Grand Comic Reading Project

[bmataign]

Hi,

I just discover the Grand Comic Reading Project. It's great. Thanks a lot.

Being a begginer, I particularly appreciated the Wiki database with reading level infos. I also try to learn with children books in simplified caracters.

Would you have any suggestion about children books? That I could buy (or read) on line?

Thanks for your help, and again, thanks for this great project.

Bernard

[feihong]

Giving it two weeks makes sense to me. It really isn't a very long read, since there's usually only one sentence per page.

I had a pretty hard time finding good-quality scans of this 幾米 story, so I don't assume that it would be easy to get other ones.

[feihong]

@bmataign

Here is a collection of children's picture books:

http://www.kanunu.org/files/huiben/

I haven't read any so I don't know if they're any good.

[skylee]

I had a pretty hard time finding good-quality scans of this 幾米 story, so I don't assume that it would be easy to get other ones.

Re 向左走向右走, here is a good quality version -> http://images.anime....t/14/13741.html

The problem with this version is that many of the pictures are quite big so you have to scroll to view them and it is easy to miss the words at the bottom, especially those on the lower right side.

Are you going to have a separate thread of this comic if you are going to do it?

[feihong]

Thanks, skylee! I've updated the profile accordingly.

Yeah, the large size of the images on xunlei.com are kind of annoying. But it's still better than nothing.

I would recommend that people who are comfortable with traditional characters download the CBZ file for offline reading. Zooming in and out in ComicRack and other comic readers is pretty easy.

I will have a separate thread for 向左走向右走, but I don't plan on creating that thread until October 15, since we're still in the middle of Yotsuba month. Unless people are really eager to start now.

[renzhe]

On Linux, you can use QComicBook for reading CBZ files and it works great.

I've finished the first two volumes of Yotsuba. You you have a link for more?

[bmataign]

@feihong

Thank you very much. It's what I was looking for.

Bernard

[renzhe]

I don't know how well this fits, but I've found the Ranma 1/2 anime in Chinese online. There's both -- a Chinese language version, and a Japanese version with Chinese subtitles, which is probably preferable for purists*. The anime follows the manga quite closely, with some minor differences. IMHO, the characterisation is better in the manga (as is usually the case), and the anime is far more childish, but it is still lots of fun.

Since I've read all of Ranma, I won't be reading it again. But I was thinking that I can watch the anime instead. Perhaps we can make a First Episode sister edition in parallel? Or should we post the links in the comic thread as an alternative. At the same time, I don't want to keep people away from reading by offering cartoons instead

* for example, the Chinese version censored some parts, like the famous bathroom scene ;)

EDIT: OK, the Japanese version is considerably better, and the manga is far superior to both of them.

[feihong]

I'm totally OK with a First Episode sister edition for Ranma. I probably won't watch the anime again, though, since I've already seen the Japanese version (subtitled in English), and I am one of those so-called purists ;-)

I agree that the manga is superior, but that is very often the case.

[renzhe]

I think I'll scratch that idea. The Chinese dub is quite terrible, and a Japanese-voiced anime with Chinese subtitles makes no sense in that context. I can link them for people who are curious though, it's always funny to see the characters come to life.

[feihong]

Another suggestion (traditional characters):

Wiki Profile Page: http://grandcomic.wi...ki/Animal_Sense

Although totally obscure, this three-volume manga has great art and a fairly simple story.

Chinese Title: A.S.野性第六感

Japanese Title: アニマル・センス (Animaru Sensu)

Character Set: Traditional

Country of Origin: Japan

Year of First Publication: ?

Genre: Sci-Fi Animal Adventure

Series Info: (This series is so obscure that I can't even find a Japanese Wikipedia article for it!)

Read Online:

http://www.dm5.com/Type.aspx?id=2952

Jump to first page: http://www.dm5.com/C...e2b4_page-3.htm

Buy Online: ?

Difficulty: Medium. Unsurprisingly, there are many animal words.

Legibility: Very good.

Summary: A high school girl suddenly discovers her latent ability to communicate with animals.

Page Counts:

Volume 1: 183

Volume 2: ?

Volume 3: ?

[feihong]

Today, I implemented a new feature on the word list pages for the Grand Comic Reading Project. There is now a button at the top of the page that reads "Show Word List in Plain Text". Clicking it will open up a text area containing the entire word list in tab-delimited format. You can copy and paste this text into a text file on your computer and then directly import the words into Anki or ZDT.

