Keskustelujen arkisto

About the recent theme of accurate tranlations:

I understand perfectly the point of view of John Garvin, meaning he wants
his work to be transmited accurately, just as it was created. But I agree
with Stephan in the sense that I think the translator becomes part of the
work, as he/she provides the dialogues not only the language, but even the
sense it needs for the story to be fully understood and enjoyed in the
destination country.

This does not apologize the mistakes and bad traslations, of corse, but
instead the work of the translator as a 'second' scripter. I know there are
other points of view - it's a matter of opinions, I think.

As many of yours, I have got some stories translated in several languages,
and I must tell the huge difference I've seen sometimes in the same story
because of the translation: one very literal, very poor, just 'enough'...
and the other full of funny speech, rhyming words (untranslatable!), with a
lot more words than the necessary, just to enhance the speech... much better
even than the original one! I feel sorrow when I think about all the fun I'd
missed if not for the fantastic translations I've read.

>If I want to read a story by Rosa, Barks, Scrapa, whoever, I want to read
>their works, not the modified works of Stephan Dios.
Why not? I'm not a purist, I DO want to read Stephan Dios if he writes
dialogues (not only for the language) more undestandable for me! (I must say
it's just an example; actually I don't read swedish :-)

Though, I know it's hard to agree with free translations when you see things
like 'How dare you speak to me in that tone of voice, Gertrude!' :-)

Greetings,

Santiago.

Hi Juliet-
Unfortunately no one publishes Scrooge comics in the US anymore.
Gladstone still sells back issues. See:

http://brucehamilton.com/gladstone/

Sonia

Is anyone else planning to attend WonderCon this weekend?
I will be there and will hopefully be able to shake hands
with Don Rosa!

Drop me a personal e-mail at xephyr at jps.net if you are
planning to go. I was originally planning on Sunday, but
Saturday is looking better to me.

For more info on WonderCon see: http://wondercon.com/

Rich Bellacera

ANDERS CHRISTIAN:

> Don is the basis of two gags this april then. A fun person on the
> norwegian newsgroup with the subject comics fooled everyone.

Could you tell us more about this?

> But anyway, isn't it wish-thinking more than fooling? wouldn't it be
> great with a story done especially for Komix?

I understand that Komix is very tight with their budget: they don't want
to pay a certain list member (not me) the trivial amount he asked when
they suggested he write articles for them, they say they can't afford
to invite Don to Greece, and we all know how they use the internet as
one of the main sources of material for their articles. Thus, I wouldn't
have very high hopes about them commissioning such a story from Don.

> BTW Kriton you goofed on
> the K-code, that's reserved for Disney Studios in the 90'es, for some
> reason...

Ah, but the code was there to make vctims of my gag write about it,
so that I could point out the date of my posting. If they ever do
produce any stories, the code will probably start with something like
EL (Hellas) or GR (Greece). Given that they have several Disney comics
publications, it wouldn't make sense to have a different code for each
of their publications.

Regarding the gag, it was part of a larger gag that I thought last year
on April *2*. The idea was to suggest that the publisher of Komix had
obtained a license to print Disney comics in English, and that from April
onwards, there would be two different versions of Komix, one English
and one Greek. In their first issue they would have Don's "Malayalaya"
story, and as a backup one of the banned Gottfredson's stories. I figured
that by the time next April came, publication of Disney comics would have
resumed in the US, so I started planning on just the first part of the
gag, i.e., the fake story by Don. As it turned out, Disney Comics have
yet to resume publication in the US, but going ahead with my original
plan would have been too painful. Anyway, note how I slowly started
to take over the presentation of Komix, so that the fake presentation
would not come out of the blue. I started producing the scans, and got
in touch with Archontis so that we could arrange for him to integrate
my scans to his monthly posting. As it turned out, Archontis would be
moving to the US for a few months. In terms of the gag, this was even
better, as I could take over the presentations. Oh, and just in case
you are wondering, the gag was posted with Don's consent.

