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  • From: "Lawrence F. London, Jr." <lflj@intrex.net>
  • To: permaculture <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: [permaculture] Career guide for permies
  • Date: Sat, 31 May 2008 02:16:21 -0400


Johnny Bunko -- optimistic and iconoclastic career guide in manga form -
Boing Boing
<http://www.boingboing.net/2008/05/30/johnny-bunko-optimis.html>
Boing Boing - A directory of wonderful things
Johnny Bunko -- optimistic and iconoclastic career guide in manga form
Posted by Cory Doctorow, May 30, 2008 10:43 PM | permalink
Daniel Pink, author of many well-regarded business books, wrote his first manga business book, Johnny Bunko, after receiving a fellowship to live in Japan and study manga. Bunko is a quick, funny, and extremely, inspiringly sensible book on career-planning that throws out all the traditional bullshit about getting a straight job to fall back on if your creative gig fails on you. Instead, Bunko makes a convincing case for pursuing your dreams, working to your strengths, throwing out the idea of planning, and persevering rather than relying on talent to make it.

I spent a lot of my life ignoring (with some difficulty), the advice of well-meaning people who wanted me to know that I'd never, ever be able to live on what I made from writing. Instead, I took on a series of careers in fields that hadn't even existed when I was a student, each one bringing me closer to my dream of being a full-time scribbler. If I'd listened to the software aptitude test my high-school guidance counsellor gave me, I'd be a "geriatric nutritionist" (cook in a senior's home) today.

Johnny Bunko is a miserable accounting drone who finds a bundle of magic chopsticks. Every time he separates a pair, a genie emerges to help him navigate his way to career freedom. It's a great little device, and the manga artwork -- from the award-winning Rob Ten Pas -- is simple and clean and often very funny.

Bunko is a refreshingly frank and optimistic (but clear-eyed) story about the perils of choosing a safe, lucrative and hateful job that you'll never be able to afford to leave, and the joys of failing in interesting ways, learning from your mistakes, and making more of yourself. I wish someone had given me a copy when I was 16 or so, and forced me to re-read it every year until I was in my mid-twenties.
Link: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1594482918/downandoutint-20






  • [permaculture] Career guide for permies, Lawrence F. London, Jr., 05/31/2008

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