If you are living under a rock and do not know Everything Everywhere All at Once raked up several Oscars for 2023. What you might not know is the studio behind the successful movie. A24 is an American independent entertainment company that specializes in film and television production, as well as film distribution. The company is based in Manhattan. A24 was founded in 2012 by Daniel Katz, David Fenkel, and John Hodges. A24 just recently acquired the rights to Adrian Tomine’s The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Cartoonist. Will the success of Everything Everywhere All at Once rub off on Adrian Tomine’s graphic novel autobiography?
“Ari Aster is one of the great filmmakers of our time, and, unsurprisingly, he also has impeccable taste when it comes to film and TV,” Tomine said. “So when he told me he thought there was a way to adapt my book–and to create something innovative and unexpected and true to the material–who was I to argue? I have immense respect for Ari, as well as Square Peg and A24, and I’m honored and thrilled (and honestly, a little shocked) to be collaborating with them.”
“As devoted fans of Adrian’s work, we couldn’t be more thrilled to be helping him to adapt his beautiful book for television, Aster said. “I can now forgive him for all that he did to me. We have begun counseling, which has been a productive and therapeutic process.”
One of the New York Times’ 100 Notable Books of 2020! Featured on best-of-the-year lists from Publishers Weekly and the Washington Post!
A comedic memoir about fandom, fame, and other embarrassments from the life of a New York Times bestseller
What happens when a childhood hobby grows into a lifelong career? The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Cartoonist, Adrian Tomine’s funniest and most revealing foray into autobiography, offers an array of unexpected answers. When a sudden medical incident lands Tomine in the emergency room, he begins to question if it was really all worthwhile: despite the accolades and opportunities of a seemingly charmed career, it’s the gaffes, humiliations, slights, and insults he’s experienced (or caused) within the industry that looms largest in his memory.
Tomine illustrates the amusing absurdities of how we choose to spend our time, all the while mining his conflicted relationship with comics and comics culture. But in between chaotic book tours, disastrous interviews, and cringe-inducing interactions with other artists, life happens: he fumbles his way into marriage, parenthood, and indisputably fulfilling existence. A richer emotional story emerges as his memories are delineated in excruciatingly hilarious detail.
In a bold stylistic departure from his award-winning Killing and Dying, he distills his art to the loose, lively essentials of cartooning, each pen stroke economically imbued with human depth. Designed as a sketchbook complete with a placeholder ribbon and an elastic band, The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Cartoonist shows an acclaimed artist at the peak of his career.
Fun Fact: Tomine is a fourth-generation Japanese American and is rankled as being pigeonholed as an Asian American cartoonist.