Geek Syndicate Issue 5 | Page 33

Geek Syndicate
accessible top shelves–or not being sold at all–then the decision’s an easy one to make. Both from a financial point of view, and a cultural one: we’re not going to make much of anything available to anyone if we don’t sell titles. Erica: It would be a pity for individual readers to miss out on the quality of a book, for themselves of their children, because of some small point that’s objectionable to them– such as incidental nudity in a children’s title. That’s another reason to modify the books for readers from cultures other than the French.
Image © Cinebook, 2012

these stories (not having read any of them in French), I usually can’t tell when the dialogue or art has been altered (I might be able to guess!) and, in my opinion, it doesn’t detract from the enjoyment. I can understand the pointof-view of the purists (being a supporter of freedom of expression), but, equally, I’m just happy to be able to read the books. To what degree is a translated comic the work of the original writer, and how much should rightfully be attributed to the translator? Jerome: We try, when we translate, to keep the overall tone of a text. Is it formal or street language? Is it full of accents and regional colloquialisms, or is it very neutral and universal? That’s not always easy to do, but we strive towards faithfulness. Beyond that, though... As I said, translation’s an art form. All those changes, all that tweaking... Even easy things can usually be translated in four or five different ways. The resulting text is going to be very different from one translator to another. When you read a title I’ve translated, you’re reading my words (with adjustments from Erica’s corrections, of course!). The meaning, the story, the personalities... they’re the author’s (or at least, they should be if I did my job properly), but the words are mine. And th