Please recommend some Russian comic books for an adult learning Russian

February 1, 2016 3:55 PM

Do you have any recommendations for Russian language comics for an adult English speaker learning Russian?

My 29-year-old brother is teaching himself Russian. He has progressed to the point where he can read and understand simple sentences in the language. He mentioned today that he would like to find some comic or comic books in Russian. He is an amazing, giving person, but he is also very particular and impossible to shop for because he usually wants nothing. So, if it's Russian comic books he wants, that's what I would like to get for him.

I'm hoping for suggestions for items any of you may have read or are fairly certain will be a good read for him. I can find things on Amazon, but I have no idea if they are any good. His birthday is next week, but the gift can be belated if need be. Also, he's kind of a prude, so he wouldn't appreciate heavy violence, sex, or foul language. I believe things aimed at children would be just fine for his purposes. Thank you for any suggestions!

posted by tllaya to Writing & Language (3 answers total)

Amazon has Russian versions of Tintin. I would probably go with that for quickest delivery and possibly ease of reading. There are Russian comic publishers like Bubble but they don't sell physical comics online - it is all digital. Then I checked a few online retailers of Russian books in the US for comic books and ironically, the only one I found was this comic for learning English. But then I found this detailed guide for buying print version of Bubble comics outside of Russia from Chook & Geek. While the website is in Russian, they speak English and can assist you if you email them at the address listed in the detailed guide. So, you'd probably want to go with Chook & Geek for a belated option.

I'd add that comic books, even those intended for children, are not necessarily easy for a learner to read. Children's books are thematically simple, not linguistically simple. So, whatever you get is probably something he will need to grow into. Bubble's books are going to be fairly advanced.
posted by Tanizaki at 4:46 PM on February 1, 2016

Comic books aren't really a Russian thing—which is not to say they don't exist, but they get zero cultural respect (it's the opposite of, say, France). That said, the above advice is good, and I highly recommend Komiks: Comic Art in Russia, by José Alaniz, if your brother is interested in the topic (there are great illustrations in the book, too).
posted by languagehat at 8:12 AM on February 2, 2016

This is a dilemma indeed. After you have followed the advice of others here, you might want to point him to this site, where all the comics are free and complete with translation. I regret it doesn't solve your immediate problem.
posted by alonsoquijano at 10:46 PM on February 2, 2016