New this year, we’ve partnered with Drawn & Quarterly illustrator, Adrian Tomine, for an exclusive Indie Bookstore Day tote bag and t-shirt design! A bestselling graphic novelist, screenwriter, and The New Yorker cover artist, Adrian Tomine is the cartoonist of Optic Nerve and the author of 11 books. His most recent book, Q&A, offers up frank and funny advice for aspiring and seasoned creatives alike. His forthcoming Fall 2025 art book will collect drawings from across his expansive career, focusing on his acclaimed illustration career. Both his graphic novel Shortcomings and his memoir The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Cartoonist were named New York Times Notable Books of the year. Born in 1974 in Sacramento, California, Tomine now lives in Brooklyn with his wife and daughters.
We sat down with Tomine to learn more about his design and connection to indie bookstores.
What was your inspiration for this exclusive tote bag design for Indie Bookstore Day?
The main inspiration was the strong feelings I have about independent bookstores and the value of resisting the alternatives. It’s easy to rant about the things you’re against, but I wanted to come up with an image that was, for lack of a better word, positive.
Do you have a favorite independent bookstore? If so, what makes it special to you?
Too many to list them all, but I’ll mention the stores in Berkeley and Oakland (where I lived until 2003) that were integral to my development as an artist and a reader: Cody’s, Moe’s, Pegasus, and Comic Relief. I love all the independent bookstores in New York (where I’ve lived since 2003), but Community Bookstore here in Brooklyn is such a fixture in my family’s life that we just refer to it as “the bookstore."
How do books and bookstores influence your creative work?
I didn’t go to art school, but I spent a lot of my early adulthood going to bookstores with other cartoonists, and I really feel like that was where I got my arts education. The experience of browsing with other artists and writers is an incomparable learning experience — one that can’t be replicated online, despite what some people might say. And now I’m so grateful to live in a place where I can walk to a great independent bookstore and find inspiration for whatever I’m working on, whether it’s comics, illustration, or screenwriting. Even if I’m not shopping for anything in particular, just going into a bookstore feels invigorating and nourishing. I never walk out of one feeling worse, which is more than I can say for a lot of stores!
In your recent book, Q&A, you answer direct questions from readers. With a career spanning over 30 years, do you feel like you’ve answered all the big questions about your work, or are there still ones you’re wrestling with?
It’s a lot easier to answer other people’s questions than my own. There are questions that I have about my work that I may never fully resolve.
Some artists prefer to let their work speak for itself. Was it difficult to open up and respond directly to readers in your book?
No, I found it fairly easy and enjoyable to write Q&A. I’ve been corresponding with my audience in a similar way since I was sixteen, so it’s kind of like second nature to me. But in general, I do prefer to make art rather than talk about it, so I’m going to wrap this up and get back to work!