The Off Topic Topic

[dist]

Yes, Uderzo died in 2020.

I wish the publishers would have the decency of letting the big comic series die instead of keeping them alive, like Spirou and Fantasio, Luky Luke and so many others. Arguably, as Syt mentioned, the late Uderzo Asterix were rather bad and the series could already have done without them.

I did enjoy some of Spirou not by Frankin, but it still irks me to see new albums being published almost 60 years after Frankin stopped. I'm sure the authors paid to continue these franchises could do their own thing and create their own world.

[Grey Fox]

I've read all of them and I still enjoy them all. I like sharing them with my son.

[frunk]

As with any physical books you get nowadays be careful of from where and what you are buying.  We bought a couple of Asterixes around Christmas and one of them was a more recent edition with what looked like a cheapo AI translation job.  Instead of the classic white background cover it was blue and had smaller dimensions.

[Sheilbh]

Especially as the English translations by Anthea Bell and Derek Hockridge are legendary as works of translation.

A famous example that AI will not get:


Both are playing on Gericault's The Raft of the Medusa, which the French text draws attention to through médusé - but that doesn't work in English as it would be translated as "dumbfounded". So instead we get "we've been framed, by Jericho!"

So you get the literal meaning that they've been duped or set up, but you still get the verbal reference to the painting from médusé translated into Gericault/Jericho (made clear with the caption "Ancient Gaulish artist".

The actual proper translations are so, so smart - and AI translation I think would not get changing every single word to make the gag. There are so many examples from all the books they worked on - Bell also translated Kafka and Sebald but I think her work on Asterix is genuinely considered some of the greatest translations into English.

[Josquius]

I'm bemused the pirates would do AI translations.
Surely it's easier just to copy the officials.

[frunk]

I'm bemused the pirates would do AI translations.
Surely it's easier just to copy the officials.

It's not clear to me that it was pirate.  It's possible the rights holders wanted to publish a version where they didn't have to pay for the original translation.

[dist]

Could you post a scan or two of that book? And check if there is any translator credits?

[frunk]

So I couldn't find it right now (it's likely buried somewhere in my daughter's room) but the publisher is Papercutz.  I appear to be wrong about motivation as apparently they are made for the "American market" with language changes to appeal more to Americans.  Here's an article on it.  I disagree with their assessment of it though.

But none of it ruins Asterix. It's still a great book, but this translation isn't meant for you or me.  It's meant for the next generation of readers.  If we want them to try Asterix, we need to cater to what they want.

[Syt]

I don't know how good/bad the translation was in Germany. However, Asterix bei den Goten taught me to read Fraktur at an early age.



Also, since audio cassettes of all kinds of stories were popular with kids in the 80s, Asterix also was adapted in that format, with quite well known German actors taking most roles (many of them had worked on the dubbing for the early animated movies). So often I would turn on the tape and read the comic along (which also added music & sound effects, obvs. ).

[Duque de Bragança]

What the Gauls could not understand was written in Fraktur i.e lettres gothique(s) in French. 

[Syt]

Well yeah, same in German. Of course it didn't work in the audio version. You can't "talk" Fraktur (Of course we don't call it "gothic" letters )

Addiotionally, the right-most panels have the explanation "Gallic swearwords that we won't translate." (top) and "Gothic swearwords. Here's the Gallic translation: " (bottom).

[dist]

Thanks for both.

That sequence of Asterix et les Goths is always as funny. And the bubbles by the Goths were always written in Fraktur, in French as well. That was always part of the humor of the series. Later note: started that message after Syt posted, but got interrupted. I'm not restarting now.

I don't know how good/bad the translation was in Germany.

Always wondered how well Asterix translated into other languages as some of the humor references French personalities and cultural references. Some that are nowadays also completely lost by the current generation of readers; they already were beginning to be foggy for me when I was a kid.

So I couldn't find it right now (it's likely buried somewhere in my daughter's room) but the publisher is Papercutz.  I appear to be wrong about motivation as apparently they are made for the "American market" with language changes to appeal more to Americans.  Here's an article on it.  I disagree with their assessment of it though.

I see. I'm always a bit doubtful about these dumbdowned versions. I have been reading The Famous Five to my daughter, as well as Matilda from Dahl, and though retranslated version of The Famous Five is easier for her to understand and follow, she adored Matilda. And she likely couldn't understand a third of the book. The words and tenses are more complicated, the sentence structure as well.

I understand the argument that such overly complicated language might turn off the young readers, but I devoured The Famous Five when I was a young reader, and afair the language was never that much complicated. If we don't assume kids can deal with complex language and give them exposure to it, they will likely be more reticent to approach it later in life.

[Josquius]

If you miss the golden age of the Internet where finding out stuff meant going to random websites by a guy obsessed with that thing....
Here's a search engine for that sort of thing. Cool

https://wiby.org/

[The Minsky Moment]

Never was exposed to Asterix as a kid, but I did read some of my Dad's old Tintin books from the 1940s. Some of them very politically incorrect by today's standards . . .

[mongers]

Never was exposed to Asterix as a kid, but I did read some of my Dad's old Tintin books from the 1940s. Some of them very politically incorrect by today's standards . . .

I think you got the short straw there.

IIRC even in the early 70s some of the Tintin content read as somewhat dubious, well to me at least.