Here's an English-language graphic novel that I picked up at a used book table at a holiday bazaar in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam in late 2014.
Title: Sequel to the Journey to the West
Issue: Volume 1
Date: 1998
Publisher: Asiapac Books
Writer: Tsai Chih Chung
Artist: Tsai Chih Chung
Translator: Wu Jingyu
This
is an English-language graphic novel from a Taiwanese and a Singaporean
publisher that I bought at a flea market in Vietnam. It's based on a
classical Chinese novel with an unknown author, which is the sequel to
an earlier classical Chinese novel by Ming Dynasty author Wu Cheng'en.
The original Journey to the West novel is an adaptation of legends based
on the historical journey of Tang Dynasty monk Xuanzang to India.
Need a scorecard yet?
Cartoonist
Tsai Chih Chung is known for his humorous interpretations of classical
Chinese literature. He works in four-panel vertical comic strips, and
his version of Sequel to Journey to the West has a definite newspaper
comic strip feel to the jokes and the pacing. The story describes the
first steps in the journey of a monkey known as the Lesser Sage and a
monk known as Da Dian set out to retrieve the "expository materials"
needed for the people of China to gain a better understanding of
Buddhism.
This first volume mostly sets the stage for the
journey. The writing is playful, ranging from slapstick to wordplay to
political satire and thinly-veiled (and sometimes not veiled at all)
references to current events.
There were some good laughs to be
had here, but some of the jokes suffer a bit in translation, and the
humor is a bit uneven. Tsai Chih Chung mixes in crude bits of toilet
humor along with some really clever puns and sarcasm.
This volume is mostly background to the actual quest story to follow.
Rating: 6/10
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