Shortcomings

Although Shortcomings may take not more than an hour to get through, the text is meaty and packs a powerful punch. It forcefully commands you to go back and pore over each and every frame again because you might have missed minute details in Adrian Tomine's exquisite illustrations the first time around.The story is set in Berkeley, CA and for anyone who has lived or who is familiar with that area, this book will immediately feels like a piece of home in terms of the setting. It begins with our introduction to Ben who is attending an Asian American film festival with his Japanese girlfriend Miko. Upon reading a few pages, the reader experiences instant dislike with douche-bag Ben. His snarky and disapproving comments about the film festival and its organizers firmly plants the topic of race at the forefront of the novel. Yet at the same time Tomine also masks the heavy topic of race so casually that you don't even realize that that is the direction the book is taking.Tomine examines obsession with white women, self-hate, discrimination and the refusal to accept homosexuality by Asian American families. Tomine provides a space for all readers to really engage with this topic of how we fit in and how as Asian Americans do we view ourselves in this society. I was completely caught off guard by the way in which I reacted to this text. It forced me to question how I view my own identity. There were times where I understood where Ben was coming from because I myself had felt like this at one point in my life. Tomine utilized clever dialogue and subtleties in his illustrations to really evoke emotion out of the text. The characters were so real because we all know a Ben, an Alice and a Miko. He is able to really capture the true essence of relationships, the good, the bad and the inner struggles that one has to triumph over. You can't help but be annoyed by Ben, fall in love with the carefree ways of Alice (his Korean Lesbian best friend) and sympathize and then be surprised by Miko. The illustrations really give you a unique voyeuristic view into the lives of these people that is quite different from just reading a regular novel.I admired the way Tomine used multiple frames to demonstrate how time had passed. I think the most poignant scene for me was when he was dropping off his Miko the airport. There are six illustrations with just three cars to show how time had passed. I felt Ben's pain and I love the way this translated through.Tomine's delivery is remarkably beautiful and I was left wanting more. The subtle way in which he drives his point across is not only clever but also so creative. The characters are so incredibly real and you can't help but be swept away. Race relations and identity are topics not so well received when introduced, but Tomine does it in a way that makes you feel right at home.

This is a great graphic novella, possibly Tomine's best work to date, telling the dismal story of a disintegrating romance, as well as a wonderfully true-to-life friendship between two prickly, unlikable antihero characters. Ben Tanaka is the book's protagonist, a snarky, self-absorbed cynic who is doggedly pushing his longtime girlfriend away. In between sniping before-bed fights, Ben meets with his friend Alice, and equally cynical but more vivacious grad student who spends her time dodging her PhD exams while indulging in predatory affairs with freshmen students at the University of California, Berkeley. Ben and Alice are two of the most compelling characters to come along in adult comics in years -- they are utterly flawed and utterly likeable; if you enjoy the pleasures of crabby friends, these are people you'd like to hang out with.For me, as an SF East Bay local, the book has a special charm, as Ben frequents numerous Berkeley hot spots -- lunch and a stroll through the trendy Rockridge shopping district, the hustle and bustle of the crowded, grimy foodcourt on Durant Avenue, a conversation in the magazine atrium of Telegraph Avenue's legendary Cody's Books (now sadly closed) and a glimpse at the death of the venerable UC Theater, once Berkeley's greatest repertory movie house. (Ben's character is a manager at the UC Theater, and has to lay off his entire staff when the theater is hit by "temporary" seismic retrofits, which actually happened to the UC many years ago. The cost of the retrofits was too high for the struggling Landmark chain, and they sold the property to some developers who reneged on their promise to fix the theater up and reopen it under new management. The death of this cultural landmark was a great blow to the local community, and it's nice to see the UC immortalized here in Tomine's work. All that's missing is having Ben get a haircut at Frank the Barber's place, just down the street, and the picture would have been perfect.)Even if you're not from Berkeley or the Bay Area there's plenty to enjoy about this book, including its grim assessment of a doomed relationship, and its frank, scathingly un-PC discussions about race and identity for young Asian-American twenty-something hipsters. All in all, a fine work - I'm definitely looking forward to Tomine's next opus! (Joe Sixpack, ReadThatAgain book reviews)

Tomine is very skilled at what he does. This is yet another good book.

The "hero" of our book is not a nice or likeable person, and that's the best part; cause if you're honest, you just might see a little (or a lot) of yourself in him.This is a wonderful little story mostly about relationships, but also identity, laziness, inward anger being directed the wrong way. It's about being at a crucial step in life and not knowing, or not having the guts, to make the next move.If you're a guy read this book for pointers on what not to do as a boyfriend. Girls, you don't need this book cause you already avoid guys like this like the plague.If possible, try to pick up the faber faber UK printing of the paperback, cause I thought that had a much more unique cover design, but hey, as long as you read the book, any edition is fine!

Well, I wasn't ready for this after the big subject (and brilliant execution of it) of Maus, the brilliant stylisation of Jimmy Corrigan, the stylised dark, violent cynicism of Batman - The Dark Knight Returns and Watchmen, the quiet eco alternative world of Artichoke Tales, or the end of the world tale miraculously made interesting with Y: The Last Man Standing... I thought Shortcomings to be shallow and with artwork without nuance.In fact, this is a wonderful book about a couple and the friend of one of them. These are pretty average people, but race and sexuality bring quite a bit to their pretty regular story. It is easy to miss the humour here and the deep understanding of how people are, but Shortcomings, in its quite unassuming way, has both in spades.

These characters will steal your heart. The characters are all too real, and they kept reminding me of people I do know. The white-guy, speaking Japanese, learning Tai-Chi facing Ben Tanaka in a martial art pose is too hilarious for words. The expressions are perfect, the slightest curl of the lip, crinkling of the eyebrows, it's all there. The melancholy, the contradictions and the meanness of Ben Tanaka make him one of the most memorable characters in 'recent memory. Relationships and the lies and twists that mark them are laid bare.if you want some flaky comic, go elsewhere. If you want a thoughtful graphic novel: something that caresses your eyes, plucks your heartstrings and scrapes the varnish away from modern relationships, then this is it.

A thought-provoking and powerfully perceptive graphic novel. Tomine’s ability to bring troubled and conflicted characters to the comic book page is second to none. Well worth a read