Commercial Interlude: Abi Jian

A few weeks ago, I came across a website advertising the “imminent” release of an English version of Ma Li and Chen Uen’s Abi Jian (literally Abi-Sword). It is sometimes forgotten that there exist a very commercial aspect to comics in countries outside the Americas, Europe and Japan.  This happens to be just such a comic, notable for being one of the most revered Taiwanese comics in the wuxia genre.

The comic (which in its collected edition of 2 volumes amounts to about 500 pages) was serialized between the years 1989 and 1990 is based on a story by the author, Ma Li. I haven’t read the original novels but on the basis of this two volume adaptation it is of a piece (though somewhat less distinguished) with some of the primary works in the genre.

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