Grand Comic Reading Project

[feihong]

Grand Comic Reading Project

• What is it? Basically, we read several chapters of a chosen comic, then discuss it.
• Why? Comics are an ideal medium for learners who want reading practice but do not yet have the ability to easily consume prose works. Plus, sequential art is just plain fun.
• How? We provide links to online comics portals, so you can view the comics in your browser. We will also provide downloads so you can view the comic offline.
• Hard? Probably. Chinese comics found online are not written for learners, and many are not even written for children. However you will find that reading a comic is much, much easier than reading a typical novel.
• When? Whenever someone feels like proposing a reading project.
• Where? Check out the schedule below. It contains links to the comics as well as our discussions.
• Simplified or Traditional? We'll probably have more comics printed in simplified, but there will be some in traditional as well.
• What now? Choose a comic that interests you, or perhaps just the most current one, and read it. Tell us what you thought, and post questions if you have them.
• How do I help? Get involved. You can make vocab lists, discuss plot details, suggest comics we should include, write reading comprehension questions, etc.
• Why does this comic make no sense even though I know all the words? You might be reading the panels in the wrong order. In Japanese-style comics, panels are read from right to left.

Schedule

August 15th, 2010 (Simplified): 哆啦A梦彩色作品集 (Doraemon Color Collection). Doraemon is an ear-less robot cat from the future with a kangaroo pouch full of wonderful gadgets. For some reason, he lives with Nobita, a cowardly, idiotic schoolboy. Hilarity ensues. Profile. Discussion.

Read online. Jump to first page. Buy online.

September 15th, 2010 (Traditional): 四叶妹妹 (Yotsuba&!). Yotsuba (四叶) is a rambunctious five-year-old who lives with her father. Together they explore their new neighborhood and frequently bumble their way into awkward situations. Profile. Discussion.

Read online. Jump to first page. Read offline (CBZ file). Buy online.

October 15th, 2010 (Simplified/Traditional): Turn Left, Turn Right (向左走向右走). A tale of two star-crossed lovers in the big city. Profile. Discussion.

Read online. Jump to first page. Buy online.

November 1st, 2010 (Simplified/Traditional): Ranma ½ (乱马１／２). Martial arts hijinks and instantaneous sex changes go hand-in-hand in this classic, long-running manga series. Profile. Discussion.

Simplified: Read online. Jump to first page. Buy online.

Traditional: Read online. Jump to first page. Buy online.

December 1st, 2010 (Simplified): Kabu no Isaki (井崎的飞机). Young Isaki borrows his neighbor's plane to go on aerial adventures, in exchange for running errands. Profile. Discussion.

Read online. Jump to first page.

January 1st, 2011 (Traditional): Animal Sense (A.S.野性第六感). A high school girl suddenly discovers her latent ability to communicate with animals. Adventure ensues. Profile. Discussion.

Read online. Jump to first page. Buy online.

January 5th, 2011 (Traditional): The Ravages of Time (火凤燎原). A retelling of The Romance of the Three Kingdoms mixed with some historical information taken from the Records of the Three Kingdoms. Profile. Discussion.

Read online. Jump to first page.

February 1st, 2011 (Simplified): Zou Cuo de Fangjian (走错的房间). Yanyun returns to his hometown after years of studying abroad, and finds his fiance in the arms of another man. However, a chance encounter with a former classmate radically alters his life. Profile. Discussion.

Read online. Jump to first page.

February 20th, 2011 (Simplified): 我們小時候都是笨蛋. A series of humorous scenes from a typical childhood. Discussion.

April 2nd, 2011 (Simplified): The Mercenary (雇佣兵). The Mercenary always gets the job done, whether it be piloting dragons, fighting monsters, or saving damsels. Profile. Discussion.

Read online. Jump to first page.

May 3rd, 2011 (Traditional): Love Sketchbook (爱，速写). A young woman reconnects with an old friend, in the most elegant and minimalist way possible. Profile. Discussion.

