bookblogging
Jun. 23rd, 2008 08:36 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ceruseeGraphic novels/comics/cartoons:
McGruder, Aaron: The Boondocks: All the Rage
(technically a reread, since I read all these strips in the paper--well, most of them, anyway Well-worth the reading for the reprints of news articles and interviews with McGruder).
Castellucci, Cecil, author, and Jim Rugg, artist: The Plain Janes
(I feel that this has the makings of a decent book, but never quite hits the mark. I was pleased that the flat, cliched portrayal of the high school caste system picked up an inch or so of depth by the end of the book, but it's a lousy start, and the thing lacks nuance. I've heard there's a sequel to this coming out--perhaps it'll be better. I'd really rather read a sequel to Kimmie66 or The Re-gifters, or even Confessions of a Blabbermouth, though).
Dirge, Roman: Something at the Window is Scratching
(worth the price of admission, but ye gods, what an inane foreword. "Children's imaginations are so much bloodier and more grotesque than adult imaginations!" I am paraphrasing that, but nevertheless, way to over-generalize on the nature of children's brains, Mr. Vasquez).
Manga:
Usui Yoshito: Crayon Shin-chan vol. 2
(I don't know what prompted me to pick this up, since when I read volume 1 last year, I found the intensity of the toilet humor too off-putting to be funny. Maybe it's the kind of thing that you just get used to, because I enjoyed it more in this volume, and it's certainly not the material that changed.
The copy I read was the old ComicsOne version, not the rerelease by CMX, which come to think of it, is probably only up to vol. 1 anyway. Something I did not notice in vol. 1 that I did notice here: either the translation or the adaptation is awful. It's riddled with typos--I know all books have them, but this has noticeable typos in every chapter--the translator chose not to even try to tackle puns, and left them in Japanese, and the equivalents given for amounts of yen keep changing from chapter to chapter. I suspect that the variation reflects the normal fluctuation of the exchange rate, and that the translation of different chapters took place over time, but it's very jarring, and there's no translator's notes to clarify the discrepancies.
Individually, none of these things are deal-breakers, but cumulatively, they reflect a less-than-professional effort that is inappropriate in commercial work. You may recall I made a similar complaint about Netcomics and Pine Kiss. I'll cut a lot of slack over genuine translation issues, even the deliberate choice to emphasize literalism over smooth dialogue, but I take exception to cases where it's clear that the publisher isn't trying very hard).
McGruder, Aaron: The Boondocks: All the Rage
(technically a reread, since I read all these strips in the paper--well, most of them, anyway Well-worth the reading for the reprints of news articles and interviews with McGruder).
Castellucci, Cecil, author, and Jim Rugg, artist: The Plain Janes
(I feel that this has the makings of a decent book, but never quite hits the mark. I was pleased that the flat, cliched portrayal of the high school caste system picked up an inch or so of depth by the end of the book, but it's a lousy start, and the thing lacks nuance. I've heard there's a sequel to this coming out--perhaps it'll be better. I'd really rather read a sequel to Kimmie66 or The Re-gifters, or even Confessions of a Blabbermouth, though).
Dirge, Roman: Something at the Window is Scratching
(worth the price of admission, but ye gods, what an inane foreword. "Children's imaginations are so much bloodier and more grotesque than adult imaginations!" I am paraphrasing that, but nevertheless, way to over-generalize on the nature of children's brains, Mr. Vasquez).
Manga:
Usui Yoshito: Crayon Shin-chan vol. 2
(I don't know what prompted me to pick this up, since when I read volume 1 last year, I found the intensity of the toilet humor too off-putting to be funny. Maybe it's the kind of thing that you just get used to, because I enjoyed it more in this volume, and it's certainly not the material that changed.
The copy I read was the old ComicsOne version, not the rerelease by CMX, which come to think of it, is probably only up to vol. 1 anyway. Something I did not notice in vol. 1 that I did notice here: either the translation or the adaptation is awful. It's riddled with typos--I know all books have them, but this has noticeable typos in every chapter--the translator chose not to even try to tackle puns, and left them in Japanese, and the equivalents given for amounts of yen keep changing from chapter to chapter. I suspect that the variation reflects the normal fluctuation of the exchange rate, and that the translation of different chapters took place over time, but it's very jarring, and there's no translator's notes to clarify the discrepancies.
Individually, none of these things are deal-breakers, but cumulatively, they reflect a less-than-professional effort that is inappropriate in commercial work. You may recall I made a similar complaint about Netcomics and Pine Kiss. I'll cut a lot of slack over genuine translation issues, even the deliberate choice to emphasize literalism over smooth dialogue, but I take exception to cases where it's clear that the publisher isn't trying very hard).