Sleepwalk and Other Stories collects the 16 short stories that were published as the first four issues of Adrian's Tomine series Optic Nerve. His comic style is singular, causing some readers to be enamored and some to just not get it. Each story offers a brief glimpse into someone's life for just a couple pages, some lasting just a few moments, some covering incidents over a few months. Each connects you to someone's existence, but only transiently and leaves lingering questions. Some of the stories are told with heavy internal narration, some just with the dialogue of the setting, and one completely in illustrations. All, however, hold elements of the unsettling isolation of modern life characteristic in Tomine's work, though the effect is executed better in some than in others. The earliest pieces are from 1994 at the beginning of his career, and his art and characters are rougher than his present work, but still hold the familiar talent that has made him well-recognized. A local artist of the Bay Area, his settings have a high degree of specificity; certain scenes will be immediately recognizable to the locals, such as the Safeway in Berkeley and the 51 bus line. The characters and their lives are ordinary in the sense that they are not particularly unique people or in unique circumstances, but the realism of their awareness and situation is what makes his work remarkable.