Grand Comic Reading Project

[ezeng]

Wow, I love this thread. Do you mind if I add some of my favorite manga? ...they're all quite difficult, though, but are all readily available on English manga reading sites.

Magi

Bakuman

AKB49

One-Punch Man

Also, does anyone know why some manga/chapters are not their manga pages, but hastily drawn 4-panel colored comic things (that still happen to follow the plot of the original chapters)? That happened to one of my favorite manga on dm5.com

[Demonic_Duck]

There's an online graphic novel called The Wormworld Saga, which is not only a really nice comic, it has also recently released a Chinese version (there are currently translations for 9 languages).

Anyway, the Chinese version of chapter 1 is here, and for reference, the English version is here.

The Chinese version is now available up to chapter 3. It's reasonably simple, though I still added a good few flashcards going through.

[mouse]

Does anyone know where to get CBZ files for Chinese comics? Or did feihong make them himself?

[feihong]

I made them myself, using a program that I wrote that scraped the pages of comic sites. Unfortunately, that program no longer works because the structure of the target sites has changed, and I don't intend to make any updates in the near future.

[mouse]

Ah ok. Shame that it no longer works, but thanks for letting me know.

 

I might try and add some more comics to the reading project, if anyone else is up for it. Am going through a comic phase at the moment.

[XiaoXi]

Just wondering why there's no interest in reading Marvel/Dark Horse/DC in Chinese?

[mouse]

I seem to remember people on here talking about reading Red Sun in Chinese, so they haven't been entirely ignored. But the lack of focus on translated Western comics is probably just because Japanese translated and indigenous Chinese materials are just more readily available and more part of the culture. 

 

P.S. Anyone else been having trouble with divshare?

[XiaoXi]

Maybe true in the past but not anymore, there are literally TONS of western comics translated into Chinese. Also reading Japanese comics is not really Chinese culture exactly. Japanese comics are very unique, just because Chinese read them a lot doesn't make them Chinese culture - that's just what traditionally has been available. Plus we're all Westerners so why wouldn't we want to read Western comics?

[feihong]

Most of the comics I read come from the West, so why did I select only one Western comic for the Grand Comic Reading Project? There are several problems with Western comics translated into Chinese, which makes them less than ideal reading material.

 

1. The quality of the scans is not very good. It might have something to do with file size. Western comics are usually in color, so the images are larger. Comics sites try to downgrade the image quality to save on bandwidth, and sometimes it gets bad enough that the characters are hard to make out.

 

2. A lot of the translations are for superhero comics. There's nothing wrong with superhero comics, but if you don't know these characters and their backstory, it can be hard to follow what's going on. There are some exceptions for certain well-known characters like Batman and Superman, but even their comics can be loaded with obscure characters (remember when Batgirl was an Asian girl who couldn't talk?).

 

3. English-to-Chinese translations tend to be more awkward. Japanese-to-Chinese translation is such a common thing that they've developed conventions for how to translate the most common sayings in Japanese.

[edelweis]

Well there's nothing preventing you from starting a dedicated thread (or just post here) and sharing links, progress, vocabulary etc. about Western comics.

People who have an interest might join you. People who weren't interested previously might get interested.

But please note that we are not all Westerners and whether we are or not does not mean we will necessarily have an interest in reading Western comics in Chinese.

[grawrt]

 

3. English-to-Chinese translations tend to be more awkward. Japanese-to-Chinese translation is such a common thing that they've developed conventions for how to translate the most common sayings in Japanese.

 

I had the same idea too. A few months ago I picked up the walking dead translated to chinese, I felt like they were lacking that spark that the original had. Nothing wrong with the translations really but just yknow.. kind of blah. I feel like japanese-chinese translations manage to keep the spark.

[XiaoXi]

Most of the comics I read come from the West, so why did I select only one Western comic for the Grand Comic Reading Project? There are several problems with Western comics translated into Chinese, which makes them less than ideal reading material.

 

1. The quality of the scans is not very good. It might have something to do with file size. Western comics are usually in color, so the images are larger. Comics sites try to downgrade the image quality to save on bandwidth, and sometimes it gets bad enough that the characters are hard to make out.

 

Yeah but that's true of anything Chinese whatsoever. Whether you watch videos on youku or read comics, the process of it coming into China/Chinese seems to downgrade it greatly. But many are readable. Many were clearly actually available to buy in Chinese so the quality is good, rather than the others which are clearly someone typing over the original in photoshop. I didn't find the quality to be any worse than any of the other language comics though. They're all a few hundred K per page scan.

 

2. A lot of the translations are for superhero comics. There's nothing wrong with superhero comics, but if you don't know these characters and their backstory, it can be hard to follow what's going on. There are some exceptions for certain well-known characters like Batman and Superman, but even their comics can be loaded with obscure characters (remember when Batgirl was an Asian girl who couldn't talk?).

 

 

So you're _more_ familiar with the background of the characters in Chinese and Japanese comics??

 

3. English-to-Chinese translations tend to be more awkward. Japanese-to-Chinese translation is such a common thing that they've developed conventions for how to translate the most common sayings in Japanese.

