Road Block in the Streets of Brussels

Abstract

This paper examines the translations of Hergé’s comic strip Quick & Flupke during the period 1940–1990. When Quick & Flupke was first published in a francophone Belgian newspaper in the 1930s, it portrayed the complex linguistic character of Brussels, where the adventures of the street boys are set. Hergé’s characters employed the type of linguistic code-switching between French and Dutch that was typical for the inhabitants of Brussels at the time. The original comic strip also contained cultural references to Brussels and Belgium. A comparative analysis of the first French version and the first Dutch translations of the comic, which appeared in Flemish newspapers in the 1940s, with the most recent Dutch and French translations from the 1990s reveals important changes in both the intralingual and interlingual translations. In particular, the analysis reveals how economic and cultural-political factors have led to the increased standardization of textual (and some pictorial) aspects of the comic strip which has made it less Belgian and more international. The paper demonstrates how different translations of the comic strip operate at the micro level as an indicator of the changes that have taken place in the linguistic and cultural identities of Belgians and Brusselers.