Adrian Tomine
Shortcomings (2007)
Author: Adrian Tomine
Genre: Graphic Novel (Literary)
Plot Summary:
Ben Tanaka is a curmudgeony movie theater manager living in Berkeley, California in his early 30s whose relationship with his longtime girlfriend, Miko, is on the rocks. Many of their disagreements revolve around their ideas about race and what it means to be an Asian American, and when Miko gets an internship in New York, they decide to "take a break." The story follows Ben as he dates other women in Miko's absence, and spends more time with his best friend Alice, an outspoken lesbian through whom he meets one of the girls he dates while still in Berkeley. Ben's attempts at relationships fail, the theater he works at shuts down and Alice tells him she is planning to move to New York City. He reluctantly decides to go with her, though just to visit. SPOILER: While in New York, Ben attempts to track down Miko only to find out that she has fallen for and has been living with an Asian-obsessed white man. He confronts her and finds out she had been cheating on him with this man since before Miko moved, and that the man was the impetus for that move. They have a falling-out and Ben decides both to give up on their relationship and move to New York anyway.
Geographical Setting: Berkeley, California/New York City
Time Period: Present Day (2007)
Appeal Characteristics:
The pacing isn't particularly quick, but keeps the plot moving at a steady pace, relying more on conversations to express characters feelings than on inner monologues. The art style is sparse and understated, using simple-yet-realistic shaded line drawings. The tone is mostly serious, but bits of laugh-out-loud humor are thrown in as to not make it feel overly dramatic. The frame is that of a couple in an established relationship that is going downhill. The two settings are Berkeley and New York, either of which may be a draw for readers of literary alternative comics. The characters are very well-developed, and even secondary characters like Alice are realistic, and Tomine makes an effort to show the reader more than one side of their personality.
Read-alikes: Fun Home by Allison Bechdel, Those interested in a non-ficion comic set in the San Francisco Bay Area may be interested in Ariel Schrag's series of high school memoirs, the first of which is titled Awkward. These books tell the coming-of-age of a queer teen girl and, while they have a bit more whimsical approach and a more cartoony style of art, have similarly well-rounded characters and a steady, plot-driven pace. La Perdida by Jessica Abel, Blankets by Craig Thompson, Good-Bye by Yoshihiro Tatsumi, Ghost World by Daniel Clowes, Black Hole by Charles Burns, American Born Chinese by Gene Luen Yang, Exit Wounds by Rutu Modan
Red Flags: Explicit language, GLBT content, blatant sexual discussions
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