Grand Comic Reading Project

[feihong]

@Gleaves

I've read all of Gotham Central in English and I think it's an excellent series. It is violent, but not extravagantly so. I mean, it's essentially a police procedural set in Gotham City, so it's no more violent than your typical episode of Law and Order.

[Gleaves]

@feihong- Thanks for the comic portal write-up. I usually just google for online scans and end up on some horribly ad-infested site.

I think Great Teacher Onizuka looks interesting. I like a good unorthodox-teacher-that-makes-a-difference story. I've seen Nodame Cantabile mentioned enough times to think it would probably be a good choice.

Random question - Is there a Chinese equivalent for tankōbon or trade paperback?

[feihong]

I've only seen the anime version of Nodame Cantabile, which I didn't care for. But the live action drama is one of my favorites. Curious to see how the manga compares.

@Gleaves

Tankoubon is just 単行本 in Japanese, and according to Chinese Wikipedia, it's the same in Chinese: http://zh.wikipedia.org/zh/%E5%8D%95%E8%A1%8C%E6%9C%AC

[deathtrap]

I've only watched the Great Teacher Onizuka anime, I haven't read the manga. I think it's one of the best anime shows I've watched. It's hilarious but the message behind the story is quite great. The antics Onizuka gets up to are ridiculous. Makes me wish I had a teacher like that back in school

[jbradfor]

I've also seen Great Teacher Onizuka; liked it, but not enough to want to read it. But, it might make a good reading some month. On the same topic is YuYu Hakusho; liked it (somewhat), but not enough to read it. However, I bring it up as I think it's fairly typical of the "ordinary high school student discovers he/she has special powers and fights a lot of battles" genre.... but then again, I guess so is Bleach, which I liked more.

[feihong]

I decided to create a profile page for the first traditional charset selection. I put it on the wiki because I figure that way other people can edit it as well.

http://grandcomic.wikia.com/wiki/Yotsuba%26!

[feihong]

We've already talked about Ranma a few times, so it's practically a shoe-in for the Grand Comic Reading Project. But, weirdly enough, I managed to find scans for Ranma in both simplified AND traditional.

Simplified: http://www.dm5.com/Type.aspx?id=852

Traditional: http://www.89890.com/Comic/1308/ (might be very slow, depending on time of day)

So, usually we alternate between simplified and traditional, but should we make an exception for Ranma? That is, let simplified and traditional readers read it at the same time? I've taken a look at both versions and there are some name and dialogue differences between the two translations. However the word lists should be fairly similar, and the plot is identical.

Let me know what you guys think.

[Gleaves]

Sounds good to me. I think I will go ahead and pick up Ranma and Yotsuba from books.com.tw.

[daofeishi]

I have a lot of children's books/cartoons from the 70s and 80s that I could scan and upload somewhere if there is interest for it. The ones I have available are:

地道战 (1970)

把一切献给人民 (1972)

为革命战斗不息 (1972)

雷锋的少年时代 (1973)

烽火少年 (1974)

列宁在十月 (1974)

英雄女民兵 (1975)

甲午海战 (1977)

杨门女将 (1979)

没有牙齿的老狼 (1980)

达尔文(Darwin) - (1980)

外国科学家 (二) (1981)

蛮帅都落的后代 (1981)

韩信破赵之战 (1982)

雷锋 (1982)

玉香笼 (1982)

孙中山 (1983)

苦肉计 (1983)

洪湖赤卫队 （1983）

从奴隶到将军 上集 (1983)

从奴隶到将军 下集 (1983)

特殊的巡长 (1983)

父与子 (1984)

唐老鸭(Donald Duck) - 鸡蛋的灾难 (1987)

米老鼠(Mickey Mouse) - 伯爵家的金冠 （1987）

米老鼠(Mickey Mouse) - 马戏团的秘密 (1987)

林肯之死 (1987)

西游记 - 红孩儿

[feihong]

When I'm making these profile pages, should I put a field in there called "Age Rating"? Values for it would be, for example, Everyone, Youth (10+), Teens (13+), etc.

Or I can safely assume that everyone here is an adult? I ask because Ranma does contain some mild nudity.

[feihong]

@daofeishi

Are these actual comics or just children's books with illustrations?

Personally, I'm a big fan of Disney comics. Do you know the artists who did the ones you have?

