Staff
jro
Oak Park, IL

The best career advice you'll get from a graphic novel

4 star rating

a geek, loving my job, twenty something
Pros

    entertaining, insightful

Cons
    too short

OCT
5
2008
The Adventures of Johnny Bunko: The Last Career Guide You'll Ever Need

It's probably not really fair to call this a graphic novel.  It's a business book done in the Japanese comic form of manga.  After reading this, I've decided that all instructional books, documents, forms, etc should be in the form of a comic.  Most especially, federal tax returns.

Johnny Bunko is your pretty average corporate cube dweller that begins to wonder if he went wrong somewhere in life.  Okay, so he's sort of a loser.  People on the floor above his refer to an abject failure as "Bunko-ing".  Thoughout the story he is forcefully presented with 6 guiding rules that are supposed to help you learn how to manage your career better.  Starting right away, with rule #1 "There is no plan", you begin to see that these are meant to be different from the kind of advice you may have recieved from a guidance counselor or parent.

The book is short at around 70 pages (there aren't page numbers), and an easy read.  The illustration, by Rob Ten Pas, is quite good.  And, most importantly it's entertaining, although I can't say there's really that much of an engaging plot.  But, really, what did you expect?  It is meant as a career guide after all.

I'm probably a couple years older than the indended audience, but I like cartoons so how could I pass up "America's first business book in the Japanese comic format known as manga".  I think the content is quite useful and apt, but also very contrary to what I remember learning and being told when I was in my late teens and early twenties.  I worry that someone in the target demographic that is interested in reading a career guide isn't really going to be looking for something to break the rules of other career guides.  However, I really hope I'm wrong, since the ideals therein are worth contemplating even if you don't necessarily agree with them.

I'm giving this 4 stars mainly because I think there could have been more work done to make this a story and less a humorous, but somewhat thinly veiled career guide.  If you know someone in their twenties either struggling with what they want to do in life or how they want to do it, it's definitely worth a look.  Or, if you know someone that's into bossy fairy/elf career advisors, just go ahead and pick up a copy for them.

Last edited on Oct 05, 2008



I_thumb_up Daniel H. Pink - The Adventures of Johnny Bunko: The Last Career Guide You'll Ever Need is recommended by jro

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