will emerge as I draw the actual panels. Based on advice from Chris Ware, I try to allow a certain level of spontaneity, even though my process is fairly labored.
How long, on average, does it take you to do a single issue?
It usually takes me a week to draw a final page, but if you factor in the writing process, as well as all the commercial illustration work I do, it can take up to a year for me to complete an issue.
A lot of press compares your writing to 1970s American film and fiction, especially the "realism" of Raymond Carver. Are they acknowledged influences?
A lot of people don't believe me when I tell them this, but here's my story about Raymond Carver. When I started drawing Optic Nerve, I had never even heard of him. After several issues, I started getting letters from people saying that they could see his influence on me. Eventually, my older brother told me more about Carver and recommended one of his collections to me. Of course, when I read his work I instantly fell in love with it, and I'm sure it had a big impact on me, but I think I was already heading in a certain direction before I read him, and his work just reinforced that.
I do a lot of "pre-work" before I actually start drawing. This involves wandering the streets and thinking, sitting on my couch and thinking, filling up notebooks with ideas, filling up sketchbooks with drawings, etc. When I feel like I've got a pretty good story worked out in my head, I sit down and do what I consider to be the hardest work. I get the scenes all organized, and I write a very rough version of all the dialogue. Then I convert those words into comics form. On a small tablet of graph paper, I break down all the dialogue into panels and pages, tinkering with the dialogue and quickly indicating characters with stick-figures.
Finally, I draw the actual pages that get printed. I often continue to change scenes and dialogue as I draw it because new ideas will emerge as I draw the actual panels. Based on advice from Chris Ware, I try to allow a certain level of spontaneity, even though my process is fairly labored.
How long, on average, does it take you to do a single issue?
It usually takes me a week to draw a final page, but if you factor in the writing process, as well as all the commercial illustration work I do, it can take up to a year for me to complete an issue.
A lot of press compares your writing to 1970s American film and fiction, especially the "realism" of Raymond Carver. Are they acknowledged influences?
A lot of people don't believe me when I tell them this, but here's my story about Raymond Carver. When I started drawing Optic Nerve, I had never even heard of him. After several issues, I started getting letters from people saying that they could see his influence on me. Eventually, my older brother told me more about Carver and recommended one of his collections to me. Of course, when I read his work I instantly fell in love with it, and I'm sure it had a big impact on me, but I think I was already heading in a certain direction before I read him, and his work just reinforced that.
-- Adrian Tomine interviewed by Andrew Duncan