Optic Nerve

(Drawn and Quarterly, 1995-2007, 2011)
™ and © Drawn and Quarterly

Few comics are worth a long wait. But Optic Nerve is one of them. And, after an excruciating year-long hiatus, creator Adrian Tomine has now published another issue of his excellent, slice-of-life comic.

Tomine is among the industry’s best at portraying the subtle—and not-so-subtle—nuances of character interaction. As is typical for the series, each issue is a single story with different characters. This issue is set 11 years ago, at a high school under the shadow of the newly launched Persian Gulf War. Alex is a literate but alienated senior who’s suspected of being gay; another character is his only friend, Scotty, a junior whose naivete has insulated him from the pressures of his teen-age years. And there’s Cammie, whose partying ways are the stuff of school legend.

These three characters are the nucleus of the story, and their observations about each other showcase Tomine’s brilliant grasp of human relationships. And there are other, supplemental characters that further enrich the story. It’s almost a shame that each issue is a separate story, because these characters are so well-defined within the scope of their short existence that they are ripe for further exploration.

But it’s also the single-issue stories that make the delay between issues more forgivable, as each issue reads like the start of a new series. It would be a disservice to pass on this series due solely to its erratic publishing schedule. Anyone looking for excellent characterization (that’s well-drawn, no less) will enjoy this title.

— Jim Johnson

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