Wednesday, September 07, 2011

It actually is funny

Hey, check it out! You might remember me mentioning my favourite German funny-books, Nichtlustig - well, there's now an English translation on the internet, under the name Notfunny!

There are only a few of the earliest cartoons translated, but it's something at least. Although you might want to wait until the books come out in Britain, because the extended comic strips that don't appear on the internet are the best bits of all.

Translating Nichtlustig is something I've always wanted to try my hand at - it's not just a matter of looking it up in a dictionary, because every now and then you'll come across one that relies on "a brain" sounding like "unicorn" in the original German, and have to come up with a new joke to fit the picture. Whoever translated these has done a pretty good job, although the phrasing is occasionally a bit awkward and word-for-word from the German. And I personally would have left Herr Riebmann's name unchanged, because I think it suits him even in English. Why "Mr Hunswacker"?

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