Translations of Jenny Everywhere and other comics

[Florian R. Guillon]

Hi everyone!

My name is Florian - as you might have guessed - and I'm a comic artist working for a fanzine named Forgotten Generation and to be published by Arcadia Graphic Studio. Apart from that, I'm also an unemployed translator who would like to get more experience to be put on my Curriculum Vitae - and more because I do like comics.

That's why I thought of translating comics into French for the Arcadia Graphic Studio association, but only from public domain and creative commons license. My goal is to make them available for free for the French audience on my website http://forgottengeneration.host56.com/accueil.php, I have no intention to make money with them.

So I'm asking you authors of comics - would you allow me to translate your comics into French?

Thanks for your answers, and see you later!

[fesworks]

Well, not that meny people come to these forums any more, but I can try to email some of the creators. Of course, I don't want to end up getting a ton of potential replies to you, that you become overwhelmed. Maybe of the older ones, I've not been able to contact tho. Hmmmm. Well, I'll put a tweet out, next chance I get. I'll start by asking a few authors at a time. If noone else replies here, I'll see to try and get a few people via email, at the very least.

[fesworks]

Re-reading your post, I must address the copyright. If you would do a translation of anyone's comic, it'd likely have to maintain the original copyright (versus "public domain and creative commons license" as you stated), and, of course, you'd be added to translation credit.

I don't think any of the comics i have on the site are public domain, and I'm not sure if any of the Creative Commons ones allow derivatives (but if they were, you should be able to follow the guidelines for that, easily).

But I'll send an email to a few people and see if I can direct them to this forum to talk with you more about the specifics.

EDIT:

In general, I'd want to say "yes" to everything, and make a complete French version of this website I mean, I don't technically have permission from everyone to have their work here, but only because I could not get a hold of them... but it was all previously online to begin with. And I am not making money off of their work anyway. I am pretty sure that merely translating any/all of the comics would be in issue. At least for the comics that are hosted on The Shifter Archive itself. Several are hosted elsewhere.

[Florian R. Guillon]

Thanks.

I already started translating Jane Drake from public domain, and as I saw the Jenny Everywhere stories in the Archives, I thought they would be interesting to translate too. In fact, I thought they were close to the "FG Spirit" as comics - art for art's sake, done  by heart and that stuff, to make it simple.

I don't want to make money on another's work, this is a free service for me to get more experience and for the artists to get more exposure.

[fesworks]

I'm going to go out on a limb and say that you should be able to translate:

http://lateshift.jennyeverywhere.net/
The Late Shift is a simple introductory comic to Jenny. That should be fine to translate and pass around. Both the comic and the extra text image below it. I would change the URL in the text image to www.TheShifterArchive.com or www.JennyEverywhere.net. And I;m not sure if Rob Cave's listed email is even current (I can check on that). Let me know if you do this one, and I'll find out stuff.

http://onthecouch.jennyeverywhere.net/
On The Couch is a short story, 6 pages I think. I know the guy that did it. As long as credits link back to The Shifter Archive, you should be fine in posting that elsewhere. I don't think the creator has a website any more, but if he does, I'll find it.

The same guy also did When Casting Calls, and I helped him set it up for printing:
http://casting.jennyeverywhere.net/
Now this is a full sized comic. So it could take some time.

Then there is my LEGO Brick webcomic, Jenny Everywhere and the Golden Key:
http://goldenkey.jennyeverywhere.net
This one is pretty long as well. If you do this one, you can put it anywhere, as long as links back to The Shifter Archive and www.FesWorks.com

Also, if you'd need help in comic lettering (like if you just do the translation itself, but maybe not the images?), I can easily lend myself to create the new images. Many speech balloons may be too small for a proper reading-sized translation, so they might need to be slightly re-drawn... not sure.

If you end up doing When Casting Calls, I may see if I can somehow get that to be a print version (possibly with On The Couch), but I'm not 100% sure on that. Just a thought. In any case,I'll be wanting all the translated images for back-up, but I'd be linking out to your site for the translated versions... or I could host the translated versions. Whatever works, really.

As far as the older story comics that are NOT hosted on the Shifter Archive, you can email those people (like John Meiers of My Bloody Valentine or Bacterial Lunarversity... or Nelson Evergreen of Names Not Down and Damn Fine Hostile Takeover), directly and ask them.

As far as the older story comics HOSTED on The Shifter Archive, as I said before, I don't technically have permission to host them (because I can't get a hold of most of them), so I take personal responsibility if there is fault for that. I can say that if the translated versions are hosted on The Shifter Archive, that may work better than you putting them on your own site. I don't even have ads on the comic content pages, I even I don't make money off of hosting them (though I may be adding more comic ads to the info pages in the future).

But again, I *honestly* don't think that anyone who did those older comics (Names Not Down through By The Book) would have a problem with it. But the four I mentioned above, should be fine. But check with those linked-out people, because they should have emails on their sites, and you can say I told you to ask (if you do). So there's lotsa options for you.

[Florian R. Guillon]

Sorry I didn't come back before, I was setting the printing of my fanzine and finishing the lettering of Jane Drake.

Thanks for your answer, that's really helpful! I'll download these stories and see how to contact the creators in case.

As for the lettering, I do it myself - as I'm a translator, I can adapt the texts in the balloons.

Thanks again.

[fesworks]

Alrighty.

[Florian R. Guillon]

I've translated the Late Shift and On The Couch episodes. It wasn't that easy as there many puns virtually impossible to translate in French, but I managed to do the 6 pages this morning. Now I'll upload them to the blog and send the link here.

[Florian R. Guillon]

And here it is: http://forgottengeneration-news.blogspot.com/2011/03/bd-bonus-online-2-jenny-everywhere.html

I hope I didn't forget anything.

[fesworks]

Cool! I tweeted about it, and will include links once I get the new site going Thanks!

[Florian R. Guillon]

Thank YOU! I enjoyed this translating, although I won't go on for now - and for several reasons.

First, I'm waiting for my readers' comments to see what I should translate next. Second, I need to get in touch with other authors who worked on JE so I could be allowed to translate more of them. And third but not least, my fanzine is on the final step of printing, which means I'll have to get back to work on my own comics - one called Dark Fates for my Forgotten Generation fanzine, the other for another fanzine called 2016.

Thanks for your help!