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Sequel to the Journey to the West
Graphic novel interpretation of the late Ming dynasty novel.
90 pages, Paperback
First published March 1, 1998
About the author
Tsai Chih Chung
108 books52 followersTsai Chih Chung (蔡志忠) is a world-renowned cartoonist and popularizer of Chinese classics whose books have sold more than 40 millions copies worldwide. He first came to prominence through his award-winning animated movies and his immensely popular daily comic strips. When he turned his hand to the classics after a prolonged period of self-education, they were acclaimed by critics and shot to the top of the bestsellers lists.
Starting from the 1980s, Tsai created a series of Chinese comic books on ancient Chinese classics, like huangzi Speaks: The Music of Nature, Zen Speaks: Shouts of Nothingness, Confucius Speaks: Words to Live by, Sunzi Speaks: The Art of War, and The Tao Speaks: Lao Tzu's Whispers of Wisdom. Confucius, Lao Tzu, Zhuangzi, and Sunzi are widely credited as sages whose thoughts have played an important role in China's development. Tsai put his unique understanding and feelings of ancient thoughts into his cartoons, and added a modern interpretation of them, making boring ancient philosophies quite amusing as well as understandable. His works won a large number of adult readers for comic books, a market predominantly children-targeted. This series of comic books has hoarded great applause from readers both in Taiwan and Chinese mainland, with 4 million copies sold in Taiwan.
Differing from most Chinese parents, Tsai has a unique way of bringing up his daughter, stressing independence and self-reliance. His daughter even traveled to Japan by herself at the age of 12.With the influence of her father, his daughter has also become fond of cartoons. Her creativity and originality is comparable to that of her father, and many of her cartoons have been published as well. Tsai once made a comparison between human beings and wolves, stating that a parent wolf never teaches its children the necessary skills of survival, leaving the child with the challenge of acquired these skills on their own.
Starting from the 1980s, Tsai created a series of Chinese comic books on ancient Chinese classics, like huangzi Speaks: The Music of Nature, Zen Speaks: Shouts of Nothingness, Confucius Speaks: Words to Live by, Sunzi Speaks: The Art of War, and The Tao Speaks: Lao Tzu's Whispers of Wisdom. Confucius, Lao Tzu, Zhuangzi, and Sunzi are widely credited as sages whose thoughts have played an important role in China's development. Tsai put his unique understanding and feelings of ancient thoughts into his cartoons, and added a modern interpretation of them, making boring ancient philosophies quite amusing as well as understandable. His works won a large number of adult readers for comic books, a market predominantly children-targeted. This series of comic books has hoarded great applause from readers both in Taiwan and Chinese mainland, with 4 million copies sold in Taiwan.
Differing from most Chinese parents, Tsai has a unique way of bringing up his daughter, stressing independence and self-reliance. His daughter even traveled to Japan by herself at the age of 12.With the influence of her father, his daughter has also become fond of cartoons. Her creativity and originality is comparable to that of her father, and many of her cartoons have been published as well. Tsai once made a comparison between human beings and wolves, stating that a parent wolf never teaches its children the necessary skills of survival, leaving the child with the challenge of acquired these skills on their own.
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
June 2, 2015
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.
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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.
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.
Displaying 1 of 1 review