Read online.

June 3, 2011 (Simplified): Town of Evening Calm, Country of Cherry Blossoms (风逝的城市-樱花的国度). The story of a family deeply affected by the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. Profile. Discussion. Read online.

July 6, 2011 (Traditional): Yamikagishi (暗键师). Edo's most famous locksmith is handsome and dashing. But little do the townspeople know, his real occupation is to seal demons that break into the mortal realm. Profile. Discussion. Read online.

August 3, 2011 (Simplified): Nicoichi (变装俏老爸). Makoto Suda is a 29-year-old single father, office worker, and cross-dresser. Does this complicate his romantic life? You betcha! Discussion. Read online.

September 2, 2011 (Traditional): BLAME! A lone man travels through a pitiless, surreal horrorscape while fighting off cyborgs, mutants, and giant biomechanical monsters. Discussion. Read online.

July 11, 2019 (Simplified): 宇宙商店. Visually arresting science fiction short story anthology. Every chapter is a stand-alone story. Discussion. Read online. Jump to first page.

[c_redman]

I'm definitely interested, but how much is available besides Japanese titles translated into traditional? I don't mind reading Japanese titles, but I'm not yet ready to start studying traditional.

[jbradfor]

I'd be very interested. I am planning on starting to read more soon, so I'd like to be involved in this.

Regarding the tradiational vs simplified, two thoughts. First, I'm not sure two per month is a good idea. Picking one per month, and having lots of participation for it, already seems to be a good goal. Rather, I would suggest alternating simplified/traditional each month. Second, once one is at the level that one starts reading native material, in my personal opinion one should also learn to read both simplified and traditional anyway. So I would suggest not getting too hung up on the simplified vs traditional.

[Gleaves]

很好的主意. Count me in. I have a pretty full reading plate at the moment, but I've been meaning to get back to reading some comics/manga/漫画. A separate sub-forum would be nice, but I leave that to the moderators to weigh in on.

I think there is enough simplified stuff out there to make this work. I've seen a fair amount on verycd.

I would also suggest alternating simp and trad as opposed to having two comics a month. At least initially, I think focusing on one title makes sense.

[Hofmann]

Good idea, but I also would recommend having one per month. Also, no H-stuff, please.

[feihong]

OK, it seems like people prefer one title per month, alternating between simplified and traditional. I have no problem with this, and in fact I think the arguments for it are really good.

Regarding how much material is available in simplified, I'd say that there's quite a bit of it, but not very much Japanese stuff. Typical simplified stuff would be translations of American comics, like Justice League, Avengers, X-Men, Mouse Guard, Y: The Last Man, Walking Dead, etc. I've also noticed a few European comics like A Communist Jew in Prague, Indian Summer, Necrowar, etc. So if you don't like any of that then you won't like reading comics printed with simplified characters. I know that there are comics created by mainland artists but not many of them are good.

I don't think hentai or other very niche genres should be considered. I don't mean that all comics with adult content should be rejected, I just mean that if we want high participation we should select titles that have more mass appeal.

[renzhe]

Sure, good idea. I like comics for pretty much the same reasons you cited, and found them useful to get reading practice before I was ready to tackle real books.

As far as setting something regular up, the best way to approach it is to suggest something that's easily accessible, and start a thread in the Book/Story of the month subforum. Looks like there are enough interested people. If it becomes a regular thing, maybe roddy will rename the subforum to include comics. I don't think that a forum dedicated only to comics is justified right now, but it might be if there is enough activity. The best way to do this is to be active.

I haven't read too many comics in Chinese, these are my experiences:

Doraemon / 机器猫 / 哆啦A梦 : good for beginners, very short stories, cute

Ranma 1/2 / 乱马 1／2 : for intermediate learners, longer, with kung fu and love stories, aimed at teenagers. Really funny

Urusei Yatsura / 福星小子 : for intermediate learners. I didn't like the first few books of this. It gets much better in later books

[roddy]

I'll do what I can to help out with this - if you want a sub-forum you can have one. There's also the option of running it as a blog on here now.

