Publikation
New Readings
Special Issue: Comics and Translation
Stichtag: 10. November 2014

Since its rise to popularity in the early 20th century, comic literature has travelled extensively across linguistic and cultural borders. Many comic characters are part of a general cultural heritage that is not confined to any one language. Yet, the role of the translator and translation in facilitating comic literature’s mobility has been relatively little studied. This oversight may well stem from the traditional marginalisation of comics within the literary field, but it can also be linked to the particular circumstances in which many mainstream comics are produced. More often than not, comics are a team effort involving at least one graphic artist and one scriptwriter, or larger creative teams. In such circumstances, the traditional idea of individual authorship and responsibility is untenable from the outset, turning the translator into one of several collaborators in the production process. Lawrence Venuti has studied the translator’s invisibility, which goes hand in hand with a ‘practice of reading and evaluating’ that takes the translation for the original. This invisibility seems to apply even more markedly to the translation of comic literature, where there is a multimodal message. Here the message is only in part encoded linguistically and the visual mode is often taken to predominate over the textual mode, further reducing the translator’s visibility. This themed journal issue aims to expose the importance of translation in the history of comics.

Topics can include, but are not limited to:

• The comics translator’s (in)visibility
• Reading comics in translation
• The limits of translatability
• Translation and comics genre
• Dialect, sociolect and idiolect in comics translation
• Standards and conventions of comics translation
• Translating sound effects
• Translating images
• Software-based comics translation
• Spatial constraints in translating comics
• Translating comics adaptations of literary classics
• Reception of comics in translation
• The market for comics translation
• Case studies of comics translated between any of the following languages: English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese and Spanish

Contributions to the themed issue should reach New Readings by 10 November 2014.

Submission is through the journal’s online system and requires self-registration. Submissions must be prepared in accordance with the conventions of MLA style and be between 6,000 and 8,000 words long (including footnotes and a list of works cited). New Readings welcomes submissions in English, French, German, Italian, Portuguese and Spanish. Articles in languages other than English are considered for publication if the subject matter justifies the choice of language. If in doubt, and for all other queries, please contact the editors prior to submission: NewReadings@cardiff.ac.uk. For full submission details and a checklist, please see the journal’s webpage: http://ojs.cf.ac.uk/index.php/newreadings/about/submissions

At the same time, New Readings is inviting contributions to its general issues (no specific deadline).

http://ojs.cf.ac.uk/index.php/newreadings/announcement/view/2