Tag Archives: shortcomings

Upcoming show at Giant Robot: Adrian Tomine

tomine at giant robot

Illustrations and art by Adrian Tomine will be shown in a new show at Giant Robot, which opens on December 8th with a book signing. Adrian’s most recent work, Shortcomings, has garnered critical praise from all over. Here’s an excerpt from the New York Times book review:

Tomine has always been attracted to love gone wrong among the hesitant young men and women of the bourgeois-bohemian set, but he gets his subject across in the unsentimental style of an anthropologist’s report. Unlike the more playful graphic novelists who influenced him, Daniel Clowes (“Ghost World,” “David Boring”) and the Hernandez brothers (“Love and Rockets”), Tomine isn’t given to flights of surrealism, rude jests or grotesque images. He is a mild observer, an invisible reporter, a scientist of the heart. His drawing style is plain and exact. The dialogue appearing inside his cartoon balloons is pitch-perfect and succinct. He’s daring in his restraint.

_____

Read the full text of the review here, head over to Giant Robot website to see a little sneak peek of the art that Adrian will be showing, and if you can’t make it to the show, pick up your own copy of Shortcomings through Drawn & Quarterly.

Adrian Tomine
Shortcomings and Goings
Opening: Saturday, December 8th @ 6:30 p.m.
Giant Robot
437 East 9th Street

Recommended Reading

My current favorite graphic novel is Adrian Tomine’s Shortcomings

Without giving too much away (or sounding like a press release), Shortcomings is the story of a relationship gone sour, and the rather complicated ways we fool ourselves and the ones we love. Adrian has mastered what might be called “acting” on the comics page. His body language is subtle and precise, his characters moving through his pages with an exactitude rarely seen in the medium. All told, this is a case study in incisive characterization and perfect storytelling. This site has background info, notes and other goodies. Check it out and then go buy this book.