[Meng Lelan]

Ranma 1/2 / 乱马 1／2 : for intermediate learners, longer, with kung fu and love stories, aimed at teenagers. Really funny

Oh, I didn't know about that...I'd be interested in (of course) the kung fu themes. Both trad and simp are fine with me, love 'em both.

[renzhe]

Lelan, I know you're a kung fu practitioner, so don't expect anything realistic, or having to do with actual wushu techniques. The comic is full of obscure and silly martial art "styles", and the titular character changes into a girl when he gets wet ;)

That said, it's hilarious. You can have a read here (be careful, it's read Japanese-comic style, right to left, right page first). I finished all 7000+ pages of it. More info on wikipedia.

[Hofmann]

I recommend Azumanga Daioh (笑園漫畫大王, 校園漫畫大王, 阿滋漫畫大王) for beginners. It has short and shallow dialogues spread over many frames, kind of like 老夫子, with no real story, so you don't have to start at the beginning to "get it." One an read it online here.

[roddy]

By way of a quick note - I would suggest not doing this as 'of the Month', as people who come along later will be put off by the idea of doing the old ones which are already 'finished' - just refer to it as the Grand Comic Reading Project or something, and it makes it more likely that people will dip in and out.

I think we've seen this with the TV watching project, as opposed to the Book / Story of the Month.

[Gleaves]

To Roddy's point, I do like how the First Episodes are simply numbered. It made it easy to jump in after the fact. The beginning episodes feel just as relevant (or even more so) as more recent ones.

[c_redman]

Reading that first page of Doaemon reminded me of why I don't read comics more often. The writing style is often *much* more colloquial than what I would find anywhere else. That's not a bad thing, and I've heard lots of anecdotes of people learning Japanese through manga. But it's something to be aware of, especially when comics are billed as "for beginners" -- from the Doraemon pages I read, the characters were all well-known, but I still had to work to comprehend the page.

This subforum could actually be a good resource, though, in the same way that the numerous "learning Japanese through manga" series are useful, by pointing out specific vocabulary and grammar.

I agree with Roddy's point, as the Grand Episode format works exceptionally well. I don't have much luck with the Book of the Month topics, as it takes me more than a month to finish a story :rolleyes:

[jbradfor]

Now that the first Comic is out, any thoughts on generating a vocab list, similar to what is done for the First Episode project? I figured out 杰克 on my own, but I haven't gotten far enough on it to know if this is necessary for comics.

[edelweis]

I "read" only the first story of that color doraemon book (I didn't look up anything, so basically 1/2 was guesswork) and got stuck mainly on the bird names and onomatopoeia...

Perhaps we could have one list for things that are common to lots of comics (onomatopoeia) and other lists for story-specific words (bird names here).

[feihong]

After reading through swaths of the Grand First Episode Project, I've decided to throw away the Comic of the Month plan. I think I will just start another thread called "The Grand Comic Reading Project" and let people suggest titles there.

There are still some questions about the format. I think a twice-a-week schedule is too rushed. And reading only one chapter of a comic often doesn't give you a good idea of what a series is like (anyway chapter lengths vary widely among series). I'll just play it by ear and see how people respond.

[roddy]

Don't start a new topic, I'll edit the title of this one, and you can edit the first post yourself if you want.

[GreenArrow45]

A comic I started reading a while ago, put down due to time constraint issues, and have recently picked back up is "rabbit doubt" or 谎言. It is in traditional, but I have found it to be pretty simple to read and entertaining. I would say I'm somewhere in the HSK 5 range to give you an idea of my level (I haven't taken it yet). So I'm guessing you'd consider the series beginner-intermediate?

[feihong]

@GreenArrow45

I assume the manga you are referring to is 疑惧, by 海外良基?

http://www.dm5.com/Type.aspx?id=6038