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NEWS: Shambhala Publications to Publish Book of Five Rings Graphic Novel




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enurtsol



Joined: 01 May 2007
Posts: 14889
PostPosted: Sat Sep 22, 2012 1:25 am Reply with quote
The one ring to rule them all!

What's with the two-name Wilsons?!
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Gilles Poitras



Joined: 05 Apr 2008
Posts: 481
Location: Oakland California
PostPosted: Sat Sep 22, 2012 9:37 am Reply with quote
The Book of Five Rings is not a novel.
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ValkyrieZeroZeroOne



Joined: 06 Apr 2005
Posts: 434
Location: Brisbane, Australia
PostPosted: Sat Sep 22, 2012 8:38 pm Reply with quote
Gilles Poitras wrote:
The Book of Five Rings is not a novel.


I'm glad I'm not the only one who saw that. Beats the heck out of me how you adapt it into a graphic novel.
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boychild



Joined: 05 Oct 2004
Posts: 3
PostPosted: Tue Sep 25, 2012 9:21 pm Reply with quote
Hello lads and lassies,

This is Sean Michael Wilson, the writer. I noticed these questions and thought I should reply myself:

"What's with the two-name Wilsons?!"
- its one of those pleasing or thought provoking coincidences of life. My full name is actually SEAN MICHAEL JOHN WILSON, but i thought that was a bit TOO long for a public name. I chose the SEAN MICHAEL WILSON for various reasons two of them are rather interesting magickal reasons (really!), and one is mundane: there is already a well known singer in Ireland called just SEAN WILSON.

WILLIAM SCOTT WILSON, who i jokingly refer to as my Uncle Bill, is an American of Scots-Irish ancestry. He is a well known translator of Japanese classics, going right back to the mid 70's. Our shared name and shared two names before thing is just a coincidence. Or a pleasing synchroncity, if you prefer.

"The Book of Five Rings is not a novel."
- Yes, quite right. But I'm wondering why this was noted - does the publishers info say it IS a novel? (Gilles: we met in Minneapolis, remember?)

"I'm glad I'm not the only one who saw that. Beats the heck out of me how you adapt it into a graphic novel."
- A question that vexed me too when I sat down to try to do just that. The orginal Japanese text has almost no visual aspects in it at all, and no narrative thread. But we HAVE managed it, i think, by using two simple techniques. Please check out the book to see what those are.

As to the term 'graphic novel', this was something the publisher chose, and its done mostly to mark it out clearly for librarians, shops, web sites, etc as different from the text only translation of the Book of Five Rings, that they also publish. The term graphic novel is, as we all know, a vague and dubious one - aimai as they say in Japan. Hence these kinds of confusions are bound to come up when applying the term.

Cheers!
Sean
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