Summer Blonde

I really enjoyed my first taste of Tomine's work in this small selection of shorts. I had mentioned earlier, they read like vignettes, small splashes of mostly character. I feel like flawed characters in fiction often have their imperfections glorified, and although I am not entirely against this approach, I enjoy how Adrian's humans are displayed as they are, and the reader is left to judge. I also enjoy his lack of of endings, or finality, it somehow makes everything seem all the more lifelike.

Really moody exploration of isolation and alienation, featuring people who are unlikable and know it, and are tormented by it, and overall is really depressing. So, fantastic work!

I ran into this one at the used book store, and although I didn't really have the money to buy it, finding good graphic novels is so rare there now that they've made them easier to find that I had to snatch it up immediately. This hardback contains issues #5-8 of the comic Optic Nerve. Each issue is a different story, three of them of outsiders trying to make some sort of connection with other people, and one the story of an Asian-American couple struggling with their different levels of political consciousness/activism. Each story also has a vaguely unsatisfying ending -- rather than the typical American Hollywood type ending, these stories end more like foreign arthouse films -- very ambiguously. If that sort of thing doesn't bother show more you, you will probably like these stories. But judging by the letters section in issue #9 of Optic Nerve, some people are really bothered... show less

Once I started Summer Blonde, I couldn't put it down. It definitely struck a chord with me. Summer Blonde is actually a collection of 4 short stories told in a graphic novel format. For me, it was basically about lonely people reaching out for human contact in sometimes strange ways. It made me very thankful that I have a few people in my life that I feel like really "get" me, and what a great feeling it is to have that. I identified with the story that pondered "how does one go about making small talk?" maybe a little more than I'd like. Many of the characters in Summer Blonde seem to be looking for someone to fulfill them, but don't seem to know where to begin. I loved the ambiguity inherent in many of the stories. For example, in show more "Hawaiian Getaway," Hillary Chan has a remarkably hard time with people- she seems to crave them and hate them at the same time. Toward the end, she meets a man who she seems to click with, but it's left up in the air whether he was a "castle in the air" using her for sex or if he's just running late to meet her. Many of the stories have a hesitant touch of almost-hope at the end.

From the book jacket, I learned that the merit of Tomine's work has been hotly debated. From what I can gather, many of his characters tend to be hipster emo types who bewail lack of meaningful connection with others in their lives. I thought their connections were deeper than that though. I thought Dan Raeburn, who wrote the introduction on the book jacket, summed it up well when discussing the similarity between many of the characters- they are all seeking human connection in an increasingly alienating world. These stories were much more about creating emotion than sparking intellectual thought for me. And I need to create a new word to describe what these stories made me feel. Aching-sympathetic-identification with a touch of thankfulness? That's not quite it, but I think maybe the best I'm going to be able to do. show less

This book is the reason I am happy that the graphic novel genre exists. It's good to see people breaking away from superheroes and into actualy storytelling with real people. The people in the book may be flat, but they're not boring. They're the typical freaks and geeks we meet in high school and adulthood, they all have their issues and they try to deal with them as best they can. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. What's important is that we can relate to these characters. They're not some complex superbeings full of emotional riddles, they're the weird kid you saw sitting next to you in homeroom or the creepy old guy on the bus. We can relate to them, even if we may not want to. The worlds they live in are compelling and each show more stories ending was perfect. They gave a sense of closure to the story, but not finality. The characters will exists, will thrive, and maybe finally be happy. I'm not sure if the graphic novel format was necesarry but it sure didn't hurt. The book is a compelling work of fiction that serves to remind us that everyone is just a little bit messed up. show less

This is an intriguing collection of stories. In each story, the main character is lonely, disconnected and a bit pathetic. But, their decent to their pathetic existence (or, ascent out of it) quietly sneaks up on them. It seems very real - melancholy, but real.

I found the way the stories ended to be very intriguing. They seemed to cut off just before the expected sad/happy ending. But, I enjoyed that. That's what life really is - a cycle of stories that don't always have a storybook ending.

4 stories that are all pretty good. The last two, I think, are the best. All four center around a character who has some problem connecting with others, so in a sense, they're pretty typical stories of disconnect, but they're well told with pretty good artwork. I think I had the last one elsewhere, perhaps Optic Nerve, Tomine's comic/zine.