Other : 1998 Chinese Tomb Raider 2 Comic
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A couple of years ago, whilst doing our digital archaeology for cool things, we came across a comic based on the adventures of Tomb Raider 2. Now we have only ever found a mention to this on this fansite, Tombs and Blades, who even uploaded scans of several pages. Thankfully, most of these scans still load through Web Archive, but we have noticed that over time, pages, downloads and even imagery can disappear from the Web Archive, so we're uploading them here for preservation. Original sources can still be found on this page if you wish to have a dig around on the fansite.
The comic (according to the fanpage) is written in Chinese and comes in two parts: Issue 1 is dated to 7th February 1998, whilst Issue 2 has the date of 28th February 1998. Both issues have a variant cover: Issue 1 has the same artwork but is holographic; Issue 2 features its own same artwork but the Dagger of Xian was 3D. With thanks to @FlameKnightTomb on X.com, we now know that this comic was unofficial, with Lara's name being changed to Rina to avoid copyright infringement. It was drawn by a gamer and published in Hong Kong. Interestingly, it can still be found for sale in shops. "This is not a comic from mainland China, it's a Hong Kong comic, I searched on the Hong Kong comic website and found that it can still be purchased. I don't think it's official, if you can read Chinese, they didn't write the main character as "Lara", but another unrelated name." On November 22nd 2024, official fansite Tomb Raider Arabia uploaded the complete comic to their website, after having scanned their own copy, edited and translated it into English. It is 131 pages long (including the cover and introduction by Tomb Raider Arabia) and also contains a gallery of artwork at the end. You can find links to download it here.
And what's more, thanks to @Ellioft1 on X.com for pointing them out, there were even posters of the cover artwork released. You can even see the variant covers.   Covers  Pages        |
Sources:
Tomb and Blades Fansite
http://web.archive.org/web/20000818011922/http://www.fortunecity.com/underworld/playstation/278/
FlameKnightTomb's Information/Tweet
https://x.com/FlameKnightTomb/status/1831022229976686601
Ellioft1's Information
https://twitter.com/Ellioft1/status/1831023540247683127 with images from Singapore Marketplace Carousell
Tomb Raider Arabia Full Comic
https://www.tombraiderarabia.com/2024/11/tomb-raider-manga.html
http://web.archive.org/web/20000818011922/http://www.fortunecity.com/underworld/playstation/278/
FlameKnightTomb's Information/Tweet
https://x.com/FlameKnightTomb/status/1831022229976686601
Ellioft1's Information
https://twitter.com/Ellioft1/status/1831023540247683127 with images from Singapore Marketplace Carousell
Tomb Raider Arabia Full Comic
https://www.tombraiderarabia.com/2024/11/tomb-raider-manga.html