Blood Sword Volume 24 (untranslated Jademan collection of 4 issues each) Jademan Comics (1991) scanned by Hedron in 2011 This volume starts off with issue #51 of the English translation of 'The Blood Sword', to give a frame of reference. The four issues in this volume are unchanged from their English Jademan counterparts. I just wanted to scan this to compare. These are the original Jademan colors, the hues look great. I love the skin tones, so subtle compared to American coloring of the same time. (Did Jademan recolor the English translations?) This is the story arc with that sickening 'Love Salute' move between Greenie and Fire Fox. Was I the only one rooting for Cannibal (Kim Tai Po) to wipe them out? (kidding) It's still great to see Hero come sweeping in to fight him, he's the only one that can. One of the most interesting things about these reprints are the ads for Jademan series that were still available at the time. I make sure to include these printed at the end. Reprint conundrum: Jademan printed these reprint volumes on beautiful bleached high-quality paper. This is as the comics were meant to be seen. And yet, they randomly chose the covers for these volumes. They make no sense. This volume has a cover from Blood Sword Dynasty, showing Hero and Warlord's fighting pike. We are nowhere near that issue! A note on the scans: Every one of these 4-issue volumes has a square binding. Like the Lone Wolf and Cub series I scanned, this presents its own problems. As we move deeper into the comic, the edges of the scenes near the binding become blurrier. With my comics, the solution was to crack the binding in extreme cases. Since I am borrowing these from a fellow Jademan fan, I am very hesitant to damage the comics in any way. So please excuse the blurriness on some scenes with my apologies. A cautionary note: As Spock said in 'Amok Time', sometimes having a thing is not as good as wanting it. This is tremendous closure for Jademan fans who always wondered what happened between the two series ('The Blood Sword' and 'Blood Sword Dynasty'). Yet at the same time, Jademan comics are rather bloodthirsty. Not knowing what happened to so many beloved characters is perhaps better than seeing them stabbed, bludgeoned, or otherwise horribly murdered before our eyes. Almost no one dies a natural death in Jademan comics. And especially in this comic, Hero is the cursed star to friend and foe alike. As Sainted Jade curses the Great Lawlord ('The Force of Buddha's Palm'), "A man like you will never die a natural death!"). He laughed at her, but there is a certain truth to her statement, in the world of Jademan. Into every life, a little rain must fall! HOW TO VIEW MY SCANS I recommend using the PC freeware program Cdisplay. Go to Configure and choose 'Fit Width C+W'. This fills the screen perfectly, then tap space to read. Since these are Chinese comics, they are meant to be read from right-to-left. Cdisplay has a 'Japanese Mode', other software may have something similar.
polner