When Gladstone I in the 1980s got ready to publish its first Italian story, Scarpa's/Martina's "The Blot's Double Mystery," they couldn't actually acquire it in Italian at that moment, due to (at the time) the poor communication between various publishers. Though it seems hard to fathom in today's Internet-connected world, Gladstone acquired a version of the art with blank voice balloons; didn't know which issue of Topolino it was actually from, and initially weren't sure how to find out, or how to acquire that version.
Thanks for these kind of little historical anecdocts, they are always instructive.
Was really that hard for Gladstone to get a telephone or fax number of Mondadori, the greatest book editor of a Western country? (If they were not public, someone at Disney had them for sure...)
This thread went in all directions pretty fast. .. But I'm still curious about the usual process when translating the Italian language. The answer to my question sounded like when a politician tries to avoid the question
Do you or any of the other IDW translators know Italian, or are you doing the localization work from a pre-translated text by another translator/computer program?
Joe Torcivia said on his very instructive blog ,uses translating softwares from the original Italian, though he has been improving his Italian and can now translate some of it the normal way. In other cases, he said, the editors sometimes send in a "rough" English script that they are tasked with "spicing up" (or at the very least make sound more natural).
So, the American version of "The Blot's Double Mystery" (first Italian story to be published in the States?) is based on the German version translated by Erika Fuchs? If that's true, I apologize to the American translator for putting the blame on him for the changes, though of course this has nothing to do with IDW.
Still, if the American version was faithfully translated from the German version, then the German version must be really bad, and this is something I hope we can all agree upon. It's not just a matter of fidelty for fidelty's sake, it's a fact that the translated version completely changed the characters' motivations (like the Blot's idea to have Mickey kill O'Hara so that the former gets executed on the electric chair, and his later plot to bring O'Hara to suicide) to the point of creating plot holes. For example, in the localized version we are led to believe that the Blot warned O'Hara of the upcoming attempt to his life, which is degrading both for the former character (whose desire of revenge gets downplayed) and for the latter (not only it wasn't his merit that he saved himself from the attempted murder, but he was made to be an idiot who received an "anonymous tip" in a castle owned by the Blot and didn't even wonder about who wrote it).
This is one case in which the localization reallyvandalized a story.
As far as I remember these changes don't happen in the German version. But there are at least 3 different German translations of that story: the first one by Gudrun Penndorf in Lustiges Taschenbuch 62, a new one by Michael Jurkat for the Frankfurter Allgemeine Comic Anthology in 2005 and another one by Michael Bregel for the hardcover book series Hall of Fame 11 (Romano Scarpa 2). I just have the second one here and haven't read the first one for about 30 years but I don't think that the Blot warned O'Hara in it neither. Can't say however if Penndorf watered the Blot's plot a little bit in the sense that she maybe didn't mention the electric chair or the suicide part.
This thread went in all directions pretty fast. .. But I'm still curious about the usual process when translating the Italian language. The answer to my question sounded like when a politician tries to avoid the question
Joe Torcivia said on his very instructive blog ,uses translating softwares from the original Italian, though he has been improving his Italian and can now translate some of it the normal way. In other cases, he said, the editors sometimes send in a "rough" English script that they are tasked with "spicing up" (or at the very least make sound more natural).
That's nice to know. Then I guess people can be a bit more forgiving too if idioms, local expressions or cultural references are missed – knowing that the translators are not experts on the language and culture.
I've worked as a translator myself, not for comics or literature but for technical stuff (everything from Microsoft Office to instruction manuals for snowmobiles) , so quite different – but I know that it's often more important to be good at the language to you are translating too than the one you are translating from.
And I just want to point out that I personally don't think localizing and having to change things to do that is a bad thing. I'd rather read that than a dull completely "faithful" translation. Sometimes the original script really needs heavy localization work too. I've visited Egmont creative in Copenhagen and read some of the English scripts by people not having it as a first language. And that was definitely not ready to be printed… In the case of PKNA I've read two different translations I can say that the IDW one is a lot more enjoyable to read than the other one! And the dialoged is probably the reason I like it so much even if I've read all of it before (really sad to see the IDW version gone). In the IDW monthlies there have been a couple of cases where I thought the obvious inserted puns didn't fit in the story – but that might be more because the humor didn't get to me. But in most cases I don't think much about the translation work or localization at all when reading a story.
