I've loved him since high school, when all I knew of him was his comic in The Best American Non-Required Reading 2002. Yes, 2002. I didn't realize how long ago that was until I typed it out. Anyway, believe it or not, in 2002 the internet basically didn't exist for me. You're all, "The internet totally existed!" and, okay, yeah, TECHNICALLY it did. But in Winfrey-land, all we had was dial-up, and I'm pretty sure I didn't know how to buy books online.
Now that I'm living in the future, I was able to check out Shortcomings from H's public library, because now lots of libraries have large Graphic Novel sections. For some reason, I decided to read Shortcoming at 3 a.m. last night/this morning. I don't understand the things I do, either. It left me in a profoundly Disturbed Emotional State wherein I became convinced that my life was absolutely terrible. To be fair, there are some obvious flaws in my life, but overall things are not going that badly. Try telling this to 3 a.m. me, though. I actually couldn't get back to sleep. Do you know how often I have trouble sleeping? Never! That's how often!
Shortcomings is the story of a ceaselessly negative, depressed, and depressING young-ish man and the outright dickishness he inflicts on all the women in his life. It's also about being Asian. The best character was by far his lesbian Korean best friend (after reading this book, I feel like I'm missing a lesbian Korean best friend). Even though the main character is male, and even though he basically mistreats and uses every female in his life (especially his long-suffering girlfriend...the scenes between them at the beginning made me cringe), this book doesn't seem misogynistic. On paper, it sounds like something I would hate, but I really loved it. Read it! Just not at three in the morning.
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