Speech Balloons Research Articles

Postmemory's Graphic Symptom: Disembodied Voice, Repetition Compulsion, and Working through Trauma in GB Tran's Vietnamerica

Postmemory's Graphic SymptomDisembodied Voice, Repetition Compulsion, and Working through Trauma in GB Tran's Vietnamerica Jin Lee (bio) In the graphic memoir Vietnamerica, GB Tran draws and narrates his family history, which revolves around the First Indochina and the Vietnam Wars. Growing up as a second-generation Vietnamese American, GB did not know much about his parents' Vietnam War experiences due to their silence on the topic (I will use GB Tran's first name to differentiate him from family members whose surnames are also Tran). Indeed, in Vietnamerica, Vietnam War survivors—and in particular GB's parents, Tri and Dzung—show neither negative emotions nor traumatic symptoms in spite of the tragic events in their lives. Although his parents display no obvious symptoms of trauma, scholars have discussed Vietnamerica as a work of postmemory, as coined by Marianne Hirsch to explain Art Spiegelman's relationship to his parents' traumatized memory of the Holocaust.1 Hirsch conceives of postmemory as belonging to second-generation war survivors, like GB, thereby presupposing a child adopting or accommodating a parent's trauma. In this article, I argue that despite the lack of traumatic symptoms, Vietnamerica does in a sense represent a work of postmemory, but not as heretofore discussed. Rather, trauma is not conveyed by the parents or their son but implied in a disembodied, haunting voice—in expressions or phrases that mysteriously return throughout the narrative and in contexts not ordinarily considered to be [End Page 67] traumatic flashbacks. I term this mode of communicating an instance of trauma a graphic symptom. More specifically, words associated with GB's parents are repeated in unusual contexts to signal trauma and to communicate that, at times, trauma is not obvious and is also more pervasive than might be expected. As such, a graphic symptom could conceivably be thought of as a flashback experience. As I discuss below, however, their words reappear in narration boxes or in quotation marks instead of in speech balloons, thereby becoming a disembodied, ghostly voice. While this mode of revealing trauma could be called many things, I call it a graphic symptom since its presentation underscores how graphic narratives can communicate in a complex manner. Pursuing graphic symptoms in Vietnamerica also reveals postmemory a more complex condition than heretofore discussed. After all, since his parents do not have obvious traumatic symptoms, the graphic symptoms appear only in GB's work of postmemory. To discuss graphic symptoms, I adapt Hirsch's observations concerning images in postmemory to explain why the disembodied voice recurs in the manner of repetitive compulsion, which she identifies as a particular symptom in trauma survivors, who repeat their traumatic events through reenactments, flashbacks, or dreams. I further rely on Cathy Caruth and Dori Laub to underscore the fact that it is not GB's parents but the graphic memoir itself that shows repetition compulsion. Thus, regardless of whether their trauma exists or not, Caruth's trauma work on textual symptoms legitimizes GB's working through the trauma on behalf of his parents. Likewise, Laub's work on an absence in witness' knowledge undergirds my observation on Vietnamerica's disembodied voice. This article thereby contributes to the literature on Vietnamerica, since the disembodied voice in the graphic memoir has not yet received scholarly attention.2 This article further contributes to the literature on postmemory since it articulates a theory of the graphic symptom, found not in trauma survivors but only in second-generation postmemory. For purposes of this article, I will focus on GB's father, on Tri's story, since he is a mysterious figure with an emotionless façade behind sunglasses and an influential character, less of a voice but more of a presence in the graphic memoir. [End Page 68] Postmemory As revealed later in the narrative, Tri had catastrophic experiences. He had been fatherless since the age of three, after GB's paternal grandfather, Huu Nghiep, left to aid North Vietnam. Suddenly single, GB's grandmother, Le Nhi, lived with a French colonel who eventually left her and his own son to protect her children from vengeful repercussions. And indeed, because the South Vietnamese government had been pursuing him, Huu Nghiep could...

