The Loneliness of the Long–Distance Cartoonist

The comics legend's first new book since his 2015 bestseller Killing and Dying.

'Adrian Tomine has more ideas in twenty panels than novelists have in a lifetime.' Zadie Smith

'A hilarious and occasionally heartbreaking memoir.' Irish Times

Through a series of exquisitely observed autobiographical sketches, Adrian Tomine explores his life - from an early moment on the playground being bullied, to a more recent experience, lying on a gurney in the hospital, and having the nurse say 'Hey! You're that cartoonist!'

Self-deprecating, honest, and above all else, humorous, Tomine mines his conflicted relationship with comics and writing, and people at large, and once again animates the absurdities of modern life and how we choose to live it.

In this heartfelt and beautifully crafted work, Adrian Tomine presents the most honest and insightful portrait you will ever see of an industry that I can no longer bear to be associated with. -- Alan Moore

A wonderful book about feeling morbidly self-conscious while also longing to connect with other people, even though it doesn't always?i.e. usually doesn't?work out the way one wants it to. It perfectly captures what it's like to be a cartoonist, and also what it's like to be a person. -- Roz Chast

A painfully honest and often hilarious view behind the curtain of the 'glamorous' life of a cartoonist. Tomine draws on life's stresses, embarrassments, and achievements as he goes through an evolution of self-awareness. A must-read for Tomine fans and all aspiring cartoonists. -- Richard McGuire

I couldn't put this book down. Tomine's vulnerability and willingness to share the cringiest moments of his life (ranging from juicy to uproarious to deeply healing) are a reminder to be braver, because what have you got to lose? -- Lisa Hanawalt

A charming, occasionally maddening ledger of our profession's unrelenting parade of indignities. -- Michael DeForge

In this deeply self-aware, darkly funny memoir, Tomine recounts the highlights of his career through a series of cringe-worthy encounters, and readers hardly need to be a world-famous cartoonist to relate. -- Malaka Gharib

Tomine reveals himself again a master of self-satire as his formidably healthy artist's ego and attendant anxiety butt up against a largely indifferent world. This merciless memoir delivers laughter with a wince, to the point of tears., Publishers Weekly, starred review

Tomine, who is perhaps the John Cheever of comics (in the way they both excavate the human heart), shows how our lives are less tidy than [the] common memoir arc., Lit Hub

[Tomine is] master of the form . . . His seductively clean line makes for instantly romantic images . . . But the key to Tomine's fiction is the rage and fragility beneath the pristine compositions . . . Constructed in a loose, appealingly humble style on a Moleskine-like grid, the 26 vignettes here trace a lifetime of neuroses and humiliations, from Fresno, 1982, to Brooklyn, 2018, blurring the line between character trait and occupational hazard., New York Times

In his latest book, The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Cartoonist, Adrian Tomine turns himself into the everyman of writerly mortification, cataloguing all of the above indignities and many more besides in such brilliant and toe-curling detail., Observer

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