” A village populated by irreducible Gauls still resists and always to the invader… “. This famous introductory sentence, which opened yet until 2019 all new albums of the adventures of Asterix, could apply to the United States, where the COMIC created by René Goscinny and Albert Uderzo is still struggling to impose itself. But the situation could change. As explained in the Washington Post, the publisher Papercutz, a New York-based offers since July 14, a new English translation much better suited to the american public.
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And it’s Joe Johnston, professor of French and author of many translations of COMICS and novels, who had the heavy task of transcribing the dialogues imaged and sometimes a little dated famous gauls. In order not to be influenced, it has never relied on translations of british and worked only from the comics, the original with the dialogues in French. Some of the jokes have been notably difficult to translate. “Their adventures are essentially stories on friendship. It is this that is interesting at the end, and this is what constitutes the magic potion that gives the strength and the success of this comic, ” explained Joe Johnston.
380 million copies sold in the world
To Terry Nantier, president and CEO Papercutz, this new translation should help ” make it (the series) as attractive as possible to a us audience. In comparison with the great success that it knows about in the world, here we have a lot of potential to explore.” Since its creation in 1959, Asterix has sold over 380 million copies and has been translated into 111 languages. The 38th album was released on October 24, 2019.
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in comparison, more than 220 million BD Tintin have passed in the world. Papercutz wants to believe that the translations available up to now from the Atlantic were the main obstacle to the explosion of sales. On 14 July, the date of the historic storming of the Bastille, has apparently not been chosen at random to launch this new assault, Asterix, Obelix and Idéfix in the direction of the United States.
writing will advise you
New album of Asterix : it is the chienlit among the Gauls !