The Big Bed by Bunmi Laditan

Reviewed by: The Big Bed by Bunmi Laditan Deborah Stevenson, Editor Laditan, Bunmi The Big Bed; illus. by Tom Knight. Farrar, 2018 [32p] ISBN 978-0-374-30123-1 $16.99 Reviewed from galleys R 5-7 yrs Fans of Laditan’s popular and hilarious Honest Toddler blog will be unsurprised to find that the protagonist of this picture book is a determined and opinionated toddler. The little girl sits her father down for a review of his behavior, acknowledging his value but pointing to one key area of nighttime dispute: “Who does Mommy belong to?” The tot is talking about space in the big parental bed, and she makes a comic case for her priority, with a brilliant solution of an adjacent camp bed for Daddy. Laditan’s arch and committed formality, punctuated with colloquialism for effective contrast, is supremely funny, and while the joke sometimes seems adult-aimed, kids will certainly snicker at Dad in his mother’s lap and guffaw at the extended pee joke. The digitally created art has a playful watercolor and pencil feel, with a design that makes humorous use of emphatic speech balloons and illustrative charts; our brown-skinned narrator has all the queenly self-possession of Lucy Van Pelt, her curly puffs giving her a jaunty authority that echoes the text. Parents and children alike will snicker at this new take on the bedtime book. Copyright © 2018 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois

Image, Text and Malaria: Creative Production of a Comic Book

The comics medium is a powerful tool for communication. It employs the language of both text and images. The placement, interrelationship and transition of panels, speech balloons, gutters, lines, script and picture plane are some of the elements that evoke a sense of time and place in comics. The success of comics as an effective medium depends on experiences common to both the creator and audience. In the light of this understanding of the language of comics, and theorisation regarding the ‘production’ of culture, this article analyses the creation procedure of a comic book made to communicate health messages among schoolchildren under a health project run by the directorate of Vector Borne Disease Control Programme in India. Designing Communications 2 2 Name changed. I have used pseudo names for all the private institutes and professionals. , a private agency contracted by the government for its public health programmes, became the site for this production process. The production involved various ‘actants’ 3 3 A. J. Greimas (1983) developed the actantial model where he talked about six actants or facets that define a narrative algorithm. These actants include the subject, the object, the sender, the receiver, the helper and the opponent. This model was further used by Bruno Latour and others in the development of actor–network theory (widely known as ANT) where the focus shifted from action to systems or networks. from the field. It was also constrained by the limits set by the ‘genre’, hence a specific art world. I call the production of such a comic book a ‘creative production’ because it involves a dynamic interplay between the artists’ creativity and the bureaucratic boundaries of the profession of advertising. Following Howard Becker’s idea that artistic production is collective, I describe the detailed contribution of major actors involved in the process of comic book production.

Manga Shakespeare and Cervantes: Trash or Reclamation?

This paper considers the merit of manga versions of Shakespeare's Hamlet and Cervantes' Don Quijote de la Mancha which employ the impressionistic techniques of the Japanese comic format to create new, dynamic texts. Such multimodal texts demand different verbal and visual skills to decode the synergy between word and image and elements like the page layout, the size and shape of images and speech balloons and the style of lettering. Far from debasing the cultural authority of the originals by blurring the boundaries between high and popular culture, these versions can be seen as an act of salvage of the original texts from the perceived difficulties of challenging language and content, reinvigorating them with a vibrant immediacy. By making demands on the imagination and intellect in exciting ways, they may also salvage the act of reading itself by encouraging a young or reluctant readership, as well as the already enthusiastic, to explore new ways of engaging with a text.

English

Students in the 21 st century are exposed to multimodal texts, which are texts with the combinations of the modes of prints, images, gestures and movements. Graphic novel is one of the examples of a multimodal text and this genre is introduced in the Language Arts module as part of the English language subject in the new Curriculum for Primary Schools in Malaysia. Hence, it is important that teachers should first be aware of how to make the most of multimodal texts before introducing their pupils to the strategies necessary for comprehending the text. However, without proper training on how to approach the genre, the teaching of graphic novels may pose difficulties for teachers in general and especially so for teacher trainees. This paper reports the findings of a survey conducted on teacher trainees to explore the challenges they faced in teaching graphic novels to primary schoolers. Results show that although the graphics succeeded to entice the pupils into reading the text, the teacher trainee felt that the graphics did not help their pupils in understanding the storyline. The pupils’ eagerness to go through the graphics has caused them to ignore the words in the speech balloons. Consequently this has led to incomprehensible input and misinterpretation of the content. Results from t hese preliminary findings can be used to further investigate the strategies good readers use to read and comprehend graphic novels, so that teacher trainee would be better prepared to utilise graphic novels in their English classes. Keywords: graphic novels; multimodal; teacher trainees; primary pupils; reading graphic novels