Some comments on the gag:
* I had Don provide only the script, as we more or less know what
he's working on, and there simply isn't any time left to account for
producing a full-fledged story about which he hadn't talked before. I
chose Vic Lockman as the artist, as his stories are the opposite of the
kind of stories that Don produces, and there had to be some absurdity
in the gag.
* The subtitle "all we had to do is ask" is addressed to Komix: if
they want Don to produce a story for them, they really only have to
ask--and pay him, of course!
* The subtitle "Carl Barks, internet searches and other stories of
inspiration" suggests a possible starting point for researching
material for doing a "Malayalaya" story. I once searched for
"Malayalaya", and instead of references to the Donald Duck story,
I got pointers to a company in India, whose headquarters are in
"Malayalaya Building". Who/what is Malayalaya, and why is there an
office building named after him/her/it?

Kriton (e-mail: kyrimis at cti.gr)
(WWW: http://dias.cti.gr/~kyrimis)
-----
"The problem with cheating Death is that he's a sore loser at the best
of times."
-----

I have 54 Disney / cartoon comics in excellent condition from 1959 to 1957
era. I am the origonal owner who just recently inheritted them from my mother
( who saved them ). I need some help in trying to find out their worth and
how I would go about selling them. Would appreciate any help available on
this. Sincerely,
Craig Bloxham
11220 Bent Pine Dr.
Ft. Myers, Fl 33913
e-mail:BloxhamFLA at aol.com

> From: Stefan Diös <pyas at swipnet.se>
> <<<<If I want
> >
> > to read a story by Rosa, Barks, Scrapa, whoever, I want to read their
works,
> > not
> > the modified works of Stephan Dios.
>
>
> Now you mention the greatest masters. It would be very rare that I'd take
upon
> myself to correct or improve upon such elite authors... although I'll
readily
> admit that I would try it whenever I saw necessary. Even for other
writers, I
> really don't change as much as it may sound from some of my overly pompous
> "mission statements". Ten or fifteen years ago I'd change a lot more than
I do
> now. (And then the Swedish editors would make further changes behind me.
Those
> poor writers of the 80's!)
Some parts of the stories that can't be translated well even by the most
seasoned "translating" men, am i allowed to say that kind of phrase? :-D
Well, again, some parts that can't be translated well are of course the
jokes and phrases. i've read Indonesian versions of Disney stories and found
that the translators sometimes can't translate the jokes or phrases well and
they decide to change the whole joke or dialogue line to make it better
received by local readers here. eg. in a US story (is it Horseradish story,
i forgot), there is a line that goes something like: i smell something fishy
here. Now in my country something fishy actually means smell like fish.
While in US language something fishy can be smell like a fish and something
suspicious. But the translators here decide to go on and therefore make the
meaning that the Beagle Boys smells fish aromas from Uncle Scrooge body and
not suspicious.
i'm not favoring anyone here but all i'm saying is translating stories is a
very different job. Trying to keep the writer's exact meaning can be
troublesome. Most stories i read in my country's language, some of the
dialogues have been changed due to the untranslatable phrases and in-jokes.

Best,
Arie Fachrisal who sometimes don't understand the jokes even when reading in
the original English language :-)

On Brazilian "History of Computer" stories:

> There is one story like that published in Holland. Story code is B 840098.
> It's 45 pages, plus one introductory page.
> It's a Ludwig Von Drake story, and all kinds of robots and computers from
> various Disney stories appear in it. For instance the mechanical wizzard
> from Mickey Mouse four color #401.

This mechanical wizzard makes a "ting!" in my memory: Now I recall
a 1-page story/advertisement with no code titled "A hist?ria do
Computador" (1984), where LVD and GY talk briefly about computers
and then show a special magazine with same title (the little wizzard
appears on the cover). That's that. Thanks for the code. I don't have
this magazine, published here in December/84, but Fernando Ventura
told me he knows it and will check the story codes ASAP.

FRANCOIS:

I'd still like to know what is that Daisy story where she faces
mithological monsters that Francois has told us about.
I recall a 1976's Red Bat series, "Os 12 trabalhos do Morcego
Vermelho" (Red Bat's 12 works)

- Arthur.

Don Rosa:

>The other annoying change in that script, as I recall, was the closing gag.
(...)
>But the Disney version,
>and I now assume the Egmont version, had $crooge saying "What goes up must
>come down". Huh? Yeah, but so what? Huh?

I thought that this was a very good gag to end the story and of course gave
you the credit for it. And now the news that you not only didn't write it,
but don't even think that it's funny. :-)