The ultimate collection by one of the most recognized talents in graphic novels: includes over a decade of comics and illustrations by the still-under-30 Adrian Tomine, from Pulse to The New Yorker and Esquire , collected together for the first time in one sharply-designed book. Scrapbook is the first comprehensive Adrian Tomnie collection. here you'll find the complete run of strips which was originally published in Tower Records' Pulse Magazine which Adrian started when he was only 17, along with comics originally published in Details and a host of other magazines of the past decade. A large section of Scrapbook is dedicated to Tomine's extensive illustration and design work, featuring his best material over the years from virtually every major publication in America including The New Yorker, Details, Esquire , and the late JFK Jr.-edited George . Tomines' art has also graced popular album covers and posters for bands such as The Eels and Weezer and posters and its' all included here in this beautifully packaged book. Tomine has been drawing his alternative-comics magazine Optic Nerve for more than a decade but, since he began publishing at 16, still has the aura of a young turk about him. Yet here is this "odds and sods" compilation of that veteran's staple, uncollected work. First up are some 40 brief early strips, chronologically presented to verify Tomine's impressive development as illustrator and storyteller. Like his later work, most of the early stuff sympathetically depicts the alienation and loneliness of Tomine's twentysomething compatriots, but in vignettes rather than short stories; the best are minor masterpieces of concision. The book's second section documents Tomine's successful sideline as a commercial artist, gathering illustrations for the New Yorker and other publications, album covers, movie posters, and other jobs. The third section, devoted to Tomine's sketchbooks, constitutes something of a revelation. The relaxed roughness of these drawings makes one wish he would inject some of their attractive looseness into his sometimes suffocatingly stiff comics work. In all, an impressive demonstration of this still-developing artist's talent and versatility. Gordon Flagg Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved “Tomine is at the forefront of the younger generation of alternative-comics artists.” ― Booklist “Adrian Tomine captures the pathos of young adulthood with vignettes exquisitely rendered in a sharp, comic-noir style.” ― Vibe Magazine Adrian Tomine was born in 1974 in Sacramento, California. He began self-publishing his comic book series Optic Nerve when he was sixteen, and in 1994 he received an offer to publish from Drawn & Quarterly. His comics have been anthologized in publications such as McSweeney's , Best American Comics , and Best American Nonrequired Reading. 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. Since 1999, Tomine has been a regular contributor to The New Yorker . He lives in Brooklyn with his wife and daughters.