Seattle - October 02, 2007

Get Shorty

“Shortcomings,” by Adrian Tomine

It’s the classic story: Boy meets girl. Boy falls in love with girl. Boy moves in with girl. Boy and girl start hating each other’s guts and hurling graphic insults.

McSweeney’s contributor Adrian Tomine explores the familiar in Shortcomings, his first full-length graphic novel about Ben and Miko, whose vitriol will have you pining for their split.

Fighting about everything from movies to Ben’s porn habit, the couple dances around the real issue — they’re growing apart. Finally Miko moves cross-country, leaving Ben alone (with his anger, a horny lesbian sidekick, an exhibitionist coworker, and a bisexual blonde) to ponder the eternal question: When you’re on a break, is it still cheating?

Shortcomings pushes the envelope with nudity and dialogue that would make Charlie Brown blush. But it puts an expressive twist on a pattern you know well (even if your relationships don’t involve naked performance art).

A traditional boy-girl story? Maybe not.

But it’s totally classic.

Available online at amazon.com or at your local bookstore.