Good observation! I did have an Edward Hopper poster on my wall when I was in high school, but it was a different image. But prior to that, I had a lot of typically nerdy posters, mostly either related to comic books or science fiction movies.

I think you got it exactly right when you used the phrase “lasting artistic influences.” There’s only a small handful of cultural things that I loved as a kid that still hold up for me today, and Hopper is one of them. In fact, just last weekend I went to see a huge retrospective of his work at the Whitney Museum, and it really reinforced any admiration I’d ever had for him. I just like everything about his work: the lonely, romantic mood, the tasteful but lively colors, the loose brushwork combined with a perfect sense of draftsmanship. There’s a lot of qualities in his work that are very unfashionable in the world of “fine art” but are completely appealing to me.

I’ve never had any great ambitions to be an illustrator, but as a result of my comic book, a number of illustration jobs have fallen into my lap. But the New Yorker was the one place that I really wanted to work for, and they weren’t taking the initiative to make that happen! So when I visited New York after graduating from college, I actually did the old-fashioned ritual of the portfolio drop-off. I went to the New Yorker offices on the appointed day and left some samples of my work. It was all very intimidating to me...I was pretty young and I felt like a country bumpkin getting lost in the big city. Just dealing with the receptionist at the office was intimidating to me. But then I went back to California, and a few weeks later, an art director from the New Yorker called me up and gave me my first job, and I’ve been working for them now for almost ten years. And I still love the magazine...It’s the only one I subscribe to and read religiously.

The biggest motivation for doing this particular story was my frustration with the fact that I’ve spent my entire career very much in the shadows of my influences. I always felt like the kind of watered-down, less interesting version of the cartoonists I learned from. And I know first-hand that it’s nearly impossible to just snap your fingers and suddenly come up with a completely original way of drawing. Believe me, I’ve tried and it just doesn’t happen for me. So I think I probably tried to focus more on the content of my work, and searched for a story that those other guys would never write, just because of the fact that the particulars of the story are so tied into my own life experiences.

It would’ve been completely different. I mean, almost all the characters and incidents are based on experiences I’ve had after college, and I think the story has sort of an undercurrent of that post-graduation “what do we do now?” Most of the characters are trying to figure out, basically, how to be adults, and I certainly had no insight into that topic when I was in college. I probably still don’t, but I can fake it better now.

I think many Asian American males would be angry with me if I said “yes” to your first question. But I will say, I’ve gotten a lot of letters from guys who say, “I related to that character, but then I felt guilty” or “I enjoyed that character, but I hope I’m not like him.” When I write my comics, I don’t ever try to create a character who will represent an entire group. Each character is supposed to be absolutely specific and singular. If a reader happens to see something of himself in a character, then that’s great, but I never set out to encapsulate a certain age or race or gender or whatever in one fictional character. As for your second question, I’m hesitant to answer since so many readers have reacted negatively towards that character! Basically, I guess I wanted to create a very non-stereotypical Asian character, and I think the best way to avoid stereotypes is to rely heavily on actual observations from real life.

It probably could’ve tweaked him in either direction, towards feeling very passionately about racial issues or towards being more ambivalent about such things. But for the most part, I think it’s his particular personality, more than past experiences, that shape his character. He’s one of those guys who’s technically pretty smart, but somewhat deficient in his ability to be introspective or self-critical, and maybe a little oblivious to the world around him.

I think the issue of sexuality in that case is actually irrelevant. Ben would prefer to think “She dumped me for a girl” rather than “She dumped me because I’m angry and overly-critical and un-ambitious.” It’s a good excuse for someone like Ben to feel absolved of any responsibility for the failure of the relationship.

I didn’t figure it all out explicitly by making charts and diagrams or whatever, but I think some of that stuff was certainly in the back of my mind as I wrote. Regardless of their possible generational differences, Miko is obviously more connected to her Japanese heritage than Ben is. And we see in the scene at the church that Alice communicates with her parents almost exclusively in Korean, so that could have some implications about her family history. My hope is that, at most, all this kind of stuff will just have a sort of subliminal effect on the story...It’s really not a crucial element.

I consider both of my parents to be big influences on me in all the ways you described. I think I was especially influenced and impressed by the fact that neither my Mom nor my Dad are formally trained in their respective areas of artistic pursuit. They just kind of figured it out on their own, which is pretty amazing to me. If my Dad (Chris Tomine, a California State University, Sacramento engineering professor) wants to do some woodworking, he just reads a book and does it. Same thing with music, computer graphics, printmaking, etc. And my mom just decided to start making movies, probably more because of the stories she wanted to tell than out of any life-long ambition to be a filmmaker. I’m sure a lot of people have pipe dreams like that, but never see it through to fruition. This must be some sort of family trait, because that’s kind of the way I ended up being a cartoonist: just sort of muddling around on my own until I figured out what I was doing. And on a broader scale, I think it was just really valuable to me to grow up in an atmosphere where art, in any form, was held in high esteem. I probably took that for granted when I was younger, but now when I hear more about other people’s upbringing, I realized that can be kind of a rare thing.

I’ve been known to enjoy the occasional episode of “Blind Date” or “Cheaters.” I like to pretend that it’s all research for my work.

That’s a question I’d love to ask the readers themselves. I’ve always been kind of surprised by the vehemence with which some people react to my work, both positive and negative. I always think of my stuff as being fairly innocuous, like someone would spend 15 minutes reading an issue and think either “That was nicely drawn and kind of interesting” or maybe “That wasn’t really my cup of tea.” But it’s surprising and gratifying that some people feel moved to sit down and write me an actual letter, even if it’s a scathing criticism. Maybe it’s because I started publishing at an early age and my style has evolved publicly, but I get the sense that some readers feel that the work is a collaborative project between me and them.

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