Over at Granta, Francisco Vilhena interviews Adrian Tomine, the artist and illustrator responsible for bringing us Shortcomings, Summer Blonde, and any number of illustrations for the New Yorker. Tomine riffs on the origins of his stories, landing a job in pre-9/11, and the dynamics of imperfection:
I’ve heard people mention – and sometimes criticize – this unresolved quality in my stories. Again, it’s nothing I set out to do. I think it’s just that I’m generally trying to write realistic stories about regular people, and in that setting it’s hard to avoid the sense that life for these characters will basically continue to get better and worse to varying degrees until they die… There’s a reason they end where they do, and I think the challenge for me is to do that in a way that doesn’t feel completely unsatisfying to the audience. I’m working on it.
For more Tomine, check out our 2011 interview here.
