A COMICA REVIEW BY:

MAARTJE SCHALKX

Maartje Schalkx makes comics and lives in London. She attended the Adrian Tomine Q&A with Toby Litt on February 3, 2009.

Portrait by Sarah McIntyre

last night i made it through the slush of trodden snow to a front row seat at an adrian tomine talk at the ica. toby litt led the talk, which covered adrian’s own work as well as his work as the editor of drawn and quarterly’s yoshihiro tatsumi series. after the talk tomine signed books in the shop and i had the chance to not only talk to him briefly, but also to have a chat with paul gravett.

paul organized the talk and although i had seen him at just about every comics related event i’ve been to in london i’d never had the pleasure to speak with him. it was lovely talking with him, and i left the ica full of encouragement and positivity.

since my bike is broken and i didn’t know what bus to get the small spring in my step helped me on my way home. pondering the evenings events i walked from the mall to shoreditch, there i jumped onto the 149 with some vietnamese takeaway tucked underneath my arm.

it’s difficult to put into words what i take away from these evenings but they always result in new considerations and observations.

the same goes for a meeting i had today with sarah mcintyre, who i met at one of last year’s comica events. we had been meaning to meet for lunch for months and today we finally got round to it. over sarah’s blt and my spanish omelette we chatted about comics, people in our lives and self-censorship. and she gave me an excellent idea for promoting my comic. altogether a luxury lunch.