Black Bleeds and the Sites of a Trauma in GB Tran’s Vietnamerica

‘The gutter’ is the space between panels where panel transitions happen—readers fill in the blank space by connecting panels to make sense of the story. In GB Tran’s Vietnamerica (2010), however, black gutters become part of black ‘bleeds’ (pages congruent with single panels in them) to portray the sites of a trauma. This article argues that if bleeds, as Scott McCloud claims, can depict timeless space, they could also represent the sites of a trauma where the memory of the past is intervened by the future interpretation of the memory. In Vietnamerica, the panels in black in a waffle-iron grid are simultaneously black gutters and a black bleed, where reinterpretation of trauma takes place as speech balloons are later imposed on the same recurrent waffle-iron grid. While Cathy Caruth’s trauma theory helps read Tran’s black bleeds as the sites of a trauma, the latter also extends Caruth’s notion of ‘traumatic awakenings’ since the black bleeds as the sites of a trauma turn into the places of reconciliation and healing.

Plankton Is Pushy by Jonathan Fenske

Reviewed by: Plankton Is Pushy by Jonathan Fenske Melanie Kirkwood Fenske, Jonathan Plankton Is Pushy; written and illus. by Jonathan Fenske. Scholastic, 2017 [38p] ISBN 978-1-338-09896-9 $14.99 Reviewed from galleys R 3-5 yrs Plankton wishes to be greeted, or at least acknowledged by Mister Mussel, so he makes many attempts to get Mister Mussel's attention. He speaks loudly ("HELLO MISTER MUSSEL!"); he speaks slowly ("Hellooo … therrre … "); he even gives Mister Mussel suggested scripts ("'Hi!' or 'What's up, Plankton?'"), just in case "hello" isn't quite his style. After maintaining a stoic and unwavering face page after page, Mister Mussel suddenly shifts his eyes, signaling to alert viewers an impending plot development. With a large "SNAP!" Plankton is gobbled whole with a single word from Mister Mussel: "¡Delicioso!"—which satisfies the smug Plankton, who crows from inside the mussel, "I KNEW you could talk!" Listeners will be eager to see just how far Plankton can push Mister Mussel before something happens, and they will giggle not only at Plankton's dramatic personality but also at Mister Mussel as he carries out his unexpected master plan. It's not clear if Mr. Mussel's language preference played a role in his lack of response, but that's a point for audiences to discuss as they parse the details once they know what's coming. Vast oceanic frames are created from cool greens and blues, while use of bold lines and digital illustration fashions cartoon characters with emotive details. Streamlined text limited to speech balloons gives this appeal to early readers as well, and whether with others or alone, kids will want revisit this book, enjoying time and time again the surprise ending while also developing an attention to detail and the possibilities of interpretation. Copyright © 2017 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois

Exploring the Links Between Comics Translation and AVT

For a very young but steadily developing subfield of Translation Studies such as the translation of comics it seems only natural to look to other research areas within the discipline for inspiration and research methods. This is also one of the aims of the present article, which will attempt to point to certain similarities between comics translation and the subdiscipline of Translation Studies known as AVT (Audiovisual Translation) and the field of subtitling in particular. Both films and comic books are multimodal texts based on the interplay between the verbal and the visual. What is more, both films and comic books are primarily based on dialogue, which is nevertheless transcribed and communicated in writing in both subtitled films and translated comics. Text will, in both cases, usually appear in clearly specified areas, that is at the bottom of the screen (with some exceptions) in subtitled films, and in speech balloons (with some exceptions) in the case of comics. Furthermore, text may be condensed due to the existence of spatial and technical constraints, such as the limited number of characters that may appear at the bottom of the screen or the size of speech balloons and the type of the lettering employed in the case of comics. It is particularly the latter aspect, that is textual condensation related to both spatial constraints and the multimodal character of comics, that the article will focus on, investigating the first Polish translations of Calvin and Hobbes comic strips created by the American cartoonist Bill Watterson.