Guys I got no beef with anyone I was just stating my opinion that I dont see why some jokes have to be changed, like I mentioned previous, mm#2, casey screws up, mickey says to o hara; I hope you werent too hard on him, o hara replies; no I m not a vindictive person, I just made him a beat cop(this is a funny sarcastic joke, at least for me). Then in the next panel we see casey in front of the house giving o hara a parking ticket and saying; maybe you are not but I on the other hand am... Now how this got translated you can see in your idw issue, I was just saying I see no point in changing these jokes, they are amusing in any language and can be translated directly.
So, the American version of "The Blot's Double Mystery" (first Italian story to be published in the States?) is based on the German version translated by Erika Fuchs?
No—by Gudrun Penndorf (as I stated), though in the Fuchs style and tradition.
Still, if the American version was faithfully translated from the German version, then the German version must be really bad, and this is something I hope we can all agree upon.
I'm sadly very busy today, so I can't devote as much time as I'd like to this—but "The Blot's Double Mystery" has always been regarded as a great story in the USA, even when judging by its English-via-German translation. I can't agree that the German source "must be really bad" when the English, made from it, had such an electric and exciting effect on me as a kid... and still does today!
It's not just a matter of fidelity for fidellty's sake, it's a fact that the translated version completely changed the characters' motivations (like the Blot's idea to have Mickey kill O'Hara so that the former gets executed on the electric chair, and his later plot to bring O'Hara to suicide)
I'm not sure offhand if these specific changes originated in the German translation or the English version—but think about what you're saying for a minute. Execution by the state, on an electric chair? Suicide?
Both Ehapa (publisher of the German edition) and USA Disney have long required that violent imagery this explicit be kept out of all-ages comic books. There is no way that the US edition in MICKEY AND DONALD, which 13-year-old me bought at a magazine store, would have been allowed to translate these points this precisely—indeed, they had to soften the language surrounding hypnotized-Mickey's attempt to kill O'Hara, too.
But by slamming any version of the story that doesn't get quite as violent as the original, you're missing the forest (a still-great story) for the trees (a relatively negligible detail: the severity of a few threats).
In the localized version we are led to believe that the Blot warned O'Hara of the upcoming attempt to his life, which is degrading both for the [Blot] (whose desire of revenge gets downplayed) and for [O'Hara] (not only it wasn't his merit that he saved himself from the attempted murder, but he was made to be an idiot who received an "anonymous tip" in a castle owned by the Blot and didn't even wonder about who wrote it).
Deciding what is, or isn't, too "degrading" for a character is a slippery slope. It turns into a referendum on what's in-character or not. If readers aren't careful, they can slip into appointing themselves judge, jury, and executioner.
• In Wright's "The Rajah's Treasure," O'Hara is fooled into thinking Mickey is a willful crook, even after all the years he's known him, and O'Hara then becomes almost Javert-like in his determination to bring Mickey down. Is this degrading—is O'Hara too gullible—or is it just a realistic, sobering portrayal of how badly a friend can be misled? • In Scarpa's "The Delta Dimension," Mickey and Pete stop in the middle of a furious fight for a gag, in which a suddenly motherly Mickey and a sniffly, childlike Pete bandage Pete's finger, which got hurt in the fighting. Is this degrading—does it trivialize the characters' seriousness to have them suddenly act like this, or is it acceptable to take a break for a gag? • In Scarpa's "Emperor of Calisota," Mickey's lust for treasure causes him to behave in a rather Donaldlike greedy way. Good or bad? • In Carl Fallberg's Mickey stories, Mickey is often a businesslike career detective who seems to have no enthusiasm or adventurous nature beyond what the job requires. Is this degrading to Gottfredson's more enthusiastic Mickey? Or are more modern stories that make Mickey more enthusiastic again somehow degrading to the Fallberg Mickey? (I've heard both arguments.)
Step back and look again at the US version of "Blot's Double Mystery." Right at the start, the Blot states directly and menacingly that here's where he's gonna get his REVENGE! (It couldn't be more obvious, or more threatening.) Then later, when (in the US version) the Blot warns O'Hara, how bad is that really? Reading the story as a kid, I thought: "Omigosh, the Blot tipped O'Hara off that Mickey would turn on him—to make it even more likely that O'Hara would be fooled and Mickey misunderstood. Wow, the Blot really is covering all the bases in his revenge, isn't he? This is one smart, careful villain."
