Adrian Tomine

Tue., Nov. 6, 7 p.m., free, Free Library, Central Branch, 1901 Vine St., 215-567-4341, www.library.phila.gov.

by Sam Adams

reading/signing

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Adrian Tomine's Shortcomings opens with a Chinese-American woman comparing her grandfather to the fortune cookies he makes, "a hard protective shell, containing haiku-like wisdom." Has Tomine, with his clean black-and-white panels and flair for awkward silences, suddenly gotten literal-minded on us? Not to worry. Shortcomings' first page turns out to be a pointed fake-out, an excerpt from an Asian-American film festival that telegraphs both Tomine's intention to tackle matters of race and his evident anxiety about doing so without violating his gracefully understated style. With an ear for double-edged dialogue and poignant pauses, Tomine follows Ben Tanaka, a 30-year-old grad school dropout with a host of unexplored issues, from a covert fascination with white women to a generalized self-loathing barely masked by a caustic hostility to the world. He's the kind of protagonist you want at once to console and to strangle, not sure which of the two might do him the most good. Tomine has already proved himself an expert conjurer of mood, but with Shortcomings, he takes a major step forward.

Tue., Nov. 6, 7 p.m., free, Free Library, Central Branch, 1901 Vine St., 215-567-4341, www.library.phila.gov.