Over the duration of Shortcomings’ meticulously wrought panels, we learn that Asian American protagonist Ben Tanaka is, as his girlfriend, Miko, puts it, “relentlessly negative.” Ben is a 30-year-old who manages an East Bay movie theater, and Adrian Tomine’s book opens on his criticisms of a film about Asian American identity that is part of a festival that Miko works on. In Shortcomings’ early pages, while other Asian Americans in the audience clap wildly at a film, Ben looks disgruntled, later claiming that the audience knows the movie isn’t good. But his negativity isn’t the couple’s sole problem—Ben prefers white women. When Miko takes a New York City internship, Ben is free to chase his attractions. Ben’s best and only friend, Alice Kim, provides dry wit and knowing commentary on his pursuits. Is it relentless negativity or a melancholy rooted in social dynamics? Published in 2007, Shortcomings is an unsentimental look at interracial romance and Bay Area conversations from the late ’90s and aughts that remain underway.
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