Cover for Issue #3 of "Optic Nerve" comic, featuring an illustration of 2 people standing at a gas station, talking. One holds a soda and the other has headphones in.

Adrian Tomine - Optic Nerve #03

$ 2.95

Paperback, 24 pages.

Drawn and Quarterly explains Adrian Tomine's 3rd Optic Nerve, "Dylan & Donovan" (11 pages), the first of four stories, recounts the difficult adolescence of two twin sisters and their life with an aging hippie father; in "Supermarket" (6 pages), a blind man attempts to befriend a young woman at the checkout counter; "Hostage Situation" (3 pages) is an account of a miserable bus ride with two unruly passengers; in "Unfaded" (3 pages), a young man ponders a life gone by after his grandfather is admitted to a senior's home. 24 pages. First Printing: August 1996. Second Printing: October 2001

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Illustration by Felicia Chiao on brown toned paper of Giant Robot Store and Giant Robot 2 across from one another, separated by a sea of multicolor post it notes. A large Big Boss Robot looms in the background with its arms up.
Detail shot: a sea of colorful, mostly blank post-it notes in front of the open door of a store. A large cut out of Totoro is in the store window and various magazines and merch are atop the post it notes.
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Detail shot: A sea of colorful post-it notes with 2 issues of Giant Robot Magazine among them, some cartoon worms and flowers and various Giant Robot merch.
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Illustration by Felicia Chiao on brown toned paper of Giant Robot Store and Giant Robot 2 across from one another, separated by a sea of multicolor post it notes. A large Big Boss Robot looms in the background with its arms up.
Illustration by Felicia Chiao on brown toned paper of Giant Robot Store and Giant Robot 2 across from one another, separated by a sea of multicolor post it notes. A large Big Boss Robot looms in the background with its arms up.
Illustration by Felicia Chiao on brown toned paper of Giant Robot Store and Giant Robot 2 across from one another, separated by a sea of multicolor post it notes. A large Big Boss Robot looms in the background with its arms up.
Detail shot: a sea of colorful, mostly blank post-it notes in front of the open door of a store. A large cut out of Totoro is in the store window and various magazines and merch are atop the post it notes.
A large teal Big Boss Robot figure, standing with its arms up at its sides. A cartoon daisy is atop its head and a calico cat rests on its arm.
Detail shot: A sea of colorful post-it notes with 2 issues of Giant Robot Magazine among them, some cartoon worms and flowers and various Giant Robot merch.
Detail shot: a large neon sign coming out the side of a building for Giant Robot Store, mostly red. A colorful chibi version of Big Boss Robot stands on the roof with a balloon. A smiling cartoon sun hangs in the sky.
Illustration by Felicia Chiao on brown toned paper of Giant Robot Store and Giant Robot 2 across from one another, separated by a sea of multicolor post it notes. A large Big Boss Robot looms in the background with its arms up.
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*Preorder* Felicia Chiao - "Giant Robot Cover" Art Print (Giant Robot: Thirty Years of Defining Asian-American Pop Culture)

$ 75.00

Signed art print by Felicia Chiao. Piece is unframed.

This is an open edition.

Artwork measures 12 x 18 inches.

Please note this is a preorder - prints will likely ship out sometime within November 2024, though a more specific time frame will be provided as soon as we are able to!

This piece was made by Felicia Chiao for the cover of Giant Robot: Thirty Years of Defining Asian-American Pop Culture. 

  • There is a No Returns Policy from the moment artwork is purchased.
  • Art once purchased is not open for trade
  • Pick-up orders: Please wait for email confirmation before coming to pick up.
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Page excerpt, featuring a grid of photos taken of people singing Karaoke with names and song choices under their picture.
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Giant Robot: Thirty Years of Defining Asian-American Pop Culture (Hardcover)

$ 49.95

Hardcover, 464 pages, measures 8.3 x 11 inches, full color.

Each copy comes with a signed bookplate by Eric Nakamura! 

Books can be purchased in person at GR2 on 10/19 and will be available again in store the following week (starting October 22nd).

For those who ordered during preorder phase: Books will ship out late October, early November 2024, with signatures from Eric Nakamura, Martin Wong, James Jean, Luke Chueh, Daniel Wu, Felicia Chiao, David Horvath, maybe more! The official release date is October 22nd. 

In person book events are scheduled in Los Angeles, Northern California Bay Area, Philadelphia, New York and maybe more?! For more information click here!

In conjunction with the great Drawn & Quarterly, we present Giant Robot: Thirty Years of Defining Asian-American Pop Culture, a hardcover curated collection of Giant Robot's best! Jam packed with so many great articles written by + interviews conducted by the passionate and creative Giant Robot contributors throughout the years. A beautiful hardcopy encapsulation of an era that lives on today!  

Description from Drawn & Quarterly:

Celebrating the pop culture phenomenon that redefined what it meant to be Asian-American with tributes from Margaret Cho, Randall Park, Jia Tolentino, and more.

Los Angeles, 1994. Two Asian-American punk rockers staple together the zine of their dreams featuring Sumo, Hong Kong Cinema and Osamu Tezuka. From the very margins of the DIY press and alternative culture, Giant Robot burst into the mainstream with over 60,000 copies in circulation annually at its peak. Giant Robot even popped right off the page, setting up a restaurant, gallery, and storefronts in LA, as well as galleries and stores in New York and San Francisco. As their influence grew in the 90s and 00s, Giant Robot was eventually invited to the White House by Barack Obama, to speak at Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design, and to curate the GR Biennale at the Japanese American National Museum.

Home to a host of unapologetically authentic perspectives bridging the bicultural gap between Asian and Asian-American pop culture, GR had the audacity to print such topics side-by-side, and become a touchstone for generations of artists, musicians, creators, and collectors of all kinds in a pre-social media era. Nowhere else were pieces on civil rights activists running next to articles on skateboarding and Sriracha. Toy collectors, cartoonists, and street style pioneers got as many column inches as Michelle Yeoh, Karen O, James Jean, and Haruki Murakami.

Giant Robot: Thirty Years of Defining Asian-American Pop Culture features the best of the magazine’s sixty-eight issue run alongside never-before-seen photographs, supplementary writing by long-term contributing journalist Claudine Ko, and tributes from now-famous fans who’ve been around since day one. Margaret Cho, Daniel Wu, and Randall Park celebrate Giant Robot’s enduring legacy alongside pioneering pro-skateboarder Peggy Oki, contemporary art giant Takashi Murakami, culinary darling Natasha Pickowicz, and critically acclaimed essayist Jia Tolentino.

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Book cover for "Q&A", all white with 4 art utensils laid out in an even parallel row: a white mechanical pencil, half of a blue mechanical pencil, a wooden bodied fountain pen and a skinny paint brush.
Page excerpt of a 4 panel black and white comic about an artist checking his PO Box and receiving a demanding letter.
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Adrian Tomine - Q & A (Softcover)

$ 16.95

Softcover, 168 pages, Measures 5" x 7.1"

Everything you wanted to know about storytelling or Adrian Tomine but were too afraid to ask

“That would’ve been too easy and spontaneous for me, and I had to find a way to make everything more complicated.”

And yet for over thirty years, bestselling author, screenwriter, and New Yorker cover artist Adrian Tomine’s work has set the standard for contemporary storytelling. With Tomine, his readership has grown from the dedicated following of his comic-book series Optic Nerve to include a wider but still engaged, opinionated, and ever-inquiring public. And now, for the first time in print, Tomine responds to his readers directly, tackling their questions and comments with generosity, humor, and vulnerability.

Q&A is one part personal history, one part masterclass in crafting quality entertainment. With questions pulled from his time at the Substack Writers’ Residency, and with additional, new material, Q&A is an indispensable addition to the collections of eagle-eyed fans and aspiring artists, writers, and cartoonists alike.

