XPost: rec.arts.anime.misc   
   From: bliss-sf4ever@dslextreme.com   
      
   6/28/2009      "A Drifting Life" by Yoshihiro Tatsumi is   
   a lightly fictionalized memoir in manga format running   
   to 856 pages,8 3/4" x 6 1/2" and 2 inches thick,on good   
   paper with paper covers.   
      
   	This maybe a repost but I have been unable to find   
   the posted version of this and recently the question   
   was raised by a request for information regarding   
   the fictional "Bakuman".  This is one of the manga-ka   
   stories that I mentioned there.  I wish this could   
   be an anime.   
      
        "A Drifting Life" starts about 1948 with the   
   young protagonist obsessed with creating manga and in   
   the midst of his troubled family before chronicling   
   the narrators journey into the world of manga meeting along   
   the way all the great mangaka of the period, and ending with   
   the Seventh Anniversary Memorial of the death of Tezuka Osamu   
   and the pseudonymous author's musing over a cup of coffee.   
      
        Despite the length it was easily a one day,   
   one setting read.  Watch him as a child meet Tezuka as   
   a University student and see how he helped support his   
   family by "Postcard" manga contests.  Read about the   
   proto-otaku of the time.  His initial success and   
   exploitation by the publishers of the time.   
      
        His drive to create a manga beyond manga which   
   he call "gekiga" or drama manga to distinguish it from   
   the children's manga and the 4 panel manga strips which   
   were the main forms.   
      
        Nearly 50 years of manga and mangaka history   
   in manga.  And if it is not precisely gekiga it will   
   do as well.   
      
        This is published by Drawn & Quarterly and I   
   found this copy at the local Borders for $29.95 when   
   I happened to have a 30% discount coupon and some   
   spare change courtesy of a friend.   
      
   	It is still available, at least at the local   
   Kinokuniya book store in Nihon Machi's manga shop here   
   in San Francisco.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)