Keskustelujen arkisto

I was delighted to see Don Markstein quote the wonderful passage from
"Fiddler on the Roof", where Tevye says both sides of an argument are right.
I often feel like Tevye. The one I agree with is the one who spoke last.

Take the case of Al Taliaferro and Ted Osborne. As we know, Don Rosa put a
tribute to them in a story of his. He did it in that particular story for a
distinct reason (to celebrate Huey, Dewey, and Louie), and for that reason
he wanted the names to be intact in reprints and translations of the story
all over the world. Of course, he is absolutely right.

Now, Joachim Stahl wrote an excellent posting in which he explained why the
names couldn't be used in the German translation. He also had a distinct
reason, and he is also absolutely right.

As mentioned previously, I had to make the corresponding decision for the
Swedish translation. In my heart, I'm very close to Don Rosa and the way he
feels about the Duck stories. The natural thing to me was to follow his
intentions, and I did. But in my mind, I have to think like Joachim Stahl
when doing my work. If I had read his posting immediately before I made my
own decision, who knows if I hadn't chosen his path?

We haven't heard from the Danish translator or editor, but we know that they
picked a third course: to use famous names from the Danish Duck history. I'm
sure that an intelligent case could be made for that decision as well. They
might tell me that they tried to keep the Ducko-historic intention intact in
a way the Danish readers could relate to. And I might say they were
absolutely right.

I don't regret my decision to use the original names. I'm a Donaldist at
heart, and I know that many of my friends appreciated those names in the
story. But I don't know what the rest of the hundreds of thousands of
readers think. They might be a little more confused than the German or
Danish readers. On the other hand, they might not care... in which case Don
and I are more absolutely right, perhaps, than our colleagues. But I don't
know that for sure.

By the way, this would be a perfect spot where an editor could put a short
historical notice somewhere else in the magazine, explaining the nephews'
anniversary, why Don did the story, and who Osborne and Taliaferro really
were. Did Egmont send out such an article to the publishers, or even a note
to the editors why this story appeared at this time? I don't recall seeing
anything in the Swedish magazine.

Hey, maybe one could even put in a footnote... uhh... Tevye! Come to my rescue!

"On the other hand....... NO! There IS no other hand!!!!"

Stefan Dios
Anatevka, Ukraine
Duckburg, Calisota
and Malmo, Sweden

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STEFAN, DON, JOACHIM:

So far three different ways of translating the names of Taliaferro and
Osborne have been suggested: 1) Literal translation - leaving the names
intact; 2) Localizing translation - changing the names from American
creators to local heroes (translator and editor); 3) Traditional
translation - changing the names to non-sense made-up names that fit the
local genre but offer no reference to any creators.

In Finland the first method was used. The ducks are extremely popular
around here, and I=92d say most of the readers of Aku Ankka would either
recognize the names or guess what they were there for (it was the HDL 60th
anniversary issue, after all). So that was a valid decision.

Yet, I was surprised they didn=92t do what they usually do when translating
comics. Perhaps it was because they seem to be afraid of changing
/anything/ in a Don Rosa comic nowadays (sometimes resulting in horrible
americanizations). The way it could=92ve been done was to change the names
slightly, so they=92d sound like Finnish names, but offer the reference to
the reader who=92d recognize it. Although "Talli Ahvero" and "Ossi Porne"
would sound (at least phonetically) like Finnish names, I assume even you
foreigners would recognize what they=92d mean...

Just my 2 cents... (Does the Tahler of the German Entenhausen change to
Euro in 2002?)

Mike - The Finnish Trekkie

PER-ERIK:

Re: Startofinis and Dongettuklos.

> They both sound Greenglish to me!

I believe the correct term is "Greeklish". :-)

Seriously, if the names do sound Greek to a non-Greek ear, then perhaps I
should not complain.

One interesting detail is that the first name is "Startofinis" and not
"Startofinish": had David left that "h", the name wouldn't sound Greek
at all, as there is no "sh" sound in Greek. In fact, many Greeks cannot
tell the difference between "s" and "sh", and this is one of the ways
you can tell that someone is Greek from the way they speak English.
(Others are the inability to pronounce long vowels and the softer
English "r".)

