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Wednesday, June 25, 2014

Rosy's scrawled manga recommendation: Sherlock by Mark Gatiss, Steven Moffat and Jay

Sherlock
Mark Gatiss
Steven Moffat
Jay

Blurb
An adaptation of the BBC re-imagining of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes series, Sherlock, which aired in 2010 (season 1) and 2012 (season 2), with season 3 currently in the works.

Alternative names
シャーロック ピンク色の研究
神探夏洛克 粉色的研究
Sherlock - A study in pink
SHERLOCK ピンク色の研究
(more coming for Blind Watchmaker)

Status
Ongoing

Artist
Jay

Manga reader sites
Manga Reader, Manga Fox 

Rosy's scrawlings on Sherlock
I ran across this manga by chance as I'd missed all the advertising for it (my head has been securely buried in the teach-my-kid-to-crawl-downstairs-backwards-so-he-doesn't-fall stage of life and all the stages before it). Curious, I started reading and found it to be an almost exact replica of the tv shows currently starring Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman. There are a few oddities though, that might interest you to go and read it instead of re-watching the shows whenever you need a bit more Sherlock in your life (these things happen, I know. Its all right.). Mostly these take the form of Watson's thoughts and the drawings of emotional reactions being a little more of a manga style than a pure replication of the show's characters. There's the old 'budump' for the heavy heart beat and the shaded top of the face for crestfallen or shocked and such like. This adds a little more life to the already fast-paced and bubbling show and I couldn't help but want a little more again. Actually, I've been left wondering what a full conversion with alterations to the stories would be like. I can only start imagining the likes of strange Black Butler relationships mixed bubbly almost-but-too-shy-to-go-there yaoi: all flashing coats and strange crimes and forbidden love. A full mangarisation of Sherlock would definitely be fun to read. But I digress...
I assume you are all pretty familiar with the tv show Sherlock so I won't bother going into storyline and plot. The lines are pretty much word for word and the action spot on, down to most of the facial expressions. The artist Jay has done a fantastic job reproducing the show by hand. The panels exclude unnecessary backgrounds, which are replaced with shading for mood, focus largely on the people and have an appropriate level of grittiness. But what I personally love are Benedict's more exaggerated expressions are priceless. 



See? Brilliant. Just, brilliant. Its worth reading just for the funny expressions alone.

I'd recommend this manga to: anyone who likes the tv show Sherlock or anyone who'd prefer to read rather than watch it.

Notes on manga reader sites
The quality of manga readers can vary. The uploads are often done cheaply or as a serious hobby by a collective. Be aware that sometimes licence hasn't been given but the sites noted above, Manga Fox in particular, are extremely careful about adding and pulling mangas according to license agreements. So you shouldn't have to worry too much about the material being pirated. There are also translated works and non-translated. Amongst the translated works you will find that the quality of translation may vary according to the skills of the translators. Usually the works are perfectly readable anyway, with only a few added or dropped words or a word in the incorrect tense or with/out plurals. But sometimes the text becomes gobbledygook. In which case, either seek another version or give up and buy an official copy once a printed translation comes out. The other issue of note is you may need to expand the screen to read the text easily as sometimes the scans are minimised a little.
I find that if a page doesn't download properly or some other issue occurs (too slow or someone ordered the pages incorrectly etc.) with one reader then skipping across to another reader and picking up where I was is quite easy and rarely annoying.
Otherwise, enjoy and watch out you don't get too addicted you forget about the necessary things in life.

1 comment:

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