Picsou translations

[Francois Willot]

Fluks, H.W. wrote:

>> In France, they switched from the Franc to the
dollar
>> when the euro came. I am not a fanatic of
consistency
>> in the Duck universe, but in this case, IMO, it was
>> the best solution. It respects Barks' original
>> intentions (and even the whole production of
Italian
>> comics which always used the $).
>
> Barks' original intentions were that the comic
stories were published in an
> American comic, read once, and then destroyed.
>
> One can have two viewpoints:
> 1. Barks intended the Ducks to be in the USA;
> 2. Barks intended the Ducks to be in the country of
the reader.
>
> For Barks himself, 1 and 2 were the same. So in a
foreign translation,
> either viewpoint can be defended.

I'll rephrase what I said. I think we should not try
to imagine what Barks exactly thought (which we'll
never know) but focus on the comics themself. Like in
any author's work, these comics may contain elements
and ideas that Barks didn't even imagine or thought
of. 

I don't see any reason for changing the dollar symbol
to euro or any other currency. It seems like changing
the place of a novel of John Fante to a French city
because it could fit anywhere else or because Fante
said he does not mind about the exact place where his
story is set. Or that a Dutch translation of the
Misérables would change Paris to Amsterdam because for
Hugo it could be in any big city in the XIXth century.
No serious publisher would do that.

I think that in a translation, character names should
also be kept. That's why I said that if they use the
name "Goldie" instead of "Doretta Doremi", they should
also use "Scrooge" instead of Picsou. The original
names, the exact locations, currencies, etc. are not
important, but I don't see why they should be changed.

I have the following feeling:

Based on how you imagine Barks viewed his stories
(that the location of the story is anywhere, and that
the story time-line is the "present"), you try to
recreate these original ideas by changing elements of
the story so that they fit with your time-line (2000s)
and your location (Netherlands). 

I think this is a wrong approach!

First you don't know how Barks exactly viewed his
stories. The response will always be subjective.

Secondly, whatever Barks said about the stories, they
can not fit anywhere. There are no indian arrows to
find in Europe, there was no Gold Rush in 1849 etc. So
to make the story fit in the Netherlands, you'll have
to considerably change some stories and you'll end up
not making a translation but a second work based on
Carl Barks' original.

So the only way to "recreate" the feeling of the story
as Barks intended it is I think by making the most
faithful translation as possible (changing no name, no
location etc.) and have an idea of how was California
in the 40s and 50s (Barks' environment) was. This is
can be done with any other author's work.

>And now it seems the French Picsou editors are
changing the Barks stories so
>they look more like Rosa's stories. This is something
I would object to (if
>I were French). Don often said "if you don't like my
stories, just skip
>them. They don't change anything in the Barks
stories", but now this is not
>true anymore in France!

Picsou doesn't change Barks' stories. It is I think
the most faithful translation of these stories in
French. They don't make the stories fit Rosa's
universe either: the inconsistencies of Barks'
universe are kept (like the money bin created in
1951).

I think that the use of the Franc only showed the lack
of respect for Barks' stories that the editors never
considered as an artistic work, but as "material" they
could change to whatever was their wish. That of
course was their right, but today Barks is recognized
as one of the best comic artists ever and readers want
to read his stories, not a subjective, and often bad
"adaptation" by unknown writers.

  Francois



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