[deathtrap]

@feihong, I'm not sure if you know this but every human is born with naughty nekkid bits. I doubt a little nudity will hurt them

Personally I'd find a "relative difficulty" rating on them to be extremely useful. Same as the Grand First Episode Project. Easy/Medium/Hard or Beginner/Intermediate/Advanced, and maybe some notes if it includes specialized vocabulary(medicine), and an HSK rating on it wouldn't be bad but I think that's asking a little too much

@daofeishi, that would be great. They include dialogue right? I think they would be valuable in that they wouldn't require a large vocabulary to read. But you'll have to check with the mods whether that's OK with them or not.

Where did I put my moderator batphone...?!

[jbradfor]

When I'm making these profile pages, should I put a field in there called "Age Rating"? Values for it would be, for example, Everyone, Youth (10+), Teens (13+), etc. Or I can safely assume that everyone here is an adult? I ask because Ranma does contain some mild nudity.

Well, if a kid has unfettered access to the internet, I think seeing mild nudity in Ranma is the least of your concerns.....

Besides, you realize that if you do mark it as "adult", it would only encourage kids to look at it?

[renzhe]

the Ranma version I have (printed, bought in China) has all the nudity removed in the most intrusive way possible -- like adding bikinis and similar. It was hilarious.

[feihong]

I've created a profile page for Ranma 1/2:

http://grandcomic.wikia.com/wiki/Ranma_1/2

From the sample pages you can see that the scans for the traditional version are clearly better. However, I think that even though the pictures are a bit washed out in the simplified version, you can still see the text pretty clearly. And it's only volume 1 where this is a problem; subsequent volumes are on par with the traditional version.

[renzhe]

I wouldn't call Ranma 1/2 easy. The first few stories are very straight-forward, but it gets more challenging later. Intermediate at least, several levels above stuff like Doraemon.

[feihong]

@renzhe

I've only read the first two volumes of Ranma, so I based my difficulty rating on that. But I'll have to defer to you, since you are the local Ranma expert ;)

To everyone:

How many chapters/volumes do we want to agree to read? Or should we not bother to set a limit, and let people read as far as they want?

[jbradfor]

If you have information (or are willing to find it) on reading later volumes, I would appreciate your including it. I mean, if it's interesting, I might try to read more.

What I would expect will happen is that when a new comic goes "live", there will be a flurry of activity, most about the first volume. Over the next month or two, the activity will slow down. It might never die, as new readers start reading or old readers keep reading. Actually, I would expect how far people read depends on how interesting it is :o

["And it is glorious." ! LOL]

[renzhe]

This sort of approach seems to have worked for the First Episode Project. We've never had more than 5 people watching a show at the same time, but some of the threads have been active for over a year, always attracting new viewers.

The number of active participants in such a project is always going to be small, and they will be quite different. So I'd say we should sample different things together and everyone can pick up a favourite on the way and spend extra time on it if they want (something that fits their interests and language level). The whole point of such a project is to get people reading stuff, and to help people find interesting things to read. If someone ends up reading a comic they really like for a long time, that's a good thing.

As for Ranma, it is not very challenging language, but it's more difficult than Doraemon. Plus you have the obscure fake ancient Chinese martial art names thrown around liberally which can really scare a new learner, but can be comfortably understood from context by an intermediate learner.

[daofeishi]

@feihong: Many of them are traditional 小人书 where every page is of the format

     /\  ______________ \
    /::\ \ZZZZZZZZZZZZ/\ \
   /:/\.\ \        /:/\:\ \
  /:/Z/\:\ \      /:/Z/\:\ \
 /:/Z/__\:\ \____/:/Z/  \:\ \
/:/Z/____\:\ \___\/Z/    \:\ \
\:\ \ZZZZZ\:\ \ZZ/\ \     \:\ \
 \:\ \     \:\ \ \:\ \     \:\ \
  \:\ \     \:\ \_\;\_\_____\;\ \
   \:\ \     \:\_________________\
    \:\ \    /:/ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ/
     \:\ \  /:/Z/    \:\ \  /:/Z/
      \:\ \/:/Z/      \:\ \/:/Z/
       \:\/:/Z/________\;\/:/Z/
        \::/Z/_______itz__\/Z/
         \/ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ/  [illustration]

Text text text text text text text text text text.

but some of them are cartoons in the traditional multiple panels+speech balloons sense, e.g. the Disney cartoons. I'm not sure about the artists, but I will check when I get back home.

@deathtrap: Most of them are dialogue-heavy and tailored for children/teenagers. Even though the classical 小人书 are not "cartoons" in a strict sense perhaps, they are the closest Chinese equivalent and I think some of them really add to the cultural understanding of China; especially some of the titles from the 70s like 雷锋的少年时代 and 把一切献给人民. Finding somewhere to upload them wouldn't be a problem.