To me, this 3 part story demonstrates two things: Tomine’s growth as a storyteller but also (unfortunately) his strength at creating utterly unlikable characters which I truly, truly hope are not meant to be autobiographical.
The story is about Ben Tanaka, an Asian-American movie theater manager, and his filmmaker girlfriend Miko. Miko goes from California to New York for a job, leaving him alone on a somewhat ambiguous “break.” The issues center upon his lusting after non-Asian women, and acting on a few of his opportunities, while in the meantime Miko engages in a few opportunities of her own. The three part series follows Ben in all his anger and sarcasm as the relationship reaches an inevitable climax.
The first point: I have been reading Optic Nerve for more than ten years and have every issue so far. It has gone from being a funny mini-comic to a serious and not-funny regular-sized comic. He used to drive me crazy with writing these incredibly compelling slice of life style stories (usually about relationships) and then just ending them at the dumbest time with no real resolution and no real reader satisfaction (just like real life, I guess, but in all honesty this is not why I pick up a comic book). Now, he does wrap up his stories with some degree of reader satisfaction, but then I get stuck on…
The second point: This main character, Ben, completely drains me of any sympathy by the end. He is a douche bag: a man who is unsupportive of his girlfriend, quick to anger, flawed in ways that don’t make him interesting to me. They are simply characteristics that make me say “Good, he deserved that,” after his girlfriend leaves him, the barely legal movie house girl rejects him (all right, she‘s actually 22, but no one is rooting for him to score with her), he loses his job, etc., etc. Even as I pick this book up again to review it, I am immediately turned off by the main character’s negativity. I just find it hard to deal with, even though the whole thing is done very well.
I guess one of the things that bothers me is the thought that the Optic Nerve I used to like is never coming back. The Optic Nerve of the mini-comics, the funny little shorts, the rough drawings have given way to the more adult style, but the stories are…I don’t know…not very fun. It’s still (and always has been) a quality product, but man, I just wind up feeling so down on it that I hate myself for it. And I hate myself for saying anything even remotely bad about it, because I am naturally inclined to be forgiving to artists who stray (except for Sam Raimi. Curse you Sam Raimi for that god-awful Spiderman 3!) and also this is, at the end of the day, a good comic. So…a well done book, I’ll probably keep reading, but man I miss the old days.
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