His latest arc (issues 9-11) follows moody movie-theater owner Ben Tanaka, who struggles to hang on to his Asian girlfriend while secretly lusting after white ladies. Optic Nerve comics prodigy Adrian Tomine has built a loyal following off the slice-of-life Nerve since '91. 'The Mix', which lists 'What not to miss in Music, Books, Games, and more…'. In 2006, Entertainment Weekly published a short review of Tomine's work in their article. In Sandra Oh's essay 'Sight Unseen: Adrian Tomine's Optic Nerve and the Politics of Recognition'., published by The Society for the Study of the Multi-Ethnic Literature of the United States (MELUS), Oh writes that Tomine, like his character Ben Tanaka, is more or less 'pessimistic about the possibility of escaping the limitations of socially inscribed identities.' Throughout the novel we see this pessimism manifest in Ben's general rejection and resentment of things that attempt to, in Ben's words, 'make some big 'statement' about race.' At the same time, Shortcomings does deal with racial issues, but it attempts to do so without resorting to clichés.Įntertainment Weekly has frequently praised Tomine's work, and Shortcomings was no exception. When Miko begins to resent what she interprets as a rejection of both her Asian heritage and of herself, she moves to New York, at which point Ben disastrously attempts to pursue the type of woman he feels he really wants. Ben is uninterested in Miko's participation in the Asian-American cultural community, but he possesses a wandering eye-specifically for Caucasian women. Ben Tanaka, the story's protagonist, lives in Berkeley, California with his politically active girlfriend Miko Hayashi. It was also excerpted in Timothy McSweeney's Quarterly Concern #13.Īdrian Tomine's graphic novel Shortcomings is his only work that fully deals with themes of being a young Asian-American male in American society. Shortcomings was originally serialized in issues #9 through #11 of Tomine's comic book series Optic Nerve before being released as a whole in 2007. Shortcomings is a graphic novel by cartoonist Adrian Tomine.

Graphic novel by Adrian Tomine Shortcomings

Shortcomings comic