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Gegen Den Strom - Eine Autobiografie In Bildern (2012)

by Yoshihiro Tatsumi(Favorite Author)

3.98 of 5 Votes: 1

languge

English

genre

Memoir & Autobiography

publisher

Carlsen Comics

review 1: I can not be objective about books of young societies of cartoonists gathering together to ACHIEVE DREAMS, nor about books in which a series of skeevy publishers must be navigated in the face of a booming low-rent fiction/narrative market (c.f. Lost Illusions.) There are clear flaws--Tatsumi's standin character is kind of a driven cipher until toward the end, the vagaries of serial publication lead to some information being repeated and one whole character turning up late in the book whom we're clearly supposed to remember, plus I don't know how effective some of this would be if you don't know who the specific manga ppl T is talking about are. But I DON'T CARE ABOUT THESE FLAWS. This is up there with David B's Epileptic and Eddie Campbell's How to Be an Artist with me as ... more"fucked up comics-themed bildungsromans."(I'm curious, Goodreads readers, if anyone knows of any of these done by women, this specific kind of weirdo long-form bio narrative comic about navigating life, work, Artistic Ambitions, and career stuff? I would be kinda into seeing such a thing.) (EDIT: oh wait, duh, Ariel Schrag's work, Awkward through Likewise, is exactly this. People should read that.)
review 2: This was a very thorough and complete history of manga as well as the memoir of one well known Mangaka. The flow was great, though the story was interrupted at times or seemed as though it skipped around. Also some things were mentioned and then never revisited, like the potential romance with his sisters friend. I think the problem was there was too much story and not enough space to tell it in. Granted it was an 800 page manga, so it wasn't lacking in actual space, but I feel it would have benefitted I being broken up by life chapters. I think it would have helped the author compartmentalize each area so he could remember to tell every bit of the story. For instance have one book called the early years about his youngest manga obsession up till college age. Then the Osaka years, when he just started his manga career and made all this friends and colleages. Then have a Tokyo years and a modern day one. 5 total all would be about 500 pages which is far more digestible at a clip, and there wouldn't be any gaps.I did enjoy this though, I don't want to give the impression that I didn't. The art was great and the expressions and writing was quite good as well. I will definitely be reading more from this Mangaka. less

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