An article on foreign variants by your American friend

[define999]

Hello friends! I have spent the last six months working on this article concerning foreign variants. I want you guys to know this is the first time it has been shown publicly…. I am not sure exactly which American forums I am going to present this article to yet but I wanted to share it with all of you here first.

 

I have been given a wonderful welcome here on the Greek Comic forums, and I appreciate the friendship and concern to make this forum hospitable for me! Breaking forum rules like switching to English when I am here, and other out of the way hospitality has just completely blown my mind.

 

So, please feel free to comment however you wish regarding my work and excuse me for my lack of translating ability…. As an American product of our educational system I regret the lack of concern in our schools for being multilingual or even bilingual.

 

Hunting foreign variants has made me a better person in the sense that I have been able to communicate with comic fans from all over the world during my "hunts", and I feel a more intuitive member of the global community because of this! Thank you……

 

Without further adu....

 

 

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Thank you for reading.... Define999

[x for xepeta]

wow...!

[Dark Chris]

Great article!

 

You could even send it to a big site like Bleeding Cool or Comics Alliance (no kidding).

[Uncle Scrooge McDuck]

Outstanding!!!! Next step is to write a book about foreign comic variants!!!!!!!!

[define999]

Wow, thanks for the response! Ya really think this thing could hold up to professional comics reporting? If so, thats awesome..... I was thinking about the book angle Uncle Scrooge..... but I think my next article is gonna be much more fun at the moment! I am going to write about specific "hunts" and specifically the trials and tribulations involved.... the Batman 227 hunt along with the Spawn 1 hunt being the ones dominating my time right now. Thanks to you gentlemen I now have a Spawn #1 Greek variant! Check out my page....... it lives with its other brethren in the Spawn 1 section!

http://comicbookcollection.webs.com/foriegnvariants.htm

[Tightwad]

Very nice article indeed.

 

I can't say that its subject intrigues me, however, but that is mostly because I'm a comic book reader rather than a collector. Due to that, the only critique I can only offer concerns the introduction of your article. The way it is written, I imagined that the rest of the article would be about non-American comics not quite 'crossing the pond'. An example of this is the general ignorance of the American comic book reader community concerning European comics such as Asterix, Lucky Luke,Tin Tin or even the works of Disney Italia. Well, Tin Tin appears to somewhat be crossing the pond, but I imagine that that is solely because of the recent movie.

 

So yeah, that might just be me, or you might want to consider reworking that first paragraph a wee bit. Other than that, the article is superbly written.

 

The only thing I can quite add is an element I think you might find interesting.

 

The consistency of the varience. For example, the character of Gladstone Gander has incorrectly been translated into greek comic books as "Γκαστώνε Γκάντερ" (pronounced Gah-sto-hne). Similiarly, the character of Jolly Jumper was mistranslated to "Dolly Jumper". On top of that, the sex of that particular horse was mistaken for female instead of male. Yes, the repercussions of that were rather weird. Another popular example is, the portrayal of Scrooge McDuck's Money Bin in German comics. While I hear that Uncle Scrooge comics are not quite as popular (As in, are not popular at all) as they used to be in the 1950s and 1960s in the States, I am sure that you are familiar with the general appearance of the Money Bin. Remember that enormous dollar sign? Well, it's replaced with "DD" which I assume originates from "Dagobert Duck", the quite peculiar translation of "Scrooge McDuck". Well, that certainly paints ol' Scroogey as a bit of a narcissist instead of an ultra-capitalist.

 

Here is an example:

 

The point that I'm trying to make here, is that not only does the varience -the often accidental varience- stay consistent throughout the lifetime of the particular comic series, it also evolves in the minds of the readers differently, and overall shapes an interely different universe. For example, I think you'll note that Greek readers of 'Lucky Luke' perceive the relationship of Luke and D/Jolly as that of a parody of an 'old married couple' (err, you know what I mean), rather than that of the more stereotypical two amigos (which passed on from Morris' earlier work) who make the lives of poor desperadoes miserable in a very Clint Eastwood-y way.

 

For more on the subject, I suggest that you compare the hair colour of various characters in different regions. Some publishing companies quite literally change it in order to make it closer to the standard hair colour for that region. Heh.

 

I am not particularly certain if all this pertains in any way to your subject or if you lost me at the moment I started talking about semi-anthropomorphic talking horses of questionable gender, but I do enjoy the rambling nonsense I am typing down right now.

