Jap ambush! (Stefan)

Eta Beta eega at supereva.it
Tue Jan 30 13:34:37 CET 2001


Hi Stefan,

>"It's a Jap ambush! -- I see you, you little slant-eyed nips! I'll skewer
>you on my bayonet like mutton chops! -- Jump in the ocean and swim back to
>Japan!"
>
>When the story was published in Sweden in 1959, this belligerent dialog
>actually was translated more or less literally. I was involved in the
>reprint in 1988 and decided it was time to tone it down ever so slightly...
>
>What happened in other countries?

A fine, interesting research you got me into... :-)
I have seven publications of this story, starting from the original WDC 
#56,
and modifying the text through the different ages, a few countries and
degrees of political correctness or, simply, current taste...

In the 1949 italian translation, it's *gangsters* rather than Japs, but 
the
rest is translated literally, and it is a bit odd, figuring gangsters 
using
mine fields, hand-grenades and bayonets... :-)

While I cannot really be sure, it seems that a Dutch translation from
the mid-70s (Beste Verhalen #5) is similar, maintaining a nearly literal
reference to weapons and stuff, but not mentioning Japs either.

The "parallel" Italian album (PDO #5) maintains the 1949 translation,
except that *bandits* is used in place of *gangsters*.

The CBL (in color) text is not modified, while the pearl in this crop is
probably the italian translation from 1991 (ZP #21), where the dialogue
is completely rewritten, with mentions of *firecrackers* at a country
fair and an attack of robbers trying to steal Donna Carmela's (Hogan's)
delicacies...

To end with, the WDC #627 American edition maintains most of the original
text but the "Jap", "you little slant-eyed nips" and "back to Japan" bits,
the first is omitted, the others become "you little runts" and "back home"


Now, my opinions about maintaining the originality of an author's text
in both translations and reprints are well known to you, I'll only stress
again the bit about the readers being able to place things in perspective
by themselves, yes, kids too, and of the above renditions I'll only 
comment
the last two...

The WDC #627 adaptation is, at least, fair enough... there's no subject at
all to Donald's fury, just a generic "you" that some readers might be able
to identify anyway (given the story's date), while it wouldn't "harm"
anybody unaware there's ever been such thing as a World War, and it 
doesn't
"sidetrack" them into a situation entirely different, as in the ridiculous
Italian translation from ZP #21... I hope you will agree with me on this
single bit... :-)


Cheers

Eta Beta



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