Table Of ContentPALGRAVE STUDIES IN TRANSLATING AND INTERPRETING
SERIES EDITOR: MARGARET ROGERS
Rewriting
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PALGRAVE\438986_PSTI_
Asimakoulas\Asimakoulas\Links Humour in
Comic Books
Cultural Transfer and
Translation of Aristophanic
Adaptations
Dimitris Asimakoulas
Palgrave Studies in Translating and Interpreting
Series Editor
Margaret Rogers
School of Literature and Languages
University of Surrey
Guildford, UK
This series examines the crucial role which translation and interpreting in
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tion), in others it remains controversial for economic, political and social
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translation and interpreting with the aim not only of charting but also of
shaping the discipline with respect to contemporary practice and research.
More information about this series at
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Dimitris Asimakoulas
Rewriting Humour
in Comic Books
Cultural Transfer and Translation of
Aristophanic Adaptations
Dimitris Asimakoulas
University of Surrey
Guildford, UK
Palgrave Studies in Translating and Interpreting
ISBN 978-3-030-19526-7 ISBN 978-3-030-19527-4 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-19527-4
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2019
This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether
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To my family and in memory of my father, Spyros
Acknowledgements
I would like to express my thanks to copyright holders and creators of the
Aristophanic comic book series, Tasos Apostolides, Giorgos Akokalides,
Maria Ioanna Christoforidou and Nondas Papageorgiou, for kindly giv-
ing me permission to use multiple images in this monograph; a book on
comic art would not be as rich without such a generous gesture on their
part. My heartfelt thanks also go to interviewees—translators, publishers
and creators—all of whom volunteered their thoughts, encouraged lively
discussions and passionately conveyed their belief in the value of this
great medium of popular culture. Finally, I would like to thank Dr
Catherine Slater, who made the writing up of the book easier by helping
me with the English speech balloons for Frogs and Peace—and for follow-
ing up with first-class advice.
vii
Praise for Rewriting Humour in Comic Books
“Asimakoulas’s exciting new volume studies the rewritings by and of Aristophanes
that, by way of comic books, have morphed into multivocal and multimodal
reimaginings. His book discusses an unstoppable chain of creative reception,
which has further extended its original source of inspiration. It engages in origi-
nal and in-depth analysis but also offers a panoramic overview and humorous
takeaway. A must-read!”
—Gonda Van Steen, Koraes Chair of Modern Greek and Byzantine History,
Language and Literature, Department of Classics and Centre for Hellenic Studies,
King’s College London
“This book analyses, in an incisive and appealing way, three different translation
challenges and how they interact. All three deserve more attention in translation
studies. Translating classic literature, especially across long time-gaps, presents
big but interesting challenges, as does translating into comic/graphic-novel for-
mat, and translating humour is no less interesting. Here, Dimitris Asimakoulas
gives a fascinating exploration of how real-life translators successfully tackle such
complex challenges, and what this means for translation studies.”
—Francis Jones, Professor of Translation Studies, Newcastle University
“A theoretically rich and empirically rigorous study that sheds new light on pro-
cesses of rewriting and translation, the dynamics of mediation as they play out
in the highly challenging and influential genre of comics, and the modern
exploitation and reception of the work of a key author from ancient Greece:
Aristophanes. A must read for scholars of translation, comics, humour and
Greek Studies.”
—Mona Baker, Professor Emerita of Translation Studies, University of Manchester
and Director of the Baker Centre for Translation & Intercultural Studies, Jiao Tong
University, Shanghai
Notes on the Text
Preliminaries:
1. To prepare texts for discussion, I typed up originals/translations in
.DOC files; then I saved them in .XLSX files, tagging speech/thought
balloons or captions by title, page number and panel number, charac-
ter name, shape and size of frame. For example, [AC, 8c, D,
<ΚΟΙΤΑΞΤΕ ΤΟΥΣ> LS-PANOR, full-width] in my text preparation
file indicates that in Acharnians, on page 8 in the (left-to-right) third
panel of page 8, Dikaiopolis speaks in a long-shot panoramic, full-
width panel. In cited examples, I refer to perspective or length of
utterances when appropriate, but normally I only use a
title+panel(+language) notation: AC/8c_Greek.
2. Apart from the interview with Seçkin Erdi of Istos Publications, which
was conducted in English, all interviews were conducted in Greek, so
in-text citations of interviews are my own translations.
3. I use the term “comic book” generically (to also incorporate “graphic
novels”) being fully aware that labels are debateable among academics/
comic artists.
4. Greek proper names in English follow standard transliteration rules,
except when established usage dictates otherwise.
xi
Contents
1 Introduction 1
References 6
2 Rewriting 7
2.1 Th e Art of Rewriting Aristophanes 9
2.2 E stablishing the Rewriting Chain: Aristophanes in
Modern Greek 16
2.3 P ost-translation Multimodal Rewritings: Aristophanes for
Children (and Not Only) 22
2.4 P rofessionals: Creators and Publishers 30
2.5 P rofessionals: Translators 41
2.6 C onclusion 49
References 51
3 Transition to Comic Book Text: A Different Mode of
Engagement 55
3.1 W hat is Rewritten and How 56
3.2 A charnians 61
3.3 P eace 64
xiii