DIONYSIS:

> I know some of their names, particularly in that very old series
> Gelio kai Hara (Laugh And Joy) and how they evolved, or devolved, over
> time.

Since we seem to be the same age, I'm impressed that you have anything
more than a vague recollection from that series. Are you lucky enough
to have *kept* those comics you bought thirty years ago?

> I'll send you a list in a private e-mail. Speaking of private
> e-mails, have you received my mail of 3-4 days ago?

I'm afraid not.

> Oh. That page w/ the Greek Disney names and the pronunciation key is
> fantastic! Have you studied linguistics??? :)

Thanks for your kind comments. Actually, I've only studied computer
science. I do have a certain interest in the Greek language, however.
Older members of the list, whom I have occasionally bored with my
etymological descriptions, will testify to this. That pronunciation key
is actually an attempt by a bilingual person (in the sense that my
Greek is as poor as my English) to describe one of the languages he
speaks in terms of the other. Whether this attempt was successful or
not will be proved when someone comes to me and pronounces Grandma
Duck's (better still, Gyro's helper's) name correctly.

Kriton (e-mail: (Email removed))
(WWW: http://cti.gr/~kyrimis
-----
"We'll all become unpeople, undoing unthings untogether."
-----

OWEN:

MB>I TL 2174-1 (29-7-1997)
MB>Sfida a Topolinia
MB>(a story in which the letter "e" NEVER appears!)
>
>Wow! Is that as hard in Italian as in English?

Not as much. It is as hard as it would be in English to have a story without
the letter "a".
No letter is so common in Italian as "e" is in English!

>What a job for a translator to

hey! you did it! There's no "e" here!

>recapture that element of the story!

I think no translator would ever think of doing that...

> How long is that story, by the way?

20 pages, in three rows of two panels each.

>And another question comes to mind: Why was it written like that?

Well, there was a contest among readers: find out the "missing element". But
essentially I think it was a sort of "stunt" by the reader, the great
humour-minded Tito Faraci.

Marco

From Stefan Dios:
>>>We haven't heard from the Danish translator or editor, but we know that
they
picked a third course: to use famous names from the Danish Duck history. I'm
sure that an intelligent case could be made for that decision as well. They
might tell me that they tried to keep the Ducko-historic intention intact in
a way the Danish readers could relate to.

You're being too diplomatic and polite, methinks. While leaving the original
two creators' names in place (with perhaps a footnote) was the only correct
procedure, what with the whole idea for the tribute being the *publisher's*
and it not being just another of my selfish lil' in-jokes, the idea of
substituting charming-but-meaningless Fuch names can be defended if we have
one single catch-all level of regard for the entire readership..... but what
was done in Denmark is simply insulting to everyone. That mentioned
translator and editor had nothing to do with the creation or development of
any of the characters in that story much less HD&L, and had nothing to do
with helping me write and draw the story, so giving them a "Ducko-historic"
tributary mention could serve no logical purpose. Might as well have changed
my intended tribute to "Whitney" and "Edison" in order to honor the
inventors of the cotton gin and the electric light. It's a "tail wagging the
dog" idea that harks back to the decades during which these comics always
gave full credits to the editors and translators who prepared finished
stories for print, but always refused to give credits to the actual writers
and artists who created those stories from nothing more than electrical
sparklies in their beans, an era that good ol' Byron finally helped bring to
an overdue end, bless his heart.

Hi, only one note to Donald D. Markstein message about Detective
Casey. Hi, colleague (may I call you like this?)!
I'm quite sure you are the first one to use him in an
Egmont story. You write

> I was careful, by the way, to write him
> as if he's never been seen before, since as far as most
> Egmont readers are concerned, he hasn't.

