And I do think it’s sort of too bad that what once was a safe haven for truly eccentric, outsider artists is no longer that thing.
ADRIAN TOMINEI’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.
More Adrian Tomine Quotes
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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.
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But not the kind of comics that they were used to, and no, it’s not pornography, etc.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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You start to feel very weighted down sometimes.
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There were points at which I was trying to use my art to reflect positively on myself, to almost be flirtatious through the work.
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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.
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I think there’s this general hunger for greater diversity, where publishers are really excited about finding different voices than what has been done.
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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.
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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.
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There’s been a lot of progress recently. And I shouldn’t make a definitive statement about this.
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And now people even of our parents’ generation are familiar with the term “graphic novel,” which is kind of amazing.
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Especially for people of our generation, who really celebrated certain attitudes – the outsider.
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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.
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The idea of trying to make the effort to produce something, to put something out into the world, rather than just taking in all the stuff the world’s putting out at you.
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Who was trying to be cool by writing about young people and a certain kind of Bay Area culture that I was tangentially a part of.
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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.
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Underground and alternative comics existed in a vacuum for years, where money really wasn’t an issue.
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I think in terms of getting new artists who are not in that sort of stereotypical teenage boy demographic.
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I started publishing my comic while I was still living with my parents.
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But if there was a mini-comic here in my hand, I’d read it while I ate my lunch.
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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.
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And with this sort of increased visibility, there’s more money going around in the industry, and it changes a lot, in terms of who gets into the business as a creator, who sticks with it, and who gets pushed out.
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But there are definitely pros and cons. You could also look at it as bringing in a more diverse crowd.
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Whereas the graphic novel is now being held up as something to aspire to and as something that’s respectable for adults to read.
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