Rewriting

[Frank Stajano]

Although I understand the practical constraints on time, budget and 
staff of a small publishing house...

Gary Leach wrote:
> Maybe not, but the English scripts that we wind up with for Scarpa's 
> stories haven't always measured up. I don't recollect offhand if he was 
> facile with English, but I remember a couple of stories of his back in 
> the Gladstone days that came to us with English scripts that read like 
> painfully literal translations. That approach can crush the life out of 
> a story, dialogue-wise. 

...I agree up to here...

> In cases like that it almost makes more sense to 
> write a whole fresh script just based on what can be perceived in the 
> art. (That's not something we actually ever did, but sometimes the 
> temptation was very strong. The same holds true today.)

...but not here.

Gemstone (and Gladstone before it) cares about the comics it publishes. 
It shows. Good.

If a careful publisher wants to publish a good story and receives a poor 
translation of it, the correct solution is not to reinvent some random 
new dialogue for it (particularly if written by someone who can't even 
read and appreciate the original story) but to commission a better 
*translation*.

Competent translators exist and would be much more appropriate for this 
job than self-important monoglot gag-men---though they might cost more.

-- 

   Frank Stajano     http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/users/fms27/