 

Unless you read the originals you can't really tell with either. Its not like watching a tv show in English and cringing at the badly translated Chinese subtitles since in a comic there's only one language.

[XiaoXi]

I had the same idea too. A few months ago I picked up the walking dead translated to chinese, I felt like they were lacking that spark that the original had. Nothing wrong with the translations really but just yknow.. kind of blah. I feel like japanese-chinese translations manage to keep the spark.

 

Well again did you read the originals in Japanese to compare? Most of the Western comics I read in Chinese are ones I've never read in English anyway. Otherwise you're always gonna compare. People by nature don't really like change. Its highly possible that if I read the Chinese language version of a Western comic and then after read the original English I might think it had lost something. Although obviously reading in your native language speaks straight to your heart so there's always that factor too.

[edelweis]

I feel quite inspired to read Marvel comics in Chinese now. Especially as I know where to find them. This discussion has totally convinced me

[mouse]

 

 

Also reading Japanese comics is not really Chinese culture exactly. Japanese comics are very unique, just because Chinese read them a lot doesn't make them Chinese culture - that's just what traditionally has been available.

 

I said they are a part of Chinese culture (just like Hollywood films and Korean soaps) simply because lots of Chinese people read them or are at least aware of them. When I was in China I saw far more One Piece or Doraemon — on t-shirts, on weixin, on keyrings, on mobile phone covers, on website ads etc — than I did Batman or Superman. That doesn't mean the latter are irrelevant or whatever, it just means that young people especially seem more likely to read translated Japanese manga than translated Western comics. 

 

But it's not like you have to choose one or the other. And anyway, if we had to make a choice then we wouldn't choose either, instead we'd look for material that was originally written in Chinese, as the authors don't have to make decisions about whether or not to sacrifice natural-sounding writing to communicate the feel of a text written in another language. I'd argue it would be a good idea to try and seek out this kind of material, but there's no need to exclusively read comics from any region.

 

As has been said, it'd probably be best if you recommended a specific comic rather than something so broad as Western comics in general.

[grawrt]

If anyone can find CHEW translated into chinese I'll love you for life it's like one of my fave comics.. I'd love to see how it translates with all the special names ^__^

[XiaoXi]

I said they are a part of Chinese culture (just like Hollywood films and Korean soaps) simply because lots of Chinese people read them or are at least aware of them. When I was in China I saw far more One Piece or Doraemon — on t-shirts, on weixin, on keyrings, on mobile phone covers, on website ads etc — than I did Batman or Superman. That doesn't mean the latter are irrelevant or whatever, it just means that young people especially seem more likely to read translated Japanese manga than translated Western comics. 

 

Yes but I assumed that you weren't Chinese. Surely you saw more Western comics growing up than you did Japanese? Maybe you just have a bad case of yellow fever. 

 

But it's not like you have to choose one or the other. And anyway, if we had to make a choice then we wouldn't choose either, instead we'd look for material that was originally written in Chinese, as the authors don't have to make decisions about whether or not to sacrifice natural-sounding writing to communicate the feel of a text written in another language. I'd argue it would be a good idea to try and seek out this kind of material, but there's no need to exclusively read comics from any region.

 

There's certainly been enough westerners watching Hong Kong movies with absolutely awful English subtitles writing by Chinese people. At least the translated comics are written by Chinese. Maybe something was lost in translation but its really not that bad and you don't know what is lost in any case. Khatzumoto (ajatt) watches western shows and movies dubbed in Japanese rather than watching Japanese tv because that's what Japanese do. He's not trying to be someone he's not, he's just doing whatever is most fun in the language he wants to learn.

Maybe watching Breaking Bad dubbed in Chinese is perhaps not ideal but its probably better than watching the awful dramas they spew out at an incredible rate in China. My point is, just read whatever you want to read. It doesn't matter what Chinese read or watch the most.

[mouse]

Anyone else having problems downloading the divshare files?

[mouse]

Divshare seems to be dead.

 

I've been using the app 漫画人 to read comics on my phone recently. It's certainly not perfect, but it's been good for my needs so far.

[Mixia]

Hi guys,

I recently finished reading 晨曦公主. I started reading in when I came to China about 3 month back knowing about 1300 Characters. As far as I know there is only a traditional version available(had it shipped via taobao). I had read it in English before which made it easier.

I found it really good for my level! Sure there were a lot of Words and Characters that I didn't know, but the language is not too hard!

(I also read 2 柯南 manga, which I think are thanks to a lot of 'specialized' words a lot harder).

By now there are 16 Manga in this series available and it definitely helped improving my reading speed and concentration

The story starts of as a semi typical Shojo-Series. The main Character 忧娜, who is the princess of the kingdomis deeply in love with her Cousin 蘇芳, that her father (the king) is very opposed of her marrying. Her bodyguard 哈克 is secretely in love withe her, but accepts (even supports in a way) her wanting to be with蘇芳.

So far so known. That is until

蘇芳 murders her father with 优娜 mistakenly witnessing it and then also tries to get her killed. 哈克 saves her and they have to flee the castle

They meet a lot of people on the way, which results in a funny and big party. The group dynamic is amazing. I recommend to try it even if you might not be the target group.