Well, a courious thing which has become *normal* in the italian
stories is tha he wears MUSCHES (baffi). It's a mistake, obviously. A
cartoonist started to drew the "superior" part of his mouth " a' la
Joe Piper", like it were a very subtile line of "baffi" and other one
went after him. Maybe the first cartoonist to do it was Cavazzano.
So, when an old story is reprinted, he has'n, when a new one hits the
newsstands, he has.
Don't copy this IDEA OF MINE, but I feel necessary to write a story in
which this alternate looks of him is explained to readers; I'm not
kiddin'. It's an interesting case for him, isn'it?

What do you think about this weird situation? I ask it specially to
MARCO, PAOLO, DONALD... But everyone is welcom!
Luca Boschi
>

I recently just read, "Secret of the Incas" (D 96530) in USA 53-54. I must
comment that this is currently one of my favorite stories. I loved
Cavazzano's art. When i first opened the book, I just stared at the page,
thinking: "there's something wierd about the art her". In kind of reminded
me of ancient Greek and Egyptian wall art. In fact in reminded me so much
of it that I flipped foward in the book the book to see if it was some
ancient peoples' story about scrooge. When I found that it was not, I read
the story studying the art very carefuly. I realized that it is not any
simpler than Barks or Rosa. It was just diffrent. And, Cavazzaro seems to
have a great talent for showing expression, especially in Scrooge. I got a
kick out of going through every panel, and studying scrooges constantly
changing expression. By the time I got done with part two, I found I was a
fan of Cavazzaano having only read one story :-).

I searched though the DcD and I unfortunately couldnt find any other stories
(published in america) with art by Cavazzano. I was very disapointed. In
fact, I have a few doubles of Gold Key/Whitman US's. If any of the Italian
readers of ML have any extra Cazzaro books, I would be very interested in a
trade. Just so I can see more.

I was also impressed with Byron Erikson's story. It was really original.
(Of course ever since the first time I saw her I have been a fan of Brigitta
McBridge. She always fits well into scrooges personality. You know he
likes here, deep down -- just not as much as his money.

I also noticed that at one point in this story, one of the natives of a
forigien contry refers to Scrooge as a European, rather than an American. I
found this ironic with all the transation rights talk lately. I was
surprised that Gladstone didn't change it to American, as most European
translators would certainly do the opposite.

I aslo found this ironic: The Adventuros Uncle Scrooge Mcduck #2 (You know,
that LONG standing comic seres) the editor states: "Egmonts authors strive
for homogeneity and to a great extent they achieve it [with the eception of
Branca, Vicar]" (Note this quote loses a lot of context, you may want to go
read the whole article). Anyway, It looks like there is another European
artist we could add to the list of exceptions.

=-<Tristan

OWEN:
In the very
> last panel of the story, on the last page of the book, Van Horn's
signature in
> capital letters runs vertically up the far right panel border. (I expect
that
> you can practically see it from that vivid description.)

I wonder if that is written by Bill himself. I remember another story in
which the name of the artist appeared, Rosa's "War of the Wendigo". I
always thought that Don himself had put his name in the story, but it was
done by someone else at Egmont's.
Maybe they did the same thing with "Hail the Conquering Loser"? Actually,
Bill usually uses "WM VAN HORN", but maybe he made an exception in this
case. I don't know. Is the signature written in Bill's style?

TRISTAN:
> The Adventuros Uncle Scrooge Mcduck #2 (You know,
> that LONG standing comic seres) the editor states: "Egmonts authors
strive
> for homogeneity and to a great extent they achieve it [with the eception
of
> Branca, Vicar]" (Note this quote loses a lot of context, you may want to
go
> read the whole article).

First of all, that's not a quote! You have changed the sentence so much
that it has lost it's meaning. The foreword didn't have anything to do with
authors, and Vicar and Branca aren't authors--they're artists!
And when you put it like that, it sounds as if Geoff has a hard time
separating Rosa from other artists. Not much in that foreword is correct,
but what you wrote is even less correct.

Hope you'll get to see more of Cavazzano's work! He's a very good artist.
There are so many Italian artist with different styles, that I believe we
all have a little favourite lurking somewhere in Italy. Just have to find
him...

Best,
Per-Erik

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