Comics revive childhood memories of classical novel

Childhood memories came flooding back when I recently saw the comic book version of Romance of the Three Kingdoms, one of the greatest classical novels of Chinese literature, on the shelf in a Parisian bookstore.

Reading the pocket-sized, hand-drawn picture book (known as xiaorenshu in Chinese) used to be one of my favorite pastimes as a kid in the late 1980s, at a time when activities that were fun for children were very limited.

The book I saw in Paris retains the original pictures drawn by Chinese comic masters in the 1950s, most of whom have since passed away. The only difference was that the story has been translated into French.