I read ‘Shortcomings’ by Adrian Tomine in completely the wrong order. Tomine is one of the last well-known alternative cartoonists to still publish his work as ‘floppy’ comic books (under the name ‘Optic Nerve’), and I was a bit late tapping in to the Shortcomings storyline. I bought the third part a few years ago, read some of the first part in a compilation and only just got the middle part at Thought Bubble this year. 

It’s really just a simple relationship story that makes some attempts to deal with race and trust issues. What I like so much about Shortcomings is that by the end, both parties have revealed their flaws and their weaknesses- there isn’t a polar victim and ‘bad guy’. Tomine in my opinion is a great storyteller and a master at capturing human expression, even if those expressions are almost exclusively placed on the young and the beautiful.