Reflexões sobre aspectos gráficos e linguísticos em traduções de HQs a partir de "Batman: the killing joke"

Abstract

This research analyzes three translations of a North American Graphic Novel, Batman: The Killing Joke, into Portuguese. The contexts of production and publication are considered, without dissociating the comics from factors related to the time, the situation of the comic book publishing market and the conception of Graphic Novels as prestigious comics. The analysis of three translations published in Brazil at three different situations is done using Aubert's Translation Modalities (1998), which compares the translations and checks whether there was a divergence from the original material in English and whether there was a disparity between the translations of publishers in Brazil. The aim is to show if the concepts of comics, formatinho (common kind of format at that time) and Graphic Novels influenced the respective translations and art alterations in publications into Portuguese. Concepts about translation listed by Rota (2008), Zanettin (2008) and Nida (1964) are revisited. For the analysis of art, a classification was created that lists the alterations of graphic elements from different comics in various periods in Brazil. Although the influence of the media in the 80s gave greater prominence to the Graphic Novels, giving it a different value to that given to comics in general, Modalities that altered the text are among the most commonly found, making the translation furthest from the original and closest to the habits of editing and translating in formatinho. Three new Translation Modalities are found during the analysis and it appears that the Omission ends up altering the personalities of characters such as Joker and Barbara Gordon. The translations do not vary between each other, perhaps due to the acceptability of the Graphic Novels and the concept of good translation generated in the first version, though the material was not completely faithful to the original. During the analysis of the image of the Graphic Novels, some procedures that alter the art are found, regarding the modification of art in balloons and in inscribed texts that were sometimes translated, kept in English or erased are found. The Graphic Novel is compared to a formatinho edition (New Teen Titans 13), to indicate the art alteration in the first versions of Graphic Novels, being the most recent version more faithful to the original art. It can be seen that the art of the Graphic Novels is little changed, perhaps due to the good reception of the material and the change in the publication format, but the translation contained traces of Omissions, Modulations, Alterations and Additions, arising from the translation in formatinho, which are still maintained currently.