Keskustelujen arkisto

On Thursday, February 6, 2003, at 11:59 AM, Stefan Persson wrote:
>
> Could you please change your computer date setting to 2003? Your
> using 1970 messes up the message sorting in my e-mail client.

I have tried to do so and it seems to have worked. I'm very new to
this stuff, so I appreciate very much any correction/instruction you
have. Thanks

Helen Hamilton also answered my question as well as a a few others, so
I think this ducktalk system is fabulous.
Don Rosa and everybody, I'm impressed.
>
>
M. O'Benar

On Saturday, February 8, 2003, at 11:44 AM, Stefan Persson wrote:
>
> Yes, the date setting was corrected in your second mail.
>

cool! thanks.

This is the first e-mail I've gotten that actually was Instantaneous.

Perhaps you need to get out more? I'm leaving for lunch myself.

> bye
>
M. O'Benar

***************
Great! we are no more in the seventies? What I'll make now with my sideburns and my oxfords pants?
That's no groovy, master...

Disco Fabio

bonvolu postu al longtom at oeste.com.ar

Gilles:
>Indeed! makes me think that i'd love to work as the French translator
>of Disney stories. Do somebody know if it requires some special studies
>or graduations?

At least in Finland it depends. For pocket book translations there
apparently aren't any formal qualifications needed. The editors evaluate
translator's skills based on their work. If I remember correctly the editors
said on a chat (I can't check since the chat archive has been removed
from Aku Ankka's web pages) that their youngest translator is a specially
talented high school student.

For other publications there are other ways. I think I read from
somewhere that most of the Aku Ankka's stories are completely
translated by the editors. And for Rosa stories they use a Rosa
translations specialist, Jukka Lindfors.

So it might be worth it to give it a try: Translate some story and
send it the French editors. If you translate the numbers correctly
they might think you are a translative genius and let you translate
all the Rosa stories :-).

--
Ari Seppi (ari.seppi at iki.fi)
http://www.iki.fi/mani/

From: olaf at andebyonline.com
>>>This is not a (an?) unique French phenomenon. Happens all the time in
Norway. In "Gyro's first invention", they did actually not say that his shop
were 50 years old - but they didn't say that it was _one_ year old either. A
nephew says "it's his anniversary today" or something like that, but that is
all. No number of years is mentioned.

But that would be okay! If the Nephew is making an indefinite comment,
simply that "today is the anniversary", the reader can assume for himself
whether it's the first or third or fifth. That is implied. But for a
translator to be so careless of his job as to add "it's the 51st
anniversary" into the characters' dialogue just shows someone wasn't
bothering to think. The footnote was intended to give the historical
publication-date showing the anniversary which is being marked by the
appearance of the story.

>>>Still, blunders like the one mentioned above have been done alot here. I
remember that for Easter 2001, Donald Duck & Co made a magazine containing
"Land of the Pygmy Indians" and "War of the Wendigo". It also had an
additional article (by Erik H?rthe), and after explaining the excitement of
the Barks story, the article continues with "40 years later, Scrooge and his
nephews return to..." Same problem.

No, I again disagree. Erik (who is a Duck scholar and fan and friend) would
never make that blunder. I think he is clearly implying in an accompanying
text that a *story* appears "40 years later" in which the characters return,
not that the characters are returning 40 years later in their own
time-reality. Now, if the translator had placed into a Nephew's word balloon
"we were here 40 years ago", that would be a blunder akin to the one in that
French translation that made the Nephews at least 60-62 years old.

>>>However, the most moronic translation I have seen was a Dutch story
printed in Donald Duck & Co in 2001 or 2002. Unfortunately I don't remember
who wrote it, but in the story Scrooge tells Huey, Dewey and Louie stories
from his youth. In the first frame he shows them a coin, telling that "I
made this coin when I was digging for gold in Klondike". The nephews are
amazed: "Then it must be more than a hundred years old!"

