Doug Mullins sent me a link to what he called an “exceptionally good Tomine interview” over at The Believer. I’m inclined to agree; it is exceptionally good:

BLVR: Do you think the lag time between producing this length of book for you isn’t suited to the demands of book publishing today?

AT: I was talking to someone who recently had pretty big success with a graphic novel, and it took her seven years to produce it, and now the publisher is ready for the follow-up. And that’s daunting. I don’t know if a lot of the new readers that we’re acquiring at bookstores are necessarily going to still be as enthusiastic about us ten years after we get written up in the New York Times. And also I just think that there are some people who are absolutely suited to it and enjoy the process and produce great work. At the same time, I talk to other cartoonists who are committed to some long-term project that’s going to take them ten years, and that feeling of being right in the middle of it and not feeling like you’re anywhere close to the finish—it’s a lot to take on, and I know from my experience that when I start to have that feeling of not working fast enough or not making enough progress, I start to become really obsessed. My real life starts to suffer. I start shutting out the real world to achieve more with each workday, and I have this feeling almost of panic, of needing to produce.

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