I recently got a chance to read Adrian Tomine’s “Scenes From an Impending Marriage” and found myself enjoying it more than any other Tomine work to date. A big part of that was the more loosely drawn art in the book. I found the pages coming alive in a way not present in his previous cartooning efforts. I was fond of how elements of Tomine’s normal art style met with these looser qualities as well as nods to elements of cartooning history. When I finished it, I found myself wanting to see more work by Tomine in this vein. I was pleasantly surprised when I saw preview pages for the latest “Optic Nerve” from Drawn & Quarterly presenting similar work.

“Optic Nerve” #12 features two stories. The first, “Hortisculpture,” really embraces this shift in drawing style. The issue’s second tale, “Amber Sweet,” provides much more of a bridge between the style of “Scenes From an Impending Marriage” and his previous work. I found both styles to be strong, though I found myself enjoying the visuals in “Hortisculpture” a bit more. Both stories see Tomine making formalistic experiments. “Hortisculpture” sees Tomine play with the formats of comic strips. Most of the story is comprised of four panel vignettes (with the aid of full page segments every seventh segment) that tie together into a narrative. In “Amber Sweet,” his experimenting doesn’t follow such rigid constraints. In face, the story sees him loosing up a bit as he shifts away a bit from his near-religious dedication to the grid.

Another different aspect of these stories art compared to previous “Optic Nerve” work is both tales including color. The entire tale of “Amber Sweet” is in color and as result sees some stunning results (like the preview page above from BoingBoing’s three page preview of the comic). The coloring in “Hortisculpture” is a bit more dedicated to flat color but looks equally great. “Hortisculpture,” however, limits its color to only its page length segments leaving the rest of the story in black and white. Some solid gray tones and line-based shaping fill out the line work of the stories remaining pages.

If you have noticed, I am three paragraphs in to talking about “Optic Nerve” #12 and I have said very little about the writing. That is mainly due to the artwork strongly outshining the narratives. “Hortisculpture” sees Tomine not only operating outside his artistic comfort zone but sees him telling a story different than much of his previous work. The melancholy story features a middle-aged protagonist chasing a hair-brained scheme of creating art that marries landscaping and sculpture. The comic’s quirky but downbeat story (as well as its formalistic constraints) can’t help but draw comparisons to the work being generated by some of Tomine’s peers like Daniel Clowes, Chris Ware, and Seth. While these other cartoonists have been able to find a distinct voices playing similar elements, Tomine’s fail to capture anything as clearly his own.

“Hortisculpture” and its companion “Amber Sweet” both deal with social isolation, but Tomine seems more comfortable with the trappings of “Amber Sweet.” In the latter, Tomine tells a story of a young woman struggling to deal with how looking similar to the titular porn star “Amber Sweet” effects her socially (especially with men). The comic’s twenty-something lead, the more mundane catalyst for the isolation, and the more urban California setting all seem much more in his wheel house. Even with this more traditionally Tomine story, it still feels a little flat.

I just realized that I haven’t said a word about my favorite part of “Optic Nerve” #12. In its last two pages, Tomine produces a mostly autobiographical comic about continuing to release issues of “Optic Nerve” rather than switching to just making graphic novels. It is filled with the liveliness similar to “Scenes From an Impending Marriage” as well as art resembling that release. It reminds me that I am, at the very least, enjoying that Tomine is experimenting with what kind of comics he wants to make at this stage in his career.

-Nick

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