Adrian Tomine

Popular Gen X cartoonist is perhaps best known for his periodical illustrations in the New Yorker. Often compared to Dan Clowes for his signature clean-line style, Tomine creates original material in the form of a comic book Optic Nerve, which was originally self-published, and is now printed by Drawn & Quarterly.

Despite heavy youth-culture exposure, (he is often name-checked as a comics reference in decidedly mainstream publications such as Entertainment Weekly and even on teen dramas on WB) Tomine remains a largely underground figure, placed demographically between Raw artists such as Spiegelman and Pekar, and the relationship-oriented artists of the late 90s such as Craig Thompson.