Adrian Tomine would like to apologize, on behalf of America, to fellow comic-book artist Yoshihiro Tatsumi — grandfather of alternative manga — for the fact that Tatsumi’s first experience of the United States is the San Diego Comicon. Tatsumi is 71, a reserved, almost shy man, and Comicon is a massive, chaotic commercial mega-event, where a hundred thousand geeked-out fans collide with the artists they worship. Today is the calm before the storm. Sitting together around a sleek wood conference table located deep within the UCLA Hammer Museum in Westwood, where he and Tatsumi are set to give a pre-Comicon lecture, the two look more like grandfather and grandson than artists working a continent and a generation apart. Tomine waits patiently while the older gentleman’s interpreter translates the apology. Tatsumi laughs. He doesn’t speak English. Tomine doesn’t speak Japanese. Their art is the only unfiltered... More >>>