Woolseyism/Comic Books

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• European example: the characters' names in Asterix are puns. When translated from French to Spanish, these puns still worked fine, probably because French and Spanish are both Romance languages. However, these same puns often came out rather silly in English: the fisherman, in French, was called Ordralfabétix, from "ordre alphabétique" ("alphabetical order"); now imagine a fisherman called "Alphabeticalorderix". So, the translators created new names out of whole cloth, based on the characters' traits and flaws. For example, the fisherman was often blamed for selling stale fish, thus he was called Unhygienix. The chief was called Vitalstatistix because he had the "vital statistics" at hand, the bard was called Cacofonix because of his awful singing, and so on. One rather clever example: the name of Obelix's pet dog, Idéfix (from the idiomatic phrase idée fixe, meaning "fixed idea") was translated as Dogmatix.
  • Several of the English dubbed animated films called the fishmonger Fishtix and the Druid who creates the strength-potions called both Panoramix (his original French name) and Getafix (the name used in the English translations of the books).
  • In Asterix and the Big Fight, the original name of the pro-roman Gaulish chief is Aplusbégalix ("A + B = X" read aloud in French). The English translation changes it to Cassius Ceramix. Not only is this a pun on Muhammad Ali's former name Cassius Clay (appropriate since the titular fight is essentially a boxing match) but having a name ending in -us and another ending in -ix perfectly fits his nature as a collaborator.
    • Fridge Brilliance: Ceramics is clay after it has been molded and cooked from its raw form into something more orderly and idealized, much like the Romans are trying to do to the Gaulle villagers through assimilation.
  • Moreover, the narration is full of puns and sly allusions, many of which also didn't translate -- but the translators manage to keep the number of jokes per page pretty much unchanged.
  • Sometimes the translators even one-up the originals: in Finland, the Asterix book Asterix and the Normans was translated as 'Asterix and the Landing of the Normans, an obvious, but still very functional pun on the landing of Normandy.
  • In Turkish, it's taken a step further. For example, the Egyptian architect has an accent for a minority that's known in Turkey for being architects, even though the rest of the Egyptians speak nothing like that.
  • Sometimes the translators will even change the drawings. For exemple, in "Asterix in Switzerland", Asterix, Obelix and Idefix/Dogmatix break a wheel on their chariot and must have it repaired; in the original French version, the gaul man at the gaul stand-in for a gas station was also the mascot of a chain of gas stations called "Antar". In several translations, including the original English translations, the character was changed to Bibendum (the Michelin man). The dialog was also altered to include a reference to his weight. Interestingly, other editions of the English translation revert the drawing change but kept the dialog, which made the weight joke misplaced. Other examples of changing the drawing includes, notably, changing the strips in an Egyptian newspaper in Asterix and Cleopatra from French ones ("Chéris-Bibis") to "Pnuts" and "Ptarzan".
  • The Dutch version has some name changes, but mostly retains the French element, since French is a mandatory subject at secondary schools for at least 2 years (except at the very lowest level) most people will understand the jokes. There is one exception, when flying over Tyrus on the magic carpet and getting shot a box is added to one of the panels explaining the relation to "Tyr" (Tyrus) and "tire" (to shoot) which are both pronounced the same in French.
  • When Obelix sings French patriotic songs with the words altered, they changed them to English WWII patriotic songs with the lyrics altered ("There'll always be a Gaaaaauuuullll..."), but somehow still kept the meter.
  • The Swedish translations are usually excellent, often with puns and clever references to Latin and Greek that do not work in any other language. Some requires a lot of pondering even by the well-educated reader.
    • There was a segment in Asterix the Gaul in which four consecutive puns on hair were needed for the panels to make any sense. They pulled off every which one stupendously in Swedish. The same four panels were translated to Polish with similar ingenuity.
  • There was one line in the English translation of Asterix in Britain that Goscinny allegedly liked so much he said he wished it was in the original. The original was a play on the French word for a bowler hat being the same as the word for melon, a pun which simply doesn't exist in English. The translators replaced it with:

Shopkeeper: Oh, so this melon's bad, is it? Customer: Rather, old fruit.

• • It's worth pointing out that the original series is not about having Bilingual Bonuses when it's appropriate. Hence, the British rebel village chief is called Zebigboss.
    • The writer Goscinny loved using those in any series he wrote, notably with evil vizier Iznogud whose name is the literal phrase "He's no good" which nobody ever seems to notice because the characters all speak French. Maybe that's why the Calif never notices that his vizier is constantly out to usurp him.
  • Of course, who could forget the Italian translation of the catch phrase "Those Romans are crazy!" ("Ils sont fous ces romains!"), which came out as "Sono pazzi questi Romani" (a literal translation). Its initials refer to the Roman government, Senatus Populusque Romanus ("The Senate and People of Rome").
• One of the comic magazines in Poland - "Komiks Gigant" (which is exclusive to Poland) - contains Disney Comics which, on occasion, are truly masterfully translated, with lots of puns and Shout Outs added in.
  • Ditto on the Finnish version of Walt Disney's Comics & Stories, which is often superior to the originals.
  • In the 1950s the Swedish publisher used one specific translator team for all Donald Duck stories and the members coined a lot of funny neologisms that gradually have become an accepted part of the vernacular.
• The popular Belgian Tintin comic books by Herge feature a pair of bumbling twin detectives named Dupont and Dupond in the original French language version, pronounced the same way. In adapting Herge's work for foreign audiences, translators usually rename the detectives, giving them names that sound the same in the language they're speaking but that are spelled differently. The English version, as just one example, calls the less-than-competent detectives Thompson ("with a 'P', as in 'Psychology'") and Thomson ("without a 'P', as in 'Venezuela'"), keeping Herge's original intent.
  • Other language examples include the Dutch Janssen and Jansen, the German Schultze and Schulze (in German, "lz" makes an audible plosive, just like "ltz"), the Icelandic Skapti and Skafti, the Spanish Hernandez and Fernandez...
  • Most of the other names were changed as well, and there are whole websites listing the names of the main cast in various languages. Even the title character's name is changed frequently, most notably to the rather bland-sounding "Tim" in German and the completely different "Kuifje" in Dutch, which means something like 'quiffy'. Also, in French his name is pronounced more like 'Tantan' than 'Tintin'. The dog's name is also prone to change, going from Milou in the French to, for example, Snowy in English, Bobbie in Dutch, and Struppi in German. Finally, Professeur Tournesol became Professor Calculus because "Professor Sunflower", the literal translation of his name, would have sounded a bit silly in English (not so in other languages, though, and he's called Zonnebloem in Dutch, for example).
  • The Tintin books, like their rival Asterix, are also famous for a lot of punning, especially when the fairly deaf Professor enters the scene, and the translators, at least into English, tend to be quite good at altering the text to make the things like rhyming work. They also have Tintin, in particular, using a lot of contemporary British turns-of-phrase, many of which have changed in meaning.
• One 80's issue of Spider-Man dealt with Spidey busting an arms trafficking ring, complete with an Anvilicious message about gun violence. The Brazilian translator chose to title that story A Cidade Apresenta Suas Armas (The City Presents Its Weapons), which also happened to be the first verse of a popular, then-recently released Brazilian rock song by band Paralamas do Sucesso. It fit amazingly well, possibly because the song had a similar anti-violence theme.

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