Well, yeah, this is how I definitely am puzzled by anyone who dislikes my
idea of these stories taking place in the past. I don't mean that they
should prefer it themselves, but that they think it's not reasonable (since
it's the only reasonable idea that can include all old stories). There seems
to be only three options -- 1) My idea of using Barks' stories as a
foundation and having $crooge's history adhere to the fact that he was in
cattle wars in the 1880's and the Yukon Gold Rush in the late 1890's, etc.,
then saying that "current" stories are taking place in an indefinite "swirl"
of 1950's. This does not have to be stated in the story, but it can be
implied by circumstances for perceptive long-time readers, and still not get
in the way of the kiddies' enjoyment of the same story. 2) The equally
acceptable idea that current stories are taking place in 2003, but can then
*never* make any references to $crooge in the Yukon Gold Rush and so forth.
But the #3 idea is to have current stories that take place in 2003 and still
have $crooge refer to his adventures in the 19th Century -- this forces the
reader to put the stories into a fairy-tale Never-Never Land, and that takes
the power out of the characters... they are apparently immune to misfortune
or aging or injury... they would then have no more dramatic potential than
Daffy Duck or Goldilocks and the Three Bears. I would guess there are
readers who don't mind this because they don't want to think very hard about
what they are reading, and that's their right... I just don't think that
does Barks' characters much justice.

Reply-To: "Olivier" <mouse-ducks at wanadoo.fr>
>>>Here's what Huey (or is it Dewey? or Louie?) says:
"He's been an inventor for 51 years! I had almost forgotten!"

Yes, it's reckless for me to comment on people's reporting of dialogue that
I can't read myself. To have a Nephew say that Gyro has been an inventor for
51 years is not *quite* as bad as saying that he opened his shop 51 years
ago and then move on to the tale of how the Nephews witnessed the event when
they looked the same age as they do 51 years later. Perhaps Gyro started
inventing when he was born and he's 51 years old. I don't see him as so old
(as me!), but that's at least not absurd.

>>>I love the way (the Rosa way) everything ties in & fits together
perfectly and the logic of it all:
how Scrooge's money was salvaged, the creation of Helper (in several
stages), and the
side-references-- which this time are more than in-jokes and play an
important part. Lots of fun
too.

This story served as a 50th anniversary fest for not only Gyro, but also the
classic stories of "Shacktown" and the "Giant Coot Statue" and tie them all
together. But note (that is note it if the translation is done properly), I
could not give an exact footnote date for the story of the Coot statue,
because it did not originally appear in the chronological order with the
other original tales that I needed it to. So, as with my own tales, I
personally must consider that these stories were not originally published in
the correct chronological order. Just one of the little mental games I have
to make the stories fun to play with.

>>>So Gyro's full first name would be "Gregory", right? I had never thought
of it.

Neither had I. What are you talking about? Something else has been added in
translation?

From: <sigvald at duckburg.dk>
Subject: Picsoum Magazine su...
>>>>It's abviously true that less bright
people now has taken over the Picsou Magazine.

No, it's still the same editor who has done it for many years. He is trying
a new format, perhaps dictated by the Boss. You jump to such assumptions!

>>>The scan I just recieved of the upper half of
page 11 of "Gyro's First Invention" belongs
to the serial version of this story and not
the singe-part version as it normally would
have! The French readers and other Rosa-fans
are thus being cheated by these #?%& id*****

Cripes -- don't fly off the handle without knowing the facts! I am currently
trying to ascertain whether the fault is PICSOU's or Egmont's. PICSOU
requests the story and Egmont is *supposed* to send them BOTH versions. I
have been constantly guaranteed this is what Egmont does. But it would then
baffle science as to why editors constantly use the incorrect art if they
have both versions right in their mitts. It's happened in the last TWO
stories of mine published outside of Egmont -- this Gyro story in both
France and Italy, and my "Crown of the Crusader Kings" story in Italy. I'm
trying right now to find out whether or not Egmont supplied the proper art.

>>>So you're completely right Don, when you
complains that many publishers don't care a
damn about your work and about your fans!

