What I Draw About When I Draw About Drawing!

The moment has finally come to reveal what we've been up to this past week. We decided to pick up Akiko Higashimura's autobiographical manga Kakukaku Shikajika, and the first two chapters are now finished. It tells the true story of how Higashimura, whose real name is Akiko Hayashi, started going to this art class during her third year of high school led by a very intimidating teacher named Kenzou Hidaka. This manga's great if you're a fan of Kuragehime or the author's other works and want to find out about her past, or if you're just looking for a good read about art.

Also, in the opening pages of chapter 1, Higashimura alludes to a short manga she drew when she was 11 called Crazy Detective Story (Tantei Puttsun Monogatari), which you can view yourself here. The text at the top of that page reads:

This is a collaborative work drawn by six friends. We collaborated by me assigning what everyone would be in charge of for the other stuff, telling them, "You draw this," "You draw that," and "Color this." I drew the girl in the pink dress in the center. Even when rereading it now, it somehow or other has an ending at least, but the development is surprisingly abrupt (haha). There's an apartment building drawn on the cover page, but it doesn't appear in the story at all (haha). It's a mystery why I drew it!

Also, a small update regarding Usolily v13, we unfortunately won't be restarting it until the end of this year, or possibly early January due to an issue that came up with shipping.

And in an unrelated note, as of earlier this week, we finally crossed over 2 million hits to this blog! Thanks to everyone who comes here and reads our releases!

Kakukaku Shikajika ch. 1: Mediafire, Dropbox
Kakukaku Shikajika ch. 2: Mediafire, Dropbox