Death Is Stupid by Anastasia Higginbotham

Reviewed by: Death Is Stupid by Anastasia Higginbotham Deborah Stevenson, Editor Higginbotham, Anastasia Death Is Stupid. written and illus. by Anastasia Higginbotham. The Feminist Press, 2016 64p ISBN 978-155861-925-8 $16.95 R 6-10 yrs This original little overview of bereavement follows a young boy in the aftermath of his grandmother’s death. Main text counterpoints speech bubbles as the boy interrogates the rampant platitudes (“She’s in a better place.” “Would I be in a better place if I died?”; “She can rest.” “Why can’t she rest HERE with me and still be alive?”). The main text goes on to talk accessibly about responses to grief, grief for pets, and ways of remembering the dead while the boy negotiates his loss in art and dialogue, eventually finding joy in tending his grandmother’s garden and learning her recipes. The iconoclastic approach will draw in kids who are grieving but are frustrated by other people’s clichéd (though well intentioned) attempts at support. While the writing has occasional awkward moments, it walks solidly through key experiences of death and bereavement; the focus on the legitimacy of grief for a lost pet is particularly useful. There’s a theatrical component to the collage artwork, which blends drawn faces and fabric scraps to make our somberly dressed brown-skinned protagonist and then adds photo elements and speech balloons on cut paper; the effect is a robustness that’s a refreshing contrast to condolence-card gauziness. The book ends with a section focusing on activities, which provide useful outlets and library-vexing invitations to write and paste in the book. It’s useful to have a picture-book-age volume that approaches death with some grit and irreverence, and this is a solid advance on the familiar gentle tales of pet loss. [End Page 523] Copyright © 2016 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois

Translating Manga

WORLDLITERATURETODAY.ORG 7 photo :© 2015 frederik l . schodt I’VE TRANSLATED MANGA off and on for nearly forty years, and it is hard to imagine any translation process that has changed more radically in that time. In Japan, the term manga can mean singlepanel cartoons, newspaper comic strips, comic books, graphic novels, and occasionally animation. Yet most non-Japanese associate it with “comic books” or “graphic novels.” Niche translation experiments started in the 1970s, but in North America commercial ventures didn’t succeed until the late 1980s. In the beginning, few Americans had heard of manga, so “localizing” them was a challenge. Text in speech balloons, of course, had to be translated. But entire pages also had to be mirrored, or “flopped,” so they could be read in “Western” order, top left to bottom right. Early efforts deliberately chose male-oriented actionadventure and sci-fi stories, broke longer works into short episodes, printed them on American comic-book-size paper, professionally hand-lettered dialogue (instead of using printed text, as in Japan), censored some sections, and occasionally attached American-style covers drawn by US artists . Marvel’s 1988 version of Katsuhiro Ōtomo’s Akira even colorized pages to make normally monochrome manga look more like American comics. Words like futon, tatami, fusuma, and shoji required translators to add explanatory footnotes, incorporate explanations into the text, or blur the English. Japanese honorifics, denoting hierarchy, were eliminated. Many early translators also worked with “cotranslators ” or glorified editors who massaged prose into a uniquely American comic-book style. Manga is now big business in North America, and knowledge of manga and Japan among fans has increased exponentially . In the new millennium, publishers have largely stopped “flopping” pages to save money and to mollify Japanese artists and American ultrafans who crave “authenticity.” There is also a movement to refrain from translating “sound effects” as well as name suffixes like “-san,” “-sama,” “sempai,” and “sensei,” since experienced readers enjoy Japanese honorifics and hierarchy . Words like futon, tatami, and even “onii-sama” (older brother) are often left as-is. And one result is a weird hybrid of American “comic books” and “Japanese manga” because readers now turn pages and read panels in Japanese order (right to left), but read English text inside panels in English order (left to right). The role (and pay) of professional manga translators has also changed radically . Manga are now global, in a “good enough” Internet age. Groups of fans translate their favorite manga and, with the use of scanners and Photoshop, post them for free on the web in a piracy process called “scanlation.” Japanese publishers, late to address this issue, now sometimes release manga on the web with translated versions , nearly at the same time. Others have tried to co-opt the scanlation movement and utilize the low cost and speed of fan efforts. As someone who also works as an interpreter in high technology, I suspect that in another ten years or so professional translators will probably be largely eliminated from the actual translation process and function more as stylists, editors, and checkers. It’s a new world. Frederik L. Schodt (www.jai2.com) is a writer, translator, and conference interpreter based in San Francisco, California. In 2009 he was awarded the Order of the Rising Sun, Gold Rays with Rosette, for helping to introduce and promote Japanese contemporary popular culture in the United States of America. Schodt’s next project is a 900-plus-page translation of The Osamu Tezuka Story (Stonebridge Press, 2016). Notebook translator’s note Translating Manga by Frederik L. Schodt Schodt with manga legend Osamu Tezuka in 1981. above Manga translated by Schodt. ...