Tomine answers questions about his preferred tools, his creative process, the ups and downs of adaptation, and perhaps most importantly—how to pronounce his last name. Illustrated with drafts, outtakes, and photos from the artist’s personal collection, this rare peek into the mind of a contemporary cartooning giant lays out the method to his meticulous brand of madness. The artist looks back on his career in response to queries from his—maybe adoring but mostly curious—public with his signature dry wit and unflinching, self-deprecating honesty.

Cover for "Scenes from an Impending Marriage", blue with a small cute illustration of a man dressed in a suit and a woman in a wedding dress, holding hands and running.
Page excerpt of a one panel circular comic of a couple running.
Page excerpt featuring a black and white panel comic of a couple discussing wedding invitations.
Page excerpt of a one panel black and white comic of a man trying on a tie.
Cover for "Scenes from an Impending Marriage", blue with a small cute illustration of a man dressed in a suit and a woman in a wedding dress, holding hands and running.
Page excerpt of a one panel circular comic of a couple running.
Page excerpt featuring a black and white panel comic of a couple discussing wedding invitations.
Page excerpt of a one panel black and white comic of a man trying on a tie.

Adrian Tomine - Scenes from an Impending Marriage

$ 9.95

Hardcover, 56 pages, measures 5.4 x 6.6 inches, black and white comic.

MAKING LIGHT OF NUPTIAL NARCISSM

At the behest of his soon-to-be wife, Adrian Tomine set out to create a wedding favor for their guests that would be funnier and more personal than the typical chocolate bars and picture frames. What started out as a simple illustrated card soon grew into a full-fledged comic book: a collection of short strips chronicling the often absurd process of getting married. A loose, cartoony departure from Tomine's previous work,Scenes from an Impending Marriage is a sweet-natured, laugh out-loud skewering of 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. The most personal and autobiographical work of Tomine's career,Scenes from an Impending Marriageis a charming, delightful token of love.

Tan colored cover of Shortcomings, with white petal patterns. 2 black and white illustrated people are in the bottom, each only half visible. One woman and one man.
Black and white panel excerpt, an illustrated woman lays on her bed and looks and various photos of herself.
Tan colored cover of Shortcomings, with white petal patterns. 2 black and white illustrated people are in the bottom, each only half visible. One woman and one man.
Black and white panel excerpt, an illustrated woman lays on her bed and looks and various photos of herself.

Adrian Tomine - Shortcomings (Softcover)

$ 22.95
Softcover, 9.25" x 6.5", 108pp, Black & White

Ben Tanaka has problems. In addition to being rampantly critical, sarcastic, and insensitive, his longåÐterm relationship is awash in turmoil. His girlfriend, Miko Hayashi, suspects that Ben has a wandering eye, and more to the point, it's wandering in the direction of white women. This accusation (and its various implications) becomes the subject of heated, spiralling debate, setting in motion a story that pits California against New York, devotion against desire, and trust against truth.

By confusing their personal problems with political ones, Ben and Miko are strangely alone together and oddly alike, even as they fly apart. Being human, all too human, they fail to see that what unites them is their shared hypocrisies, their double standards. This gray zone between the personal and the political is a minefield that Tomine navigates boldly and nimbly. The charged, volatile dialogues that result are unlike anything in Tomine's previous work or, for that matter, comics in general. But Shortcomings is no mere polemic. Any issues that are raised stand on equal footing with expertly-crafted plot turns, subtle characterization, and irreverent humor, all drawn in Tomine's heart-breakingly evocative style. What Tomine ultimately offers is more provocation than pronouncement--a brutal, funny, and insightful reflection of human shortcomings.

Shortcomings was serialized in Tomine's iconic comic book series Optic Nerve (issues #9-11) and was excerpted in McSweeney's Quarterly Concern #13.

Cover varies in color.
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