Dialogue 1
Mark: Well, Jingjing, we lost another celebrity.
马克: 京晶,我们又失去了一位名人。
Jingjing: These past few years, so many famous people have passed away.
京晶: 最近几年有好多名人都去世了。
Jingjing
Mark: I'm thinking about Stan Lee.
马克: 我想到了斯坦·李。
Jingjing: He's the creator of Marvel Comics, right?
京晶: 他是漫威漫画的创作者,对吧?
Mark: Yeah, he came up with lots of superheroes, like Spider Man and the Fantastic Four.
马克: 是啊,他创造了很多超级英雄,比如蜘蛛侠和神奇四侠。
Jingjing: Are you into comic books, Mark?
京晶: 马克,你喜欢看漫画吗?
Mark: Yeah, I used to have a massive collection, and still have a few.
马克: 喜欢啊,我以前收集的书可多了,现在也还留着一些。
Jingjing: I've seen a few of the movies. They're pretty spectacular and exciting. I've enjoyed the ones I watched in the cinema. I guess that's the way to see big movies.
京晶: 我看过几部漫威的电影,场面非常壮观、情节扣人心弦。我喜欢去电影院看的那几部,我觉得这才是看大片的正确方式。
Mark: I agree. Actually, when I was a teenager, there weren't so many good superhero films. There were the original Superman movies with Christopher Reeve, that came out when I was a kid, and then not so much until Spider Man with Toby Maguire.
马克: 我同意。事实上,在我的少年时代,并没有那么多优秀的超级英雄电影。在我还是个孩子的时候,出了克里斯托弗·里夫主演的最早的《超人》系列电影,但后来就没什么超级英雄电影了,直到托比·马奎尔主演的《蜘蛛侠》上映。
Jingjing: Now there are too many to count. I bet Stan Lee was pretty satisfied with the Marvel universe by the time he reached his later years.
京晶: 现在就太多了,都数不清了。我敢打赌斯坦·李到了晚年,肯定对他创造出来的漫威宇宙感到非常满意。
Mark: Yeah. For the longest time, comic books and superheroes were mostly for geeks.
马克: 是的。有很长一段时间,漫画书和超级英雄大多是为怪才准备的。
Jingjing: That's putting it a little harshly.
京晶: 这么说有点刺耳啊。
Mark: So what? I count myself among those geeks. Ask me anything; I could probably tell you.
马克:那又怎样? 我把自己也算在那些怪才之中。你可以随便问我关于漫威的事情,我都能告诉你。
Jingjing: Ok. How did Spider Man get his powers?
京晶: 好吧。蜘蛛侠是怎么获得超能力的?
Mark: He was bitten by a radioactive spider.
马克: 他被一只放射性蜘蛛咬了。
Jingjing: What about Superman?
京晶: 那超人呢?
Mark: He comes from the planet Krypton, which has stronger gravity. In the early stories, he could only do stuff like run faster and jump really high.
马克:他来自氪星球,那里的地心引力比地球强。在早期的故事中,他的超能力仅限于跑得比较快,跳得比较高而已。
New words : 习语短语
comic 连环漫画
a strip or a book, with a story told in panels of cartoon pictures
the _____ universe ....宇宙
a set of characters and stories so large that many production companies and different authors have made contributions (i.e. the Star Wars universe, the Star Trek universe, the Harry Potter universe, NOT the Disney Universe or the Spider Man universe)
电影宇宙是一种共享世界观的电影概念,电影宇宙不仅仅指系列电影,而是可以包含多个系列的电影。所谓电影宇宙,当然不是拥有几部续集电影便可担此称号,独特的世界观、无限延伸的故事体系、庞杂的人物关系,都是成为电影宇宙的必要不充分条件。
geek 痴迷者,怪才
someone with a lot of knowledge in only a few areas, and typically not such good interpersonal skills
极客是美国俚语“geek”的音译。Geek是新的精英亚文化群,是一群爱好新事物的、以技术为中心的、同时对社会怀有深刻不满的地下人类。Geek们是那些依靠计算机技术结合成的社会性人群,他们把大量社交时间花费在电脑网络上,他们的娱乐是每天到处寻找新奇的东西,比如各种软件、书籍、MP3、电影之类的,他们在各种BBS里发表代表个人观点的帖子,有些高级Geek则以编写共享软件为乐事。
Dialogue 2
Jingjing: So, Mark, did you collect mostly superhero comics?
京晶: 马克,你收集了近乎所有的超级英雄漫画吗?
Mark: Not really. There were only two or three titles that I collected the whole series.
马克: 并没有。我只收集了两三个故事的整个系列。
Jingjing: What were those?
京晶: 都是什么故事?
Mark: One was called the Preacher. It was about a guy who could sometimes speak in a way that would make people do anything he told them to do. His power was called the word.
马克: 一个叫《传教士》,讲的是一个人有时用说话的方式可以让其他人听从他的指挥。他的超能力叫做“词语”。
Jingjing: Wow. That sounds kinda scary.
京晶: 哇,这听起来有点吓人。
Mark: Luckily, he was a good guy. And he hardly ever used his power.
马克: 幸运的是,他是个好人。而且他几乎从不使用他的超能力。
Jingjing: What about the others in your collection?
京晶: 你收藏的其他作品是什么?
Mark: Another one was Astro City. It was about a city that had lots of superheroes; and the series took a deeper look at what society would be like if there really were superheroes flying around.
马克:另一部作品叫《阿斯特罗城》。讲的是一座城市里聚集着很多超级英雄;这个系列更深入地探讨了如果一个社会真的有许多超级英雄每天飞来飞去,这个社会会变成什么样子。
Jingjing: That sounds interesting. I'm sure most writers have tried to do that, more or less.
京晶: 听起来很有趣。我相信大多数漫画作家都曾或多或少地尝试这样构想过。
Mark: Yeah, Stan Lee did a better job than writers before him. Anyway, writing makes all the difference in a comic, I think; and art adds to it.
马克: 是的,斯坦·李比在他以前的漫画作家创作得更出色。无论如何,我认为在漫画创作中,写作构思是至关重要的; 同时艺术锦上添花。
Jingjing: Hmm. I'll have to pop back into the office soon. But, before I go, I want to hit you with one more trivia question. That ok?
京晶:呀,我得赶回办公室了。但是在我走之前,我想再问你一个小问题。可以吗?
Mark: Of course. Try me.
马克: 当然。尽管问。
Jingjing: What was Spider Man's secret identity?
京晶: 蜘蛛侠秘密身份(正常人身份)是什么?
Mark: Peter Parker. That's easy!
马克:彼得·帕克。这太简单了!
Jingjing: Ok, then. Here's a harder one: Who was the actor who played Black Panther?
京晶:好吧,还有一个更难回答的问题: 扮演黑豹的演员是谁?
Mark: Chadwick Boseman.
马克: 查德维克·博斯曼。
Jingjing: All right. I'll try to think of a tougher question next time I see you.
京晶: 好吧。下次见你,我会试着想出一个更难的问题。
New words : 习语短语
title 漫画中的人物头衔
with comics, this is typically the name of the main character (the superhero)
series 系列
a numbered set of books
trivia 大多数人不知的细节知识
pieces of knowledge that most people don't have
secret identity 秘密身份
(日常生活中,看上去与普通人无异,却有超能力的人以普通人掩盖着他们的真实身份)the person in everyday life, who is really the same as the superhero, but is not known to have any super powers
adv. 严厉地;刺耳地;粗糙地