Hi, everyone! And welcome to the inaugural post of the Substack Writers’ Residency. I’m honored to be the first writer in residence, and I’m frankly a little surprised to be in the company of the people who will be taking up the mantle in the following months. I want to quickly say “thanks” to everyone at Substack for inviting me in the first place, and for patiently walking me through this process. Thanks also to the amazing team at Rescue Vessel for making it all look so nice.
For over thirty years I’ve had the incredible, unexpected pleasure of putting work out into the world and receiving feedback, in the form of cards and letters, from a very engaged, opinionated readership. (Actually, sometimes it wasn’t exactly a pleasure—some particularly harsh criticisms and a few borderline stalker-ish packages spring to mind—but it was still, unquestionably, a privilege.) In addition to publishing the most interesting letters in my comic, I also made an effort to respond directly, usually with a hand-written postcard. As a young fan, my mind was completely blown when I received a response from a cartoonist I wrote to, and I’ve been determined to carry on that tradition as much as possible.
But things have changed over the years. It’s been a while since I’ve published an issue of Optic Nerve, and I’m not sure when I might do so again. People are generally less inclined to write letters and postcards these days, and I’ve been annoyingly resistant to opening a direct line of email correspondence. But most importantly, I’ve gotten busier, both with work and family life (see above photo).
In recent years, my p.o. box has become mostly a vessel for political campaign flyers, shipping supply catalogs, and books in search of a blurb. For better or worse, most of the comments and queries from readers now come to me via Instagram. And to be honest, I haven’t been able to keep up with my mandate to respond to everyone—and certainly not with the level of detail and insight that I used to strive for.
When Substack invited me to be a part of their writers’ residency program, I thought that maybe it could be an opportunity to get back on track. I had the idea to address the most common questions and comments I’ve received recently, and to do so with a greater level of attention than I’m usually able to do while quickly scrolling through the messages on my phone. Hopefully this will lead to something like a permanent record of answers to some of the most frequently asked questions—including, perhaps definitively, how to pronounce my last name. I’ll also be talking about the art supplies I use, my work with The New Yorker, upcoming film / tv projects, and, thanks to some of the questions that have already come in, some fairly in-depth “process” stuff about creating comics and illustrations.
The first “real” post will go out on Monday, and I’ll be doing this throughout the month of October. Questions can be sent to me, either via direct message on Instagram (@adriantomine) or in the comments here, and I’ll do my best to respond to as many as possible. I’ll try to post at least twice a week, and the subscription will be 100% free of charge. Thanks for joining me in this experiment, and please subscribe so that Substack doesn’t regret their generous invitation.
Hey Adrian (apologies if that's too informal, never done something like this before),
I'm sure you've heard this a hundred times but I'm someone who just became a young adult and hopes to have a future career in making independent comic books. I understand that a large portion of success comes from high work effort and pure luck and I'm fine with that, the question I have at the moment is more on the personal level:
I'm currently an art school student and the school I'm going to has a club dedicated to cartoonists. Tonight they are hosting a meeting where you're supposed to show up and present your work to the club in order to get feedback. Here's the catch though: we are told that we are not allowed to say anything negative about anyone's work. This has made me not want to show up because to me a rule like that eliminates the purpose of criticism to begin with. Now I couldn't even show up to this meeting if I wanted to so I'm more using this as a way to segue into the issue that I have: I struggle to get feedback on my work that I actually find to have meaning.
Given the fact that I want to be an indie cartoonist to begin with means I obviously am fine with not being the most popular guy in the world. What matters to me is really connecting to others through my art, whether it be 1,000 people or 12 people. However, I really struggle with finding people who seem to actually take the time to fully take in my work and give me their honest thoughts. Thankfully I have a handful of good friends who take the time to talk to me in a real way, but the vast majority of feedback I get is either too brief to mean anything or completely disingenuous (at least from my perspective). Because of this I can't help but feel really alone. I have no idea if what I make is any good because I don't trust myself enough and I have nobody to give me an external opinion that I value. It's pretty heartwrenching.
I suppose my question after all of this rambling is how do you get around a problem like this? I understand that I cannot rely on others to verify that my work is good for that's completely unfair. But at the same time, I'm so stressed out and anxious that I feel like if I don't have some kind of external support that I'm doomed to fail and give up. It's not a good feeling and I'm sure I'm not the only artist who has felt like this. I can only assume that this is a problem more had by younger artists so I reckon you may be able to give some insight with a very impressive career already on your belt. Would really appreciate any words you could give about this ordeal.
Anyways that's about it. Apologies for the massive wall of text, I really don't know what we were supposed to write haha. I'll just end by saying that both you and your art have quickly become a huge inspiration for me and I cannot wait to see what you create in the future.
Thanks,
-Teo
You put words on things that I leave without words. I hope that over the course of this month, I'll be better able to add the words too. I look forward to learning and being inspired by your fantastic work!