PositiveThe Comics Journal...while The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Cartoonist adopts the character of autobiography, it is predominantly a comedy of middle-class neurosis ... Loneliness comes in the form of a facsimile sketchbook, which is conceptually a bit unsettling - did I steal this from Adrian Tomine\'s house? I think it\'s supposed to be more like Tomine is beckoning you closer for special access to his unmediated innermost feelings, although the drawing of it isn\'t actually a great departure from what has come before ... Now, Tomine himself is the focus of comedy - and he\'s not averse to playing it broad. Put him on a nice walk with a pretty girl, and the poor guy\'s overcome with diarrhea ... However, good as the jokes may be, Loneliness aspires to be something else ... we understand that the structure of the book is not just \'the book\', but Tomine physically recounting to himself, via drawing, all that he recalls of his cartooning life, for the benefit of understanding himself, and that is why the book is published in the form of a sketchbook, and: clever! It\'s clever ... It\'s also very sentimental - and, in a way, conservative. At the core of this book, is a great longing for an elusive normality.