Translating Manga

WORLDLITERATURETODAY.ORG 7 photo :© 2015 frederik l . schodt I’VE TRANSLATED MANGA off and on for nearly forty years, and it is hard to imagine any translation process that has changed more radically in that time. In Japan, the term manga can mean singlepanel cartoons, newspaper comic strips, comic books, graphic novels, and occasionally animation. Yet most non-Japanese associate it with “comic books” or “graphic novels.” Niche translation experiments started in the 1970s, but in North America commercial ventures didn’t succeed until the late 1980s. In the beginning, few Americans had heard of manga, so “localizing” them was a challenge. Text in speech balloons, of course, had to be translated. But entire pages also had to be mirrored, or “flopped,” so they could be read in “Western” order, top left to bottom right. Early efforts deliberately chose male-oriented actionadventure and sci-fi stories, broke longer works into short episodes, printed them on American comic-book-size paper, professionally hand-lettered dialogue (instead of using printed text, as in Japan), censored some sections, and occasionally attached American-style covers drawn by US artists . Marvel’s 1988 version of Katsuhiro Ōtomo’s Akira even colorized pages to make normally monochrome manga look more like American comics. Words like futon, tatami, fusuma, and shoji required translators to add explanatory footnotes, incorporate explanations into the text, or blur the English. Japanese honorifics, denoting hierarchy, were eliminated. Many early translators also worked with “cotranslators ” or glorified editors who massaged prose into a uniquely American comic-book style. Manga is now big business in North America, and knowledge of manga and Japan among fans has increased exponentially . In the new millennium, publishers have largely stopped “flopping” pages to save money and to mollify Japanese artists and American ultrafans who crave “authenticity.” There is also a movement to refrain from translating “sound effects” as well as name suffixes like “-san,” “-sama,” “sempai,” and “sensei,” since experienced readers enjoy Japanese honorifics and hierarchy . Words like futon, tatami, and even “onii-sama” (older brother) are often left as-is. And one result is a weird hybrid of American “comic books” and “Japanese manga” because readers now turn pages and read panels in Japanese order (right to left), but read English text inside panels in English order (left to right). The role (and pay) of professional manga translators has also changed radically . Manga are now global, in a “good enough” Internet age. Groups of fans translate their favorite manga and, with the use of scanners and Photoshop, post them for free on the web in a piracy process called “scanlation.” Japanese publishers, late to address this issue, now sometimes release manga on the web with translated versions , nearly at the same time. Others have tried to co-opt the scanlation movement and utilize the low cost and speed of fan efforts. As someone who also works as an interpreter in high technology, I suspect that in another ten years or so professional translators will probably be largely eliminated from the actual translation process and function more as stylists, editors, and checkers. It’s a new world. Frederik L. Schodt (www.jai2.com) is a writer, translator, and conference interpreter based in San Francisco, California. In 2009 he was awarded the Order of the Rising Sun, Gold Rays with Rosette, for helping to introduce and promote Japanese contemporary popular culture in the United States of America. Schodt’s next project is a 900-plus-page translation of The Osamu Tezuka Story (Stonebridge Press, 2016). Notebook translator’s note Translating Manga by Frederik L. Schodt Schodt with manga legend Osamu Tezuka in 1981. above Manga translated by Schodt. ...

