Should I translate my comic to english?

[Pulporila]

Yeah, visual gags are mostly the ones in Marisol's room. Though,as I said, they're almost purely mexican references. (El Ezquiel and La Mars poster, for example.) So I'll improve the dialogue to compensate for that.

[amortelito]

I made my comic in Spanish...until I realized that nobody was reading it. Yes, there are so many people eager for content in Spanish, but we lack a platform that makes it easier for us. Unless you are popular on social media I don't see any creators getting away with Spanish content.

I totally get the frustration of translations I mean how can you even translate "cholo" "cairo" and "nini" LOL. It doesn't have the same impact. But you can also keep some words and then explain the meaning in the comments or at the bottom of the page.

[Maps]

Maybe you guys can post on the forums what you’re trying to say (to the best of your translation) and English speakers can try to help you find a way to make the sayings less stiff?
Both the OP and your English are great, though, so maybe we won’t even be able to have anything to help with!
(My best friend is from Mexico and she always tries to translate certain Spanish jokes/inside jokes for me but she sometimes struggles to figure out how!)

[yansusu]

Maybe you guys can post on the forums what you’re trying to say (to the best of your translation) and English speakers can try to help you find a way to make the sayings less stiff?

That's a great idea for the future! Not just for the two of us but for other non-native speakers too.
I personally don't have that many problems anymore since I started to write directly in English. Before that, I was trying to stick too close to my original language so it often didn't work too well. Especially since I love making puns that won't work in English I'm still sad about my great (alright, even in German it was rather questionable ...) joke about the pig and the porcupine (for those who don't speak German: the word for "pig" ("Schwein") is part of the word for "porcupine" ("Stachelschwein"))

Something that helped (and still helps) me a lot and might be an idea for others struggling with some finer details of translating from their language to English or writing directly in English would be to visit a dedicated language forum.
For German/English there's leo.org that I am personally using a lot. It's mostly a dictionary but there are a lot of forum posts too with discussions by native speakers and language learners. They range from anything grammar related to cultural things, idioms and some very creative uses of language.
I'm sure there are similar forums for other languages so maybe people could look for one in their language. The percentage of people that speak your language + English might be a lot higher in such a forum than here in the Tapas one.

[Maps]

And even little footnotes may be helpful for instances with your German joke! Maybe you could use English up until you need those words, put them in as they are, and then add a footnote explaining the German relation between the two words.
In a ton of manga I’ve read, translators keep some of the original language and then they will describe the joke in a little footnote. I always found those super interesting and loved learning more about the language and the culture!

[yansusu]

I think it works really well for manga too but I'd say that is because it's Japanese both in a cultural and language-sense and people expect that kind of thing to happen. For stories such as mine (to reiterate: I'm a novelist, not a comic artist so the medium is a little different too), I'd think it'd be rather off-putting to have those footnotes in there because my native language would be on a completely different page than the stories since they're not set in Germany and don't really take the German culture as any kind of background either. It's quite different from the OP's case, actually, other than the translation trouble I had in the beginning.

I also think that it's a nice challenge to find a workaround. In the pig and porcupine case, for example, I put in several more puns to keep to the theme. It didn't work as perfectly as the one I would have been able to use if I wrote the story in German but I still think I did the best I could without having to rely on something outside of the story.

[Maps]

You make good points! Especially if your setting isn’t taking place in Germany, I can see how that would be a challenge.
I’m sure most of us English speakers appreciate the efforts all second-language English speakers put into their translations for us. I appreciate you all! (And I wish I knew another language our education system has failed me)!

[yansusu]

It's never too late to learn

[Maps]

Very true! I’ve taken Spanish, French, Japanese and have tried to self teach myself Korean but I retain about as much as plastic does on a rainy day.

[ericsalinas149]

I enjoy seeing my comics into other languages. It is only a novelty, as the bulk of my comic is already in English.

If it isn't too much effort, have a few pages translated and share side by side on social media. There might be a few who would like to see that.

[Pulporila]

Yup, happy to announce 5 episodes are now translated

[sheap]

Hi, I've noticed that, not only the OP, but, some other people, have some problems finding places to promote their spanish content, So, may I reccommend you give a try to faneo.es
Is a webcomic hosting site only in spanish, it is no as big as tapas of course, but, since all the community shares the same languaje it may be easier for you. It has an art section called snaps and a forum as well.
I hope this comment has been useful for you all.