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Tomine, Adrian – Optic Nerve #9
Optic Nerve #9
Wow, this page is so old that it’s blue! See, if I really knew much about maintaining this website I’d be able to change that back to what it’s supposed to be without much trouble. Anyway, you can read above about how much Adrian has (at least partly) been responsible for my getting into independent comics in the first place, so I won’t go on about that again. And this story is the first of three parts, so I can’t go on about his infamous inability to end stories in a satisfying manner. Basically all I’m doing here is alerting anybody reading this who didn’t already know any better that he has a new book out, as it’s been 2 years since the last one. He says that there’s a big collection of various and unpublished stuff coming out this year, and he says that he’ll get the next issue out much quicker, but I don’t know, that’s what these people always say when they’re really late all the time. That’s one thing I honestly miss from my days of reading all the Marvel crap: the anticipation. You really can’t build anticipation for Adrian’s latest work, or Seth’s, or Joe Matt (good lord, especially Joe Matt) because you have no idea when they’re coming out. Granted, it’s always a nice surprise to see something new from one of these guys, but I miss the anticipation of knowing when something new was coming out and being able to plan around it. Cerebus was great for that, before it got completely self-indulgent and ridiculous at the end, although in fairness I still haven’t managed to read the last 30 issues or so. Where was I? Oh yeah. This comic is about a relationship that’s in trouble, on both sides, and the reactions on both sides. Couldn’t have been more simplistic if I tried, and you have to know there’s more to it than that, but I’m not going to talk anybody into liking Adrian Tomine at this point. Either you like him or you don’t, and I think this particular story has the potential to be really great. It’s $3.95, click on the title and forgive my unrelated ranting…
Tomine, Adrian – Sleepwalk: And Other Stories
Sleepwalk: And Other Stories
His regular series has been kind of hit or miss. Some of the stories are fantastic (the one with the twins in particular), and some of them are just OK. Still, there are enough good stories in here to make it worth getting.
Until I get around to reviewing these, if ever, maybe you’re curious about where the phrase “to fly off the handle” comes from. From A Hog on Ice and Other Curious Expressions:
This Americanism first got into print about a hundred years ago, meaning, as it does today, to lose one’s self-control suddenly, or, as in popular parlance, to lose one’s head. The latter was the literal meaning, for the allusion was to the head or blade of a woodsman’s ax, which, if loose upon the helve, was likely to fly off dangerously at a tangent anywhere along the swing of the ax. John Neal seems to have been the first to record the forerunner of the present expression, for the earlier usage was just “off the handle”. Neal, a novelist from Portland, Maine, visited England when he was thirty, and while there published, in 1825, the novel, Brother Jonathon; or the New Englanders. In this, speaking of a surprise attack upon an Indian village, one of his characters says, “How they pulled foot when they seed us commin’. Most off the handle, some o’ the tribe, I guess.”