The Cranky Ballerina by Elise Gravel

Reviewed by: The Cranky Ballerina by Elise Gravel Deborah Stevenson, Editor Gravel, Elise The Cranky Ballerina; written and illus. by Elise Gravel. Tegen/ HarperCollins, 2016 [32p] ISBN 978-0-06-235124-1 $17.99 Reviewed from galleys R 5-8 yrs Picturebookland is full of devoted frilly girls in ballet shoes, but Ada hates everything to do with her Saturday ballet class. When Miss Pointy instructs Ada to pirouette, the result is havoc, and in the chaos Ada tumbles into the hallway, crashing into another teacher. Her victim turns out to be a karate teacher who thinks Ada’s antiballet moves are actually “great karate” and invites Ada to join his class, which is a much better fit for Ada. The plot logic is a little thin, but that’s okay; the point is comedically grumpy Ada’s mismatch with ballet and eventual finding of her niche. Gravel lays out humorously the kid who hates everything about what they’re stuck with (Ada loathes the day, the clothes, the car trip), so even ballet-loving kids will get the gist. Speech balloons offer Ada’s fellow students a chance to comment (“She stinks”), and more importantly give voice to Ada’s stuffed animal/sidekick, a chartreuse blob with bunny ears who functions as Greek chorus and cheering section. The art, Gravel’s usual limited palette with neo-retro tones of cherry, lime, and slate predominating, has both absurdity and solidity, and Ada’s disasters are satisfyingly, slapstickily disastrous, with sound effects and flying dancers pelting around the spread. This may spark ideas in audience members who are grumpily going through the motions of an activity they’d like to escape. Copyright © 2016 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois

The Long Dog by Eric Seltzer (review)

Reviewed by: The Long Dog by Eric Seltzer Deborah Stevenson, Editor Seltzer, Eric The Long Dog; written and illus. by Eric Seltzer. Scholastic, 2015 [32p] (Level 1 Readers) Paper ed. ISBN 978-0-545-74632-8 $3.99 Reviewed from galleys R* Gr. K-1 “Calling all dogs!” says this beginning reader/concept book, heralding a rhyming series of contrasting pups: “This is a hot dog. This is a cold dog./This is a young dog. This is an old dog.” Changing up the rhythm is the incremental reveal of a “long dog,” whose progress across the page is returned to after each stanza, and which sets up the playful close of “So long, dogs!” There’s some gender (and other) essentialism involved for the sake of contrast, but the tight structure, comic vignettes, and touch of wordplay lift this well above the usual beginning reader in its cleverness; the book also keeps its readership in mind with its careful patterning and helpful illustrative decoding hints. The art is simple but zesty: bumpy ink lines provide exaggerated, cartoonish draftsmanship, while planes of color and touches of pattern come from sweet watercolor tones, sometimes with a graininess that suggests colored pencil. The casual roundness and deep silliness to the pooches occasionally recalls James Marshall, and the climactic spread, which collects all the pups and features a multitude of different phrases for “goodbye” in speech balloons, provides an enjoyable callback and a bit of hunt-and-ID fun. Even non-dog fans will appreciate the exuberant contrasts, the jocular illustrations, and the chance to say a bunch of cheesy goodbyes. [End Page 111] Copyright © 2015 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois

Colors versus Shapes by M. Boldt

Boldt, Mike. Colors versus Shapes. New York: Harper Collins, 2014. Print.Mike Boldt, a local Alberta author/illustrator, creates a carefully scripted theatrical scene in which colours and shapes vie to be the main character or star in a new book hosted by the characters from his first book, 123 versus ABC. The interplay between the colours and shapes is witty, entertaining and educational. Mike Boldt presents the dialogue in colored speech balloons, which allows for a great read aloud experience for the young audience which it is intended. A further benefit of this fun picture book is the introduction and explanation of the mixing of colours and the difference of shapes. This feature makes this book an excellent tool for young students to learn how primary colors combine to make secondary and tertiary colors. Additionally, it enables students to discover the names of different 2D shapes as the shapes morph through the addition of sides. Bantering and competition heat things up until both groups learn that working together is much more productive than working apart. Children will enjoy exploring the final product of such creative collaboration.In all, Colors versus Shapes is a fun educational picture book, full of colourfully illustrated pages with the theme of friendship as a the final lesson to be learned. Highly recommended: 4 out of 4 stars.Reviewer: Kelly Maxwell

