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Scenes From an Impending Marriage
by Dan
Graphica / February 17, 2011
Adrian Tomine's latest book, Scenes from an Impending Marriage, started life as a small personal gift for guests at his wedding. But what began as an illustrated card soon grew into a collection of short comics strips about the absurd process of getting married.
Now a fully-fledged comic book, Scenes from an Impending Marriage sweet-naturedly skewers (in a funny, all too relatable way) the modern marriage process, including hiring a DJ, location scouting, trips to the salon, suit fittings, dance lessons, registering for gifts and managing familial demands.
Adrian AND his wife Sarah Brennan talked about the book, and the process of getting married, with NPR's All Things Considered earlier this week:
Tomine says that he also has an easy time drawing himself.
"It helps that I have some fairly typical comic book shorthand qualities like big glasses and a beard and a funny posture," he says. "Even if the technical likeness isn't there, if you throw in some of those things, it's enough to communicate who it's supposed to be."
"You're also frequently crabby like a lot of cartoonists," Brennan says.
Adrian was also recently interviewed by The Economist's More Intelligent Life this week:
If the hypothetical reader's life has progressed similarly to mine, they'll probably enjoy the book. If it hasn't, then they might want to sit this one out. What can I say? I took a gamble! The one thing I'd say is that the only thing this book really whole-heartedly endorses is a good relationship. I should mention that another impetus for publishing this work was the simple fact that it was time for me to do something different. I think the worst thing I could've done to follow up “Shortcomings” would be to do another book with a similar tone and drawing style. So it was kind of exciting for me when I realised that kind of departure that I was aiming for was already completed and ready to go.
You can read a 6-page PDF preview of Scenes from an Impending Marriage is available here.