Well... their first duty is to care about their OWN fans, not mine, but they
should therefore strive even harder to do a good job. But *again* don't make
it sound like I'm making the same sweeping condemnations as you imply. There
are individuals in certain publishers who fail at their job and spoil
various presentations, but their failure should not necessarily be blamed
on the entire company.

Hi!

Don Rosa:
>>>> Yes, it's reckless for me to comment on people's reporting of dialogue that
>>>> I can't read myself. To have a Nephew say that Gyro has been an inventor for
>>>> 51 years is not *quite* as bad as saying that he opened his shop 51 years
>>>> ago and then move on to the tale of how the Nephews witnessed the event when
>>>> they looked the same age as they do 51 years later. Perhaps Gyro started
>>>> inventing when he was born and he's 51 years old. I don't see him as so old
>>>> (as me!), but that's at least not absurd.

Darndarndarndarndarn!
MY mistake this time: the nephew does not say (in PM's translations) that "Gyro has been an inventor
for 51 years", but that "he has been inventing for a living for 51 years"!
Not a nice translation, but at least I'm not creating any more confusion.
I thought the exact same thing as you did, that saying he had been an inventor for 51 years would
have been okay-- then I thoroughly mixed up my thoughts and my translation.
My apologies.

>>>>>>>So Gyro's full first name would be "Gregory", right? I had never thought of it.

>>>> Neither had I. What are you talking about? Something else has been added in
>>>> translation?

Sorry, another foolish blunder on my part. But I have a good excuse, your honor:
p 3 panel 3, Fulton is talking about Gyro and pointing at a portrait of the inventor of the
"clearitatin' pills", his father, Ratchet Gearloose.
Now, I'm so used to reading Fulton & Ratchet's names in your stories * in English *, that when I
read the caption under the portrait, "Gr?goire Trouvetou", even though I recognized Ratchet in the
picture, I somehow associated the name with Gyro's-- certainly because of the alliteration (Gyro /
Gr?goire). Hence my comment.
Funny how the mind works and associates things, producing mistakes out things it clearly
identifies-- or rather, in the words of one famous Science Officer: "Fascinating".
My apologies again.

Conclusion: Gr?goire is Ratchet's name in this translation.
It's odd that they kept Fulton's name but changed Ratchet's.

Olivier

Gilles wrote:
>Indeed! makes me think that i'd love to work as the French translator
>of Disney stories. Do somebody know if it requires some special studies
>or graduations?

In Germany there's no special qualification needed. All you need is
"just" to be good at English and of course - at German.
When I asked Joachim Stahl from the "Micky Maus" weekly magazine a half year
ago about the qualifications a translator needs he made the offer that I
could make a test translation and finally got the job, although I'm
just twenty years old.

So if you'd really like to translate Disney comics you should get in
contact with the French editors.

But be warned: Only the long-time translators with some years of
experience may translate stories by Don Rosa, Daan Jippes, William van
Horn & Co. But even translating stories drawn by Studio Comicup is
much fun.

Greetings,
Arne.

Don Rosa wrote:

<But the #3 idea is to have current stories that take place in 2003 and still
have $crooge refer to his adventures in the 19th Century -- this forces the
reader to put the stories into a fairy-tale Never-Never Land, and that takes
the power out of the characters... they are apparently immune to misfortune
or aging or injury.>

How about a 4th. version: The ducks are mortal, but they live for a very long time, like some types of elves. Non-talking duck live for 7-10 years if they're lucky during hunting seasons. Maybe talking ducks live a lot longer. In any case, we can't automatically assume that they have the same life expectancy as real humans.

To me, $crooge was around in the 1890s. He was around in the 1950s when I was a kid, and he is still around today. This does not make him a less powerful character. He fears for his life just like the rest of us. He knows he can get killed or even succumb to illness. And Duckburg is not a fairy-tale land, but a 21st. century town. True, they drive old-fashioned cars and the men still wear hats, but that's just their way.

Isn't that the whole point of creating a fantasy world for yourself? You can have it both ways.

Nils from Norway