Optimized Comics-Based Storytelling for Temporal Image Sequences

We propose a system to transform any temporal image sequence into a comics-based presentation, as an effective and interesting storytelling manner. Three main components, including page allocation, layout selection, and speech balloon placement, are respectively formulated as optimization problems, and systematic approaches are proposed to find solutions. Page allocation is viewed as a labeling problem, and the best solution is determined by the genetic algorithm. Importance values of images and predefined layouts are both represented in vector forms, and the best layout is selected by finding the best match between vectors. Feasible solutions of speech balloons constitute a solution space, and the best solution that jointly describes the best locations of all balloons in a page is determined by the particle swarm optimization algorithm. Objective evaluation and subjective evaluation are designed from various perspectives to demonstrate effectiveness and superiority of the proposed system.

Comics and Translation: Introduction

Comics are extremely culturally mobile: since their rise to popularity in the early twentieth century, comics have travelled extensively and with increasing ease across linguistic and cultural borders. This themed issue of New Readings examines the translation practices that have facilitated this cultural mobility. Some comics characters are part of a cultural heritage that has never been confined to a specific language. Some comics have found their primary audience in a country or language that is not their makers’ own. For the disciplines of comics studies and translation studies, the prevalence of translated comics demands consideration of all the facets relevant to text-only translation, plus the unique facets raised by comics’ multimodality, the “co-deployment and interplay” (Zanfei 60) of language and images. Meaning in comics is created at the conjunction of written text, drawings and blank space, with the readers and the culture. Undertaking to translate that meaning can entail: rewriting text with no redrawing, rewriting text with partial redrawing, rewriting text with complete redrawing, or retaining the text with complete redrawing. Frequently, comics are produced by a creative team, involving at least one writer and one graphic artist but often larger teams, in which a translator becomes one of several collaborators in an industrial production process (Duncan, Smith and Levitz 268). As articles in this journal issue point out, Lawrence Venuti’s concept of the translator’s invisibility in the US-American context is instructive for comics translation globally, where the “practice of reading and evaluating” (1) has concealed the status of comics as translations. This invisibility seems to apply more markedly because “the combination of image and text in comics is contested ground from the point of view of definitions” (Postema 101). Translating comics affects, in principle, the entire repertoire of expressive means in both verbal and visual modes, as well as the ways in which they interact. Even the linguistic translation of comics has some distinct practical issues: spatial issues akin to those in subtitling, to do with fitting the new language into the extant text boxes and speech balloons. But modifying or replacing the drawn artwork can also be considered comics translation, if “All the ‘languages’ used by comics can be ‘translated’ within and/or between semiotic systems” (Zanettin, “Comics in Translation” 12). In a workflow where the decisions taken and tasks carried out involve a range of specialists, each focusing on a specific step in the translation process (widely understood), the linguistic translator may well be only one of several agents of a

Circle, Square, Moose by Kelly Bingham (review)

Reviewed by: Circle, Square, Moose by Kelly Bingham Deborah Stevenson, Editor Bingham, Kelly Circle, Square, Moose; illus. by Paul O. Zelinsky. Greenwillow, 2014 40 p Library ed. ISBN 978-0-06-229004-5 $18.89 Trade ed. ISBN 978-0-06-229003-8 $17.99 R 3–7 yrs Having mastered—or at least done battle with—the alphabet in Z Is for Moose (BCCB 4/12), Moose has returned now to dive into another concept book. Despite the narration’s firm reminder that “this is not an animal book. It is a shape book,” Moose’s zeal for participation (“I love shapes!”) can’t be quelled; as the bland text points out where you might find different shapes, Moose leaps in to chow down on the sandwich that is modeling a square. His zebra pal, the director from Z Is for Moose, volunteers to corral the miscreant, who’s running riot (along with his cat buddy) through square checkerboard scenes and lengths of curvy ribbon. When Zebra gets trapped in the ribbon, Moose uses a circle to make an escape hole into the dark sky, and he brings the book back on topic by plucking out a star (the final shape) and handing it to his “very good friend,” Zebra. Moose’s gleeful anarchy and his blatant disrespect for the cheerfully anodyne concept book again makes him an instant audience favorite, and the book effectively paces his mischief, allowing it to swell, rest, and then crescendo, for maximum impact. The mixed-media art is stylistically simple but deeply, thoughtfully clever in its balanced (and unbalanced) and carefully varied compositions, maximizing the ridiculousness of Moose’s frenetic capers and playing his robust speech balloons against the smooth sans serif of the official text. For those who can’t get enough of moosey hijinks, use this with its predecessor and with Morris’ This Is a Moose (BCCB 9/14). Copyright © 2014 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois

