Recently I managed to read Adrien Tomine’s Shortcomings, taking advantage of the paperback edition release. Due to my reluctance to read graphic novels in the general term, I had to admit that I had just put it off to set my hand on it until this time, although I had already found a several major elements enough to be drawn to. Tomine is apparently an AA author,—Asian American, not Alcohol Anonymous, according to the glossary here—4th generation Japanese American. In this graphic novel Shortcomings, he tackled for the first time the exact issue of AA’s political predicament, and the almost institutionalized problems they face in regards of the imposed subordination when in mating outside of their race, regardless of their sex. What’s more, this is the very first work of a major graphic novel to portray and examine the issues that are very common in AA communities but never publicly got problematized outside of the domain, let alone in the main stream discourse. Only this explains how little any issue gets attention unless it touches upon the white peple’s rights. This AA politics has always been hushed up and even rediculed, due to the fact that the Asian’s subordination is just a fact of life that the main stream hardly take notice of, and having thos self imposed maids, sexworkers and coolies never ticks the white society off. 

So I found the story Shortcomings very fulfilling for its ambition to get down to somewhat daunting subject matter as this; an AA couple’s—both Japanese American—trial and error in mating inside and outside of their own race in West Coast and in NY. In a way, this subject matter, Asian American’s coming in handy in the White centralized psyche but never getting to establish level relationships with the White partners, is becoming more urgent and crucial topic not only to examine AA’s challenged pursuit of what they deserve to have but also to disclose the imbalanced sexual politics perpetuated against anybody who is not ‘officially white’ in the US context; AAs are conditionally accepted only if they serve the narcissism of their white peers. If you refuse to play the role, you would be back  invisible to the white consciousness.

Depicting all of this as he was employing the very realism,  Tomine elevated this otherwise averted theme by the main stream media, which is always based on the white perspective,  into the very relishing read by his very tasteful and unique style. His artwork, though occasionally cracked me up for its deadpan and close to home humor, on the way to the very end actually surprised me by the painful raelism, the utmost sophistication and  the enduring silence that reached the universal recognition; the solitude of being.

It was not an coincidence that I read another awesome graphic novel done by the hands of two amazing female AA artists; Skim by Mariko and Jillien Tamaki.

When it was initially released last year, I could not go on after a few pages simply because the very stylized use of the traditional Noh mask like image that represented the protagonist Skim unsettled me. Although it was the exact adversary effect that got me to pick a copy up as soon as it was put out, I withdrew quickly for the same reason; this made me feel uncomfortable as if I was objectified and reduced into the very lazy vocabulary of what Asia had been stereotyped to the Western psyche. I guess it was unbearable to see the enough reduced image that had been used against AAs to re-emerge again in the context that I had to validate and embrace to be the Asian female face employed by AA political conscious female artists. Before I got any clue to understand their strategy to do so, I felt too mortified to go on and never picked it up until this time.

Thanks to Tomine’s Shortcomings, I mustered my courage up and re-opened the copy. OK, this time, I easily went passed the point of the initial problem that I had and reached the level of understanding. Apparently, the noh mask image was the risk ever taken to represent AA in the Western context, especially to represent the life of an AA teenager Skim in 90’s, and let’s not forget that this book was Canadian made; the Tamakis are Canadian hapa cousins. They, especially Jillian’s Art astutely reinvented this Noh image into a weapon to front and confront the notion of facelessness AA, or AC—Asian Canadian, their case—have to perpetuallly combat with. Her elaborate and brave strokes in each and every image in this book was so gutsy and original that I felt in the end liberated by the audacity of the two artists.