Why do we have to read backwards?

[hepar]

Don't you dare call me comrade, heretic >_<

[Sergio Nova]

It seems you're right.
Inquisitors and free-thinkers would never be comrades.
Anyway, it's not necessary to be a Catholic to burn people, as many protestants in the USA burned people in their inquisition (Remember Salem). Also, Torquemada, Bernardo Gui and other great inquisitors were converted Jews. The irony was that they loved burning... Jews.

This is not personal, as I do understand that you're only making a joke, but the real world is really frightening.

[lyssla]

Let's put it in simple words:
I do advocate western reading (what I've already understood is a lonely battle here), but I do not advocate resizing or incompetent/negligent work. Unfortunately, some publishers decide to put things in the market the way thjey are better to them, not to readers.

If you do not advocate resizing then you value the artistic integrity of the work. Therefore, I ask you consider this - when drawing you generally don't have a chance to look at your work mirrored. Many artists will have a slight slant to their images that is not very noticeable ... until you flip it! Yukito Kishiro's work is so well drawn that you don't usually notice such flaws, but many other artists are not so proficient, and the quality of their drawings really suffers from mirroring the images.
Take a drawing of your own or another's and try - what you thought looked pretty good may look quite awful once flipped!

Aside from this, even competently mirroring the image changes the composition and visual gestalt that the artist created. By not mirroring the images, we (the reader) can experience the work more closely to how the artist intended.

Anyway thank you so much guys, your gunnm translations are amazing!!!

[romanus]

hi !
in France, the first distributed mangas was dragonball and akira. They publicated these ones with the european reading way. but the re-edition of these mangas are now in original reading way, for our great pleasure !
I really think the japanese reading way is the better for comics, because the commun direct eye is the right one, so our eyes are attracted by the right page. So if we begin to read by the left page, our brain have already semi-analysed the right page, so it breaks a little bit the surprising effect when we read the right page.
Moreover it's a rule for book editor to give diagramm on the right page, and the text on the left page : it makes the book more pleasant to read, in particular when it's a complicated book like scientific publication.

I don't know if you understand me...

ciao ciao !!

[Sergio Nova]

The way you say, it seems even Western-language based graphic novels should be printed right-to-left.
I agree you have the right to advocate the Eastern reading, but there is no sense in exaggerating.

[hepar]

The way you say, it seems even Western-language based graphic novels should be printed right-to-left.

Why not? If it's easier to read and understand.
Why PC have the mouse for right hand, but Mac for left?

[Sergio Nova]

Although I am an editor, I have never used Mac.
I see no reason to pay more if I can do the same with PC. Actually, I can do much more, you see.
Among editors/publishers, it`s like saying heresy, even because my colleagues have made Mac a religion. God forgive them, as they don`t know what they are doing.