Each of us may have our own feelings about how we like characters to be portrayed, but please be careful not to deliver a damning indictment based on minor details—that some could assess very differently than you do.
At any rate, we may have different ideas on how stories should be translated, but I think we can all agree to the fact that Disney comis being still published in the Usa is a good thing.
Agreed! (And damn, I took longer writing this than I had time to do.)
Guys I got no beef with anyone I was just stating my opinion that I dont see why some jokes have to be changed, like I mentioned previous, mm#2, casey screws up, mickey says to o hara; I hope you werent too hard on him, o hara replies; no I m not a vindictive person, I just made him a beat cop(this is a funny sarcastic joke, at least for me). Then in the next panel we see casey in front of the house giving o hara a parking ticket and saying; maybe you are not but I on the other hand am... Now how this got translated you can see in your idw issue, I was just saying I see no point in changing these jokes, they are amusing in any language and can be translated directly.
Igor, please understand none of my comments were directed at you. I only mentioned your comment because (at that point) it was the only comment with any specificity, and I was actually thanking you for it. (And your comment was completely fair and accurate.)
As for the rest of a lot of you: well, maybe I didn't want to inundate you with a description of the process—which includes direct translation and knowledge of the language, electronic help, consulting with the original authors, having to get explicit approval from international editors—so you could nitpick and bitch about that to death as well.
This thread started with the best of intentions—my editor wanted to credit me correctly in a public forum. It's very revealing that it devolved into chastising IDW for giving the the translators too much credit and a discussion of why everything we do sucks. It's obvious when you're not chatting about where certain characters fall on Donald's family tree, or whatever the inane subject of the week is, you're simply jealous of people who are actively contributing to these characters and comics and that you aren't. Oh well.
Joe Torcivia said on his very instructive blog ,uses translating softwares from the original Italian, though he has been improving his Italian and can now translate some of it the normal way. In other cases, he said, the editors sometimes send in a "rough" English script that they are tasked with "spicing up" (or at the very least make sound more natural).
That's nice to know. Then I guess people can be a bit more forgiving too if idioms, local expressions or cultural references are missed – knowing that the translators are not experts on the language and culture.
Not really. Why the hell a translator not sufficiently fluent in the original language has been hired in first place?
Just fire whoever moron had this stupid idea, and stop using Torcivia(who, I'm sure, is otherwise absolutely competent and professional in his usual field of work) for Italian->English translations until he gets good enough to translate Italian by himself.
Dammit, Italian Disney stories are often suggested to those STARTING to learn Italian because they use a very standard and correct language!
I'd rather read that than a dull completely "faithful" translation.
A question remains: is the translation dull because the original story, therefore making THE STORY, and not the translation, dull, or because the translator wasn't really good? Because I do agree a good translator needs to be very competent in the target language, too.
About the Kingdom Heart picture: wording is a bit clunky, but without the original to compare it might perfectly be the best possible translation because it was clunky in the original, too.
Why the hell a translator not sufficiently fluent in the original language has been hired in first place?
Just fire whoever moron had this stupid idea, and stop using Torcivia (who, I'm sure, is otherwise absolutely competent and professional in his usual field of work) for Italian->English translations until he gets good enough to translate Italian by himself.
Dammit, Italian Disney stories are often suggested to those STARTING to learn Italian because they use a very standard and correct language!
Please calm down, sirtao. You're really crossing the line from critiquing to bullying.
As of several months into our run on these comics, our translations are reviewed by Italian Disney people for a satisfactory level of accuracy. They're not going to be exact, nor will they follow all of Italy's own local traditions—but neither do German translations; neither do many French translations, and so forth. The point is to be as respectfully close as most others are, not to be forced into a level of fidelity that other countries aren't.
For years the likes of Casty and Artibani have actively been telling us they like our versions of their stories. Even earlier, it was Scarpa's enthusiasm for our Gladstone versions of his work that led him to team up with me and (editor) Byron Erickson on the original story "History Re-Petes Itself." I'm not saying every step I ever took in a Scarpa "Americanization" was unimpeachable, by the way. Just that when a story's Italian writer likes our version, but YOU decide the Italian writer is going too easy on us, you may want to reconsider.
