Moto Hagio's a Drunken Dream and Other Stories

Book excerpt: Fantagraphics Books is proud to launch its manga line with MotoHagio's collection of short comics, A Drunken Dream and Other Stories.Hagio is one of Japan's most influential and critically lauded comicsinnovators; she has been reinventing shojo manga (Japanese comics marketed at10-18 year-old girls) since 1969. Unconstrained by boundaries of genre, she hassculpted a career characterized by intellectual curiosity, psychologicalauthenticity, and an esthetic sense that has elevated the shojo genre into theliterary. In "Autumn Journey" (1971), a boy's pilgrimage tothe home of his favorite author has more meaning than either the author or hisdaughter can imagine. In "Marie, Ten Years Later" (1977), twoestranged friends learn too late how their actions had destroyed the balance ofa perfect triad of intimacy. In "A Drunken Dream" (1980), twoscientists--one a hermaphrodite, the other a tribal priest--meet on aspace station orbiting Io; but they have met before and are destined to meetagain. In "Iguana Girl" (1991), a girl who appears to her mother andherself to be a hideous anthropoid iguana struggles to overcome hermother's rejection and find happiness ... but her mother has a secret.Learn for yourself why the creator of They Were Eleven! (adapted into an animereleased on DVD in 2005) continues to garner international critical praise andappeals to readers across ages and generations.