{"id":35117,"date":"2026-03-18T16:44:37","date_gmt":"2026-03-18T16:44:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/?p=35117"},"modified":"2026-03-18T16:44:37","modified_gmt":"2026-03-18T16:44:37","slug":"sleepwalk-and-other-stories-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/2026\/03\/18\/sleepwalk-and-other-stories-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Sleepwalk and Other Stories"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\nBy Adrian Tomine<\/strong> (Drawn & Quarterly Publications 1998\/Faber & Faber)
\nISBN: 978-1-89659-711-9 (D&Q), 978-0-57123-331-1 (Faber HB)<\/p>\n

We often talk of comics and graphic narrative as if it\u2019s one homogenous lump, and as well as doing the medium a tremendous disservice it\u2019s also incredibly misleading. Those people that haughtily declaim \u201cOh, We Never Watch Television\u201d usually mean they deplore whatever it is you\u2019ve just mentioned, but that their own viewing habits somehow don\u2019t count.<\/p>\n

And in a way they\u2019re absolutely correct. For them the term is a group pejorative. But Bake Off <\/strong>is not Eastenders<\/strong> is not The Sky at Night<\/strong> is not Stranger Things<\/strong>. The medium is now a conveyance, the content is a product you can select or decline. Now try that phrase with the concept of comics.<\/p>\n

Adrian Tomine draws pictures and tells stories. They are about \u201cNow\u201d, and \u201cI feel that…\u201d and \u201cHow does…?\u201d His Spartan monochromatic drawing style works as an ideal camera for his elegiac documentaries. In an art form that too often relies on hyperbole and melodrama – not just for content but for narrative technique – he eschews bravura for insight, telling little tales about the commonplace and the ordinary, showing just how extraordinary and poetic a \u201crealer\u201d life can be. As an exemplar and primer of one of the greatest graphic storytellers of our age (well mine, at least) this is a still his most compelling work, although you (and probably I) might want to reflect and consider 2020\u2019s The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Cartoonist<\/strong>…
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\nOriginally released as issues 1-4 of Optic Nerve<\/strong>, Sleepwalk<\/strong> presented sixteen vignettes of broken hearts and trampled dreams, of uncompromising self-recriminations and day-to-day reminiscences that make us all shrug and think \u201cwell, there\u2019s always tomorrow…\u201d<\/p>\n

If you read Maus<\/strong> for the scale of Man\u2019s capacity for evil or Stuck Rubber Baby<\/strong> for his ability to change and overcome, then Sleepwalk<\/strong> should access your capacity to empathise and endure. Few comics comment on the Human Condition without taking a strident position. Here\u2019s one that asks you to choose your own, and choose it every single time. Find it. Buy it. Read it.<\/p>\n

Think about it. Agitate for one its many past publishers to re-release it…
\n\u00a9 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998 Adrian Tomine. All Rights Reserved.
\nYesterday <\/strong>in 1847, pioneering French cartoonist\/caricaturist \u201cGrandville<\/em><\/strong>\u201d (AKA Jean Ignace Isidore G\u00e9rard<\/strong>\/Jean-Jacques<\/strong>\/J. J. Grandville<\/strong> et al) ended an era by dying…<\/p>\n

In 1877, Dutchman of similar status and impact Albert Hahn<\/strong> was born, as was legendary Marvel Comics icon Flo Steinberg<\/strong> in 1939, and in 1950 German satirist (imagine that!<\/em>) and comics star creator of Werner<\/strong> R\u00f6tger Werner Friedrich Wilhelm <\/strong>\u201cBr\u00f6sel<\/em><\/strong>\u201d Feldmann<\/strong> arrived, as did Mutts<\/strong> creator Patrick McDonnell<\/strong> in 1956.<\/p>\n

Yesterday in 1972 we lost Cuban star Antonio Rubio<\/strong> in 1972 and US cartoonist Russell Patterson<\/strong> (Mamie<\/strong>), but the day in 1951 saw Davie Law\u2019s Dennis the Menace<\/strong> begin in The Beano<\/strong>, the premiere issue of Japan\u2019s Weekly Shonen Magazine<\/em><\/strong> in 1959 and the first episode of Greg Evans<\/strong>\u2019 Luann<\/strong> in 1985.
\nToday in 1889 Reg\u2019lar Fellers<\/strong> cartoonist Gene Byrnes was born, just like author\/artist\/inker (Frank McLaughlin (Judomaster<\/strong>, Justice League of America<\/strong>, everything) in 1935.Belgian creator Marcel Denis (Hultrasson<\/em><\/strong>) passed away in 2002 and we lost the magnificently macabre Bernie Wrightson (Swamp Thing<\/strong>, Frankenstein<\/strong>, Batman<\/strong>) in 2017. In 1985 UK weekly Buster<\/strong> published the last episode of The Leopard from Lime Street<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Adrian Tomine (Drawn & Quarterly Publications 1998\/Faber & Faber) ISBN: 978-1-89659-711-9 (D&Q), 978-0-57123-331-1 (Faber HB) We often talk of comics and graphic narrative as if it\u2019s one homogenous lump, and as well as doing the medium a tremendous disservice it\u2019s also incredibly misleading. Those people that haughtily declaim \u201cOh, We Never Watch Television\u201d usually … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Sleepwalk and Other Stories”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[90,78,239,225,148],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-35117","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cartooning-classics","category-comic-strip-classics","category-drama","category-mystery","category-romance"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4AFj-98p","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35117","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35117"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35117\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":35123,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35117\/revisions\/35123"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35117"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35117"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35117"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}