Shortcomings
Some of you may already have read the graphic novel “Shortcomings,” by Adrian Tomine—but if you haven’t read it, I recommend this incredible piece of fiction as a must-read. Adrian Tomine’s writing (and art) have been a major inspiration in my life. I’ve been a fan since I saw a poster for an issue of his work “Optic Nerve” in a college dorm, sometime in the mid-nineties. At the time I was big into film, and this drawing gave me everything. Just some simple lines, but there’s a story here. It screamed indie, it screamed the kind of storytelling I craved but didn’t often see. Look at this. Look at the posture, the direction of gazes; the ligne claire style looks French in that cool French way; and the palette? man, the flat palette keeps the subtlety of those black ink lines from pomp and garishness. Just straight up frail humanity.
Picture it hanging on a dorm room wall.
Most discussion of the book “Shortcomings” centers around being Asian in America, but I think there is a universal truth to the story, applicable to all human beings. It’s right in the title. It’s that human fear of worthiness, of ennobling hope and desire, too, but more how that fear catalyzes with societal beliefs and produces noxious anxiety and irritable frustration—and results in the natural attenuation of those character instabilities into anger (even if the anger is petty and funny, as in “Shortcomings”).
There are other works from Adrian Tomine besides “Shortcomings” that cover some of the same themes in my books (like “Summer Blonde”), but it’s “Shortcomings” that I think shows Tomine at his best, smartest, most personal and vulnerable. If you’re not a graphic novel reader, have no fear (though, wow, are you missing out on this one), the book is adapted to film now by Randall Park (wide release August 4, 2023). I haven’t seen the movie, but I’m telling you: read the book. It is perfection. Every line, every word, every panel.
Don’t believe me? Look at these images and see how this artist captures so much human condition, love and hope and fear:
