Grand Comic Reading Project

[feihong]

Hey everyone, I just uploaded the first volume of Nicoichi, our next reading project.

http://www.divshare.com/download/15422624-84d

I'll make a new topic in the next few days.

[jbradfor]

Ummm, that's the second volume. Do I get a virtual cookie for being the first person to notice that?

[Took a quick look. Ouch, that's a hard font for me to read. Too pretty ]

[feihong]

Whoops. Here you go:

Volume 1: http://www.divshare.com/download/15422517-c03

Volume 2: http://www.divshare.com/download/15422624-84d

[feihong]

I think most of our traditional selections have been of pretty decent quality, but our simplified selections... well, I did the best with what I had. The reality is that we'll never see anything approaching the scan quality of Yamikagishi when it comes to simplified titles. The question, I guess, is what level of quality should we accept when it comes to simplified titles?

Below I'll list four series that I'm on the fence about. Let me know what you think about each in terms of legibility.

Batwoman: Raptors: Tista: Tao Bang:

[jbradfor]

Yamikagishi certainly set a high standard!

Personally, I would go for quality over traditional/simplified. A big part of the appeal of reading comics, to me at least, is that they can be more enjoyable than reading a book. A bad scan takes a lot of the enjoyment away. And, if I'm reading just for practice and not because it's fun, I would stick with non-scanned material (either book with its excellent print quality, or on-line where I can use perapera-kun)

I can say that as I'm trying to learn both, so it doesn't really matter to me. However, in general there seems to be no lack of simplified reading material, a lot more than traditional anyway. So if simplified gets shorted a bit when it comes to comics, well, that's life.

As to your four examples, to me only Tista looks almost acceptable. [And is there writing in Tao Bang? I didn't notice. ]

[feihong]

Yeah, the text is fairly small on all of those. Probably what I'll do is just ask people what they think about legibility before I post another simplified comic. And I might not post a simplified comic every other month anymore, if I can't find anything suitable.

[feihong]

I've uploaded the first two volumes of Blame:

http://www.divshare.com/download/15425895-ad4

http://www.divshare.com/download/15425961-95b

I'll post a new topic when I have the time.

[HedgePig]

Hello feihong

Of those 4 scans, Tao Bang is the most difficult to read for me. The other three seem much of a muchness. I would have said that "Raptors" was the best but then I saw a character which is totally illegible to me. "那有一个？包" in the bottom panels which is totally illegible to me. Personally, I'm not really interested in traditional character comics (well, I would be - but I'll wait until my simplified Chinese is a lot better.) However, I do agree with jbradfor that the quality of scans is important.

Regardless of what you choose, thanks for all the effort you have put in.

[jbradfor]

囊?

[feihong]

@jbradfor

Exactimundo! BTW, 囊包 apparently means cyst.

[Glenn]

Man, everything I'm finding indicates it's the reverse, i.e., 包囊. For instance, http://baike.baidu.c...iew/1030010.htm. Where'd you see it as 囊包?

[jbradfor]

Google images seems to indicate 囊包 means both "cyst" and "bag". When I read it, I assumed bag, but in reading it closer that doesn't make any sense in this context. Oh yeah, and as part of 囊包肉..... Yummmmmmmy........

[Glenn]

Ah. Well... that's kind of interesting.

[feihong]

The first Grand Comic Reading Project was on August 15, 2010, which means I've shepherded this thing for more than a year. It's been a lot of fun -- I improved my reading quite a bit, and, more importantly, read a lot of interesting comics. Unfortunately, I'm starting to shift my media consumption away from comics, and I've also become busy with the 中文挑战 blog. Therefore I'm taking an indefinite break from the Grand Comic Reading Project. I won't be posting any more reading projects in the near future, but other people should feel free to do so. I'll help out if I can, and at the very least I'll still read along with everyone else.

[jbradfor]

Thanks for all your work with this! Even if there aren't a lot of new projects, there are enough here to keep people busy.

[feihong]

And thanks for all your work on the word lists!

[roddy]

I'm not much of a comic-reader, but it's been really cool to watch people post and participate - great work!

[renzhe]

I admit that I was a bit sceptical in the beginning, but I tip my hat! Great project and great initiative!

[Gleaves]

I saw this on danwei. It is a quick recap of Chinese history in comic form. Unfortunately, it is in English.

[Areckx]

That Chinese history through comics looks really good. I can't afford to buy it, but the excerpt was pretty good. On my desk I have a book by Michael Dillon titled CHINA A Modern History (ISBN: 978-1-85043-582-2)