You can see this feature on the Yotsuba Word List:

http://grandcomic.wikia.com/wiki/Yotsuba_Word_List

[feihong]

I've recently discovered some mainland webcomics that I felt were pretty interesting. I went ahead and made profiles for them on the wiki:

走错的房间　(Simplified)

Love Sketchbook (Traditional)

Both are pretty easy, IMO. Love Sketchbook in particular really doesn't have much dialogue at all, it's mostly just pretty pictures.

[feihong]

Oops, forgot to make a post to kickoff Ranma on Nov 1. I'll do that later tonight. Sorry, guys.

[jbradfor]

ARGH! You gave me only 2 weeks to read "Turn Left, Turn Right" I thought I had a full month.

[renzhe]

I've been reading through Ranma recently (easy bedtime reading, but it adds up after a while) and noting my favourite storylines. I can give a short list (with descriptions) once the thread is up.

I'll read 向左走向右走 one of these days too, I haven't forgotten it.

[feihong]

I'm not in a particular rush to start Ranma, but I'm going to stick to the schedule for now. Maybe in the future we just set the default period at one month, regardless of length? In retrospect, maybe two weeks was a bit short for "Turn Left, Turn Right". Although I finished it in a single evening I can imagine other people taking much longer than that. Even the comics that I consider "easy" probably require a vocabulary of at least 1500 characters.

If anybody feels that they aren't reading enough Chinese comics, then head over to the Comic Profile category page on the wiki and look for one that you like. I usually make a profile page for every interesting comic that I read, regardless of whether I intend to include it in the Grand Comic Reading Project. If there is interest, I'm willing to post CBZ files for any title that I've made a profile page for. Just ask.

[feihong]

We haven't yet had much in the way of Action Comics. Here are two pretty worthy ones:

The Mercenary (simplified)

Dragons, dames, fighting. Every panel in this pulp masterpiece is a lush oil painting.

Yamikagishi (traditional)

Demons, bare legs, exorcism. Amazing linework brings the architecture and costumes of feudal Edo to life.

[nowhere]

Wow, I never knew that there are other people who also consider reading comics to be an effective way of learning Chinese for a beginner or an intermediate . After reading through this thread, I'm kind of surprised that no one has ever nominated The Ravages of Time a.k.a 火凤燎原 by Hong Kong artist Chen Mou, a great comic for anyone who is interested in the Three Kingdoms Era.

This comic is based very loosely on the Romance of the Three Kingdoms and the Records of the Three Kingdoms with the major historical events such as Cao Cao's army losing at Xuzhou, the Battle of Xiapi,... being kept intact, but the author fills the gaps between real historical points in time with lots of fictional details to render the comic a very interesting version of the Three Kingdoms which is very different than the novel. The artwork of this comic is done very skilfully, esp. after book 4, and quite realistic compared to many Japanese manga or other Chinese comics. As there are a lot of characters, it's unavoidable that some of them look similar to each other but this can be overlooked because after all the strong points of this comic are epic battles, surprising strategies and tactics, a complex plot, interesting interpretations of famous historical characters of the Three Kingdoms Era. Due to not having time at the moment I can only write a short introduction and will come back to create a wiki entry for this project later.

Name: The Ravages of Time a.k.a 火凤燎原 (ongoing)

• Author and Artist: Chen Mou 陈某
  
• Genre: Historical, Action, Dramatic.
  
• Language: Traditional Chinese, English
  
• Requirements: Intermediate-level reading skill, some knowledge of the Three Kingdoms Era and basic Chinese moral concepts such as loyalty, righteousness, humanity.
  
• Read online:
  
• - Chinese version: http://www.manmankan.com/html/52/index.asp
  
• - English translation: http://www.mangafox.com/manga/the_ravages_of_time/ (for comparison purposes)
  
• (You can download all the current 40 volumes to your computer as well, the quality of the volume version is better than those of the online versions, but I'm not going to post the links for downloading here as it is a breach of copyright, you can simply do a search with Google if you want to download the volumes.)
  

[feihong]

@nowhere:

Yes, I've also noticed this excellent comic, but I haven't nominated it mostly because I haven't read any of it yet ;-) However, as you've probably noticed, there don't seem to be any decent scans of it hosted online (at least not the earlier volumes). This is not a dealbreaker, but it is something to consider when we choose titles.

UPDATE: Of course, as soon as I google "火凤燎原 单行本", the third result is for a site that has high-quality scans: http://www.cococomic.com/comic/5745/