Επεξεργασία Απριλίου 13, 2012 από Tightwad Duck

[define999]

Neat! I hadn’t thought of the introductory paragraph being misleading….. very interesting! Of course my main concern is the bias by Americans against foreign licensed material. Not original, locally produced foreign material… I think much of this has to do again with the lack of language ability among American collectors here in the states…. Comic titles that hail from foreign countries have no real market presence here….. its unfortunate but true. I was recently turned on to a online Greek comic http://www.oldcityblues.com/index.html by a Greek collector… it ‘s in English and I can read it! Its excellent and of high sci fi quality!

 

I think I need to make sure it is clear in the introductory paragraph that I mean foreign licensed American material…. I might be asking the reader to take to much of a leap? Thank you, great constructive criticism…

 

 

As far as the other translation problems… I think these issues directly lie in the cultural idiosyncrasies spectrum! How interesting and funny that Jolly Jumper was a female to the Greek reader? Freakin cool how this happened… miscommunication during translation can provide a really interesting social study I think! And Scrooge a narcissist instead of a capitalist! Great! Whole books could probably be written on this subject alone Tightwad…..

 

Scrooge and his family are probably some of the most loved Disney characters in America’s history. Unfortunately you are correct in the death of interest in them currently. It actually started long ago…. once the 60’s rolled around Marvel’s superheroes exploded on the American comics scene and many kids never looked back…. The old Disney characters though timeless have definitely fallen off the American comic reader’s radar. These Disney comic books have stayed on the radar of the American collector however somewhat longer because of the significance of these early issues. But, many of the older Disney collectors are dying out from age and not being replaced…..

 

Thank you Tightwad! I do find it very interesting all of this discussion…. Feel free to “keep dropping knowledge” sir!

[Tightwad]

Glad that you liked my critique!

 

Not quite sure if I agree with you completely on the reasons concerning the bias against foreign material. You'd expect that some publishing house would bother importing and translating European comics. And while that happens, I'm rather surprised about how limited it is. Oh well.

 

Honestly, I enjoyed Lucky Luke comics immensely more imagining that the whole concept is that of a cowboy travelling around the Arizonian prairies whilst constantly arguing with his mare, instead of a snarky stallion. As I said, the whole trope of the three two caballeros being best buddies partners and shooting up stuff all around the Wild West passed from the early period back when Morris wrote the script. The whole atmosphere was that of a Francobelgian spaghetti western. A... croissant western, I suppose?

 

When Goscinny took over, things took a turn for Lucky Luke rather becoming the ultimate parody of westerns. And I have to say, I quite enjoy that angle. I believe that that's when Jolly started getting...talkative, if you know what I mean.

 

Honestly, the gender confusion did lead to some awkward situations now and then. I can't imagine that two female horses flirting one another would have been a very good thing for the late 60s. Or maybe it was, because that's when the sexual revolution really moved to Greece. Pfft. Who knows. Yet another interesting area of social study pops up, it would seem. Moreover, it might juts be confirmation bias, but Jolly demonestrates quite a few feminine qualities. For Pete's sake, how insecure do you have to be to not want your rider look at you while you are taking a bath?

 

The most confusing thing is that according to even the original version of 'Kid Lucky', a prequel issue, the name 'Jolly Jumper' reminds a certain old timer of a showgirl he had met in New Orleans. A showgirl named 'Jolly Jumper'. Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy!

 

It really is a shame how low in popularity the Disney Ducks (and the Mice) have fallen in the States. Well, they did manage to let Indiana Jones steal some of their storyline elements prior to that, so it's all good, I suppose.

 

Gottfredson's Mickey Mouse of the '30s really was a portrayal of the small but honourable Depression-era American who took several punches from everyone bigger than him, but ended up returning some kicks in the end. Similarly, Donald Duck is in some ways a middle-class hero.

 

Now, what I find amazing about Uncle Scrooge is how fitting he was for the 50s, the time he arrived into the comic book world. Not only does he represent the values of correct economical management, hard work or honour that would have been extremelly likable by the reading crowd of that period, and yet at the same time he manages to trek around 90% of planet Earth seeking for adventure, all that while finding a perfect balance between childhood innocense and historical/cultural accuracy. That's something that the Ducktales version would have never been able to pull off.

 

More accurately, only Eisner-Winning Don Rosa manages to pull something similar in his Life and Times series, when he questions the American Dream, , a topic quite hot in the 90s, when the story was published. (Pages 22-24 over here, if you are interested.) Also, he burns down an African village and has a moral confrontantion with himself roughly 10 pages back in the same story.

 

I just now realize how off-topic my ramblings are, but heh, I hope you don't mind.

Επεξεργασία Απριλίου 14, 2012 από Tightwad Duck