Summer Blonde -- Graphic Novel

Summer Blonde is consisted of 4 short stories written by Adrian Tomine for the Optic Nerve comics. While I still haven't read all of his work yet, I think these stories couldn't fit better together in a collection.

Hawaiian Getaway - A single mid twenties something Asian-American female gets fired from her job, loses her roommate and slowly starts to lose herself in this story. We see how she spends her days, avoiding her nagging mother's phone calls and how she attempts to make connections with others.

Alter Ego - A 26 year old straight-white-male writer starts becoming complacent with his life, his girlfriend and his career, and goes searching for the writer of a piece of fan mail he has received. He ends up meeting the fan's younger sister, a high school girl. The man starts to spend more and more time with this high school girl, creating an alternate life for himself with her. He ends up cheating on his girlfriend with her, she finds out and leaves him.

Summer Blonde - We meet a mid-twenties straight-white-single-male with a classic desk job and learn that he has been stalking a young blonde girl that works at a card shop downtown. We learn about the blonde girl's secret dual romance though the eyes of this main character and that he is creepy and blah blah blah.

Bomb Scare - This was the story that I thought was the most powerful. A young high school boy and his best friend are picked on at school because they are each other's only friend, everyone thinks they are gay. A popular girl at school becomes an outcast because of an experience at a drinking party. The two misfits become friends, la la la. 

None of these stories are exciting or dramatic, but captivating because they are all so believable. Each character is so relate-able, because they seem like real people, but because of that I don't find myself LIKING these characters, because Tomine makes them both charming and disgusting at the same time. You see reflections of yourself, or your ex or your neighbor or an uncomfortable stranger, and you know these people so well, that you can't possibly like them, but you also don't dislike them because you understand that they are flawed. It's wild how well this all happens in these short stories. I think another reason why they work so well is that there really isn't any development in the characters. It's as if we're just opening up a window and peeking in on them, starting right there and we learn about who they are from that small moment. He doesn't give us any more to go off than we would have if we really were eavesdropping in on their life. And sometimes the stories are over before we come to any sort of conclusion or balanced ending. Which is frustrating sometimes and disappointing, realistic and natural.