Above, you seem to imply that using anything other than standard and correct language in the comics is wrong—because that's what the Italian comics do. Yet I've had a lot of European Disney comics writers tell me that they wish their local comics allowed them to use casual language, dialect, and slang like ours do. Who's more "right" then; you or those European writers?
In another thread I notice you damning Don Rosa fans (and, presumably, others) for disrespecting Italian continuity, seemingly just because Italian continuity matters more in Italy:
[WAKing] on decades of tradition and stories for a Nobody from a country that produced very few stories (comparatively) whose stories most Topolino readers never read. And yes, I take the stand Rosa is a Nobody as far common Topolino readers are concerned.
It's totally fair to choose which continuity you personally like best, but it's not fair to get mad at us because you're not king—which I don't think is your intent, but it's how you're coming across.
I'd like to ask sirtao to not outright insult the comics staff here. I'd like to ask drakeborough to be a bit more sensible before outright saying this is an ego problem. Even if I agree with you that it can get frustrating sometimes to see the localisers focus on their work over the original comic, well, it's their work in the first place- I'd expect a blog of a colourist colouring old comics to also focus on the colours they made. I'd like to ask thadwell to stop considering any response to your work "bitching and nitpicking". I can understand you feel your work attacked, but you immediately went on the defensive in quite an aggressive way. As I said multiple times already, we're not your audience. The fact we don't like the localising process shouldn't be getting to you like this in the first place. I'd like to commend Ramapith for also being staff justifying the process, but doing so a lot more calmly and respectfully.
And overall I'd like to ask everyone to chill, as I'd rather not be put in the dumb position of as fan administrator of a forum having to give warnings to both fans and actual comic staff due to conduct in said fan forum.
I didn't say any response is nitpicking and bitching. I already commended igor for having a specific criticism, and especially Monkey_Feyerabend for his insightful analysis. I don't know what MF thinks of my work but I'm sure it would be better read/said than the poorly written fannish hypocrisy piling up here, even if I disagreed with him.
While most of you here are stewing and debating which characters to accept in "canon" [what a ridiculous concept for talking ducks], we'll take care of this insidious process of bringing the works of international creators to America in a manner that often has the approval of said creators. It seems many of you would prefer these comics staying in their country of origin, despite the fact that if it weren't for American cartoonists and writers, none of these characters would exist! How fun!
BTW, the Kingdom Hearts manga panel... If you played the actual video games, you'd know Donald never talks like that in them... And the fact that some of you think a word balloon with that verbiage coming out of Donald Duck's mouth is appropriate in any context speaks volumes...
I don't think anyone said it's appropriate. I don't think anyone said they'd prefer the comics stay in their country of origin. I think you're making a lot of assumptions on what people are saying, in order to be mad at them- strawmanning, if you will. If you can't find it within yourself to calm down on that regards, I'd suggest just ignoring this thread from now on.
I can understand you feel your work attacked, but you immediately went on the defensive in quite an aggressive way. As I said multiple times already, we're not your audience. The fact we don't like the localising process shouldn't be getting to you like this in the first place.
But who's "we," exactly? I think you mean "those of us who have voiced our objections," but how does it look from the outside?
This Disney comics forum is international, so includes the US and Canada where the IDW Disney comics are distributed. New readers are likely to join this forum now and then, and some have.
But if new readers come here and get the idea—which I think is inaccurate, but could be inferred from quite a few posts these past few days—that our translations/localizations are uniquely disrespectful to the originals, or are disliked by any sensible European, or are an unprecedented affront to important traditions, then it stands to unfairly hurt us. These people will walk back into larger US comics fandom spreading the word that we're failing at our job. I can't speak for what "gets to" Thad, but that worries me.
Newbie fans won't have any way of knowing that Fuchs and her team changed more than we do and were still (deservedly) beloved, or that many Euro-creators like our localizing process, or that there's a long tradition behind our choices.
So while I don't mind criticism, piling on us without a little context really does hurt. My team wouldn't be bringing European Disney comics over here if we didn't love and respect them.