Summer Blonde

"Summer Blond" provides more morsels of angst-ridden tales of woe to fans of Adrian Tomine's slice of life, graphic novels. Clocking in at 132 pages, readers are treated to 4 stories - 3 of which are of his usual, brilliant quality while the first story is slightly hum-drum in comparison. Even with 1 sour note in the mix this book is still essential reading to anyone with an interest in Tomine or emo-comics. Just like with his other works of note, "Summer Blonde" does not fail in providing page after page of moments so uncomfortable because they are so familiar.

Before anyone reads Summer Blonde, I strongly recommend that they first read The Complete Optic Nerve Mini-Comics and Sleepwalk first. For me, to have read those two books first made my appreciate Summer Blonde's art and writing much more.

I've read 32 Stories, Shortcomings, and Sleepwalk, but Summer Blonde is Tomine at his peak. He is the Raymond Carver of graphic novels. His writing and graphics are clean and spare. I feel like I can breathe when I am reading his work. His characters are not always likeable, but they are always interesting. I marvel at how much expression he can convey with his simple, clean drawings. Tomine's endings, like Carver's, are not always satisfying. This is a conscious choice on Tomine's part, and as much as I'd like to know if the guy ever showed, to gratify my curiousity is not Tomine's point. It goes deeper than that. You should read this book. I found it utterly satisfying.

Just like his other two books of collections, this one is another SLAP in your FACE, when it comes to your emotions. As I read the stories I get drawn into the charcaters' simple events, yet complex emotions surrounding those events and feel hit when the end comes. I love how all of Tomines stories are dreary, having and/or not having closure at the same time, depending on how you look at it. I also enjoy the fact that his stories get progressively longer (from the first book on) and so this books is full of 4 long stories. The graphics are good and do an amazing job at expressing emotions and reactions of the characters. Also, I love how all his comics are based on a miserable real world and are told truthfully.

An struggling novelist tries to connect with his High-School dream girl, and instead finds himself drawn into a relationship with her teenage sister. A lonely man, obsessed with a girl he doesn't know, unwittingly goes from admirer to stalker. A socially awkward young woman, unable to deal with people face-to-face, starts making cruel crank phone calls, looking for human contact of any kind. Fate draws a high-school misfit closer to the girl of his dreams, much to the dismay of his only friend. These are the stories and characters presented in Summer Blonde, written and drawn by Adrian Tomine. The people in this book, and the situations they find themselves in, are quite often unpleasent, and Tomine never flinches away from showing us the darker side of human nature. There are no easy answers to be had for the problems these characters encounter, and like real life, the end isn't always what we expect, or want. There were many times when I recognized familiar traits in these characters, and that's Tomine's real genius: He holds a mirror up to us, and shows us ourselves, and the world, warts and all. This amazing book was my first exposure to Adrian Tomine, but definitely not my last. I can't recommend Summer Blonde enough.