El Deafo by Cece Bell (review)

Reviewed by: El Deafo by Cece Bell April Spisak Bell, Cece El Deafo; written and illus. by Cece Bell. Amulet/Abrams, 2014 233p Trade ed. ISBN 978-1-4197-1020-9 $21.95 Paper ed. ISBN 978-1-4197-1217-3 $10.95 R Gr. 3-6 In this graphic novel based on the author’s own life, the protagonist, Cece, learns at four years old that she’s lost her hearing and acquires a hearing aid. As she grows, her life becomes a sequence of regular upgrades in hearing devices, an ongoing battle with finding the right mix of lip-reading, sign language, bluffing, and aid, and a parade of mostly well-intentioned friends who are way off the mark about how to be effective pals with a girl who just wants to be considered normal. The format is put to good use as pages of wordless panels and frequent empty speech balloons highlight how much Cece is missing, and massive letters crowd the illustrations each time a mishap with her supersensitive hearing aid means that auditory signals are coming through too loud. Cece is represented as a brightly colored, wide-eyed bunny, and while it isn’t clear why this is a rabbit-based world, the accessibly friendly illustrations match the informative, chipper tone of most of the graphic novel. While there is an occasional dip into exposition as the reader is given quick lessons on deaf culture or assumptions about individuals with hearing loss, those are readily balanced with sections of zippy superhero imaginings (Cece often pictures herself as El Deafo, an act that helps her be more courageous as herself) and humorous scenes about some unexpected things Cece can hear (leaving readers to wonder whether it is horrifying or hilarious to hear your teacher urinate). A substantial, engaging author’s note details Bell’s own hearing loss as a child and talks about deafness. Copyright © 2014 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois

웹툰에 나타난 특징적 말칸 연출에 대한 분석

웹툰에 나타난 특징적 말칸 연출에 대한 분석

Froodle by Antoinette Portis (review)

Reviewed by: Froodle by Antoinette Portis Jeannette Hulick Portis, Antoinette Froodle; written and illus. by Antoinette Portis. Porter/Roaring Brook, 2014 32p ISBN 978-1-59643-922-1 $16.99 R 4-6 yrs A group of birds stick to their typical sounds at the beginning of this book, with Crow saying “caw,” Dove calling “coo,” Cardinal chirping “chip,” and Little Brown Bird uttering “peep,” until the day that Little Brown Bird decides to verbally branch out. Her playful exclamation of “Froodle sproodle!” sends propriety-minded Crow into a tizzy. Little Brown Bird’s subsequent vocal creativity inspires Cardinal and Dove to join in the linguistic fun, while Crow is quite put out by this phonetic flight of fancy, and leaves in a huff—but doesn’t fly too far away. As the smaller birds continue their silliness (“‘Buppy,’ ‘Scruppy,’ ‘Huphup-’”), Crow creeps closer until even he contributes a “Wuppy!” From then on, all the neighborhood birds enjoy sharing in the linguistic lunacy, and even the local cat (“Shmoodle!”) and dog (“Skerpoodle!”) get into the act. The text, preponderantly dialogue in and out of speech balloons, has a goofy humor that makes this a readaloud bonanza, and kids will love both the silly wordplay and the smaller birds’ persistent flouting of the Crow’s authoritarianism. The story also provides plenty of opportunities for discussing word construction, phonics, and rhyme, and the format would lend itself to a readers theater or other performance. Portis’ artwork, digitally colored pencil, charcoal, and ink, keeps the visuals fairly simple, although some smudgy textures and careful shading add interest to the retro-toned pictures printed on matte paper. Thoughtful compositions draw attention to dramatic moments, such as the enormous word balloon that marks Little Brown Bird’s first comical outburst, or the looming (and not amused) black Crow as he dominates the responsive spread, pushing Little Brown Bird nearly off the page. Pair this with Thomas’ Rhyming Dust Bunnies (BCCB 1/09) for a goofily garrulous story session. Copyright © 2014 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois