Comics and culture differences

[globuline]

Hi all,

I'm the author of A frog's life, and I have been doing this comic in 2 languages : French first (my mother tongue) and then English. But when it comes to English, I realized that some strips are impossible to translate, mostly because the humor is very local. So I had to decide not to translate some of my comic strips because people might not understand, wouldn't find it funny or even possibly offensive. And even though, @Chuckles nicely hinted on my last strip that some things were obvious for some and not for others.

Considering that the Tapastic community comes from all over the world, do you guys have the same thinking process when creating a new comic or do you just do what you like regardless of your audience? Do you try to reach a global or local community?

[L4213]

yup! when i draw my web Oh the Irony! i try to think of jokes the is relatable to a wide range of audiences, mostly english speaking. which is hard considering i live in the Philippines and the jokes here are heavily based on a cultural level. but when i do make comics with local jokes, i do try giving some context in the description to those who might not understand, Like this one

but i digress, when your making your comics and humor you should try to understand who your audience is and focus on them. being too broad will result in harder times in getting ideas for strips, at least in my experience. but it doesn't mean you can't make inside jokes in your comics, half the fun is making jokes that are funny to you, the other half is everyone else, so if you think what you made is funny and entertaining, chances are, there will be others too!

[IAMO]

Hey, hello.

I make my comic Nerdmigos in English and Spanish. Although the characters are Mexican, I always start with the English version because the humor is more in line to that language. But I have learned that a literal translation will never work for the Spanish version. In addition to that, I know that my comic is not for everybody. My approach is that it makes sense to me. So, I just need to adapt the story so that it makes sense in English and that it makes sense in Spanish, even if it means changing some words or even the punchline.

Cheers!

[UltHamBro]

I'm having a bit of trouble about this in my comic: not exactly a "cultural" difference, but a language difference.
In the original (Spanish language) version of the comic, two upcoming characters, who are American, are going to have trouble to be understood by the Spaniard main characters, because they speak English and very little Spanish. Now how do you adapt it to an English translation? Good question.

My guesses so far (since I don't want to change their American origin):
-Make them speak in an exaggerated American slang (which I'd need help with, to be fair).
-Have them speak American Spanish, which would mean changing them from English-speaking Americans to Hispanic Americans.
-Surpass the language barrier, so they all understand each other in the English translation (my least favourite, since it'd involve changing many things out of context).

[keii4ii]

Oh boy... My comic Heart of Keol was conceived with an English-speaking readership in mind, but then most of the characters speak in Korean, so I wound up making it in Korean first. Now I'm releasing it in English, and some of the upcoming scenes are going to be a hell to translate.

Puns, puns everywhere (the main character's name is a pun, for starters). And I can't turn them into English puns because the point is they're English words that sound pun-tastic to Koreans.

I'll figure out a way... or die trying. XD

Culture-wise, it's not too bad for me because the main character is an American being tossed into a foreign culture, so it's natural that he experiences a lot of unfamiliar things.

I might have to redraw a few panels here and there though, to modify his body language. For the Korean version, I had to go with body languages that would make sense to Korean readers despite the character being an American. But with the English release, I can make him One Hundred Percent American.

[Kisuki]

It's veeeeeeeeery hard for me to translate my comics to english (I'm brazilian). I mean, I can talk and write just fine, but translating the jokes is hard work.

I've realized after a while that would be more important to use a sentence with similar information than translating exactly the same way.

But there were some strips that would make no sense in english (referring to some movies or music), so I did not translate or upload to Tapastic...

[Alli]

Puns, puns everywhere (the main character's name is a pun, for starters). And I can't turn them into English puns because the point is they're English words that sound pun-tastic to Koreans.

I just caught up on your comic and I think you handle it rather well. A little translation note was all we needed. I noticed when reading manga that I would prefer to understand the original joke rather than have it localized to something American. It doesn't always make sense in context when a joke is changed for a reason like that. A little annotation is all we need.

For OP, when writing a conversation in two languages, first establish what the main language is and then use <> for the secondary one. You can do this differently based on conversation, or you can do it uniformly throughout the series. Just leave a note somewhere for your readers to explain what this means.

[ryuabel]

Hi!
I feel the same. I'm uploading my comic Tlazohtlaliztli in English and Spanish. At first I post it in Spanish as it has many elements of Mexican prehispanic culture besides various idioms. And just a few days ago a friend helped me adapting the first chapter in English.

Here is in Spanish if anyone here like to read it

[UltHamBro]

Why don't you use the translation tool? That way, you wouldn't have to keep both versions as separate comics.

[ryuabel]

because I don't know how it works that option and want to see the number of users who care about each comic separately
; w;

[Laredcarpette]

Ah yes ! Puns.... my webcomic title is a pun, so are the name of the main characters. I spent a lot of time thinking of a way to translate it all... but it could not work on the names. An Irish friend helped me. Hopefully his English is very very good and he understand a bit of French, so he sometimes helps me with the translation.
=> The french title is "Univ'erre" from "univers" which means "universe" and "erre" means "wander". I translated "Wonderers" from "wanderers" and "wonders" because it is a world of lost wonders.
=> The name of my characters are "T'errance" and "Erre'nest" which are old french names. It is also a pun with "erre" because they are wanderers....

Today I met a special problem. I used in a fun way the word "négationnisme" which litterally means "holocaust denial". But I used it not as a reference do the holocaust but more like "denying something very obvious and important". I couldn't use the reference... and there is no reference to this anymore.

[UltHamBro]

I may be losing something, but why couldn't you use the word "negationism"?
I had only heard it once, but a quick Google search shows that it has similar connotations to its French counterpart.

[gateofselidor]

I work in translation and I've been thinking about translating my comic into Japanese for a while now. Luckily I don't have lots of jokes, and it's a fantasy setting, but a lot of things that sound fine in Japanese have to be heavily edited to sound natural in English and vice versa, so it would still be quite a challenge.

[Laredcarpette]

Yeah, but it doesn't seem to be so common. I'm afraid people won't get it, don't you think ?
Better no joke that a joke one gets wrong (especially with such sensitive subject).

[UltHamBro]

Yeah, you're right. It's more or less similar with the terms "black" / "person of color" / "African American". What doesn't sound racist at all in one language may be really offensive in another (and even between countries).