Blogging with Windows Live Mail (Windows 7)and Mozilla Thunderbird (Linux)

Category: Techwriter

 

In light of recent news that Mozilla has stopped development of Thunderbird and Microsoft has expressed that some Windows Live products might not survive the transition to Windows 8, fans of both e-mail clients (including myself) might be somewhat disappointed by this not so coincidental turn of events. Thus, this article is not an unkind competition of blogging using Live Mail and Thunderbird but rather a quick look at the advantages of using both when e-mailing to a blog service.

 

Most users of Blogger.com probably use the online service's blogging platform directly to write and layout their articles. However, when you're overseas at a location that prevents access to Blogger (e.g. China), one workaround is to e-mail your blog post directly to the site - and there's no better way to do it than using Windows Live Mail in Windows and Mozilla Thunderbird in Linux.

 

No-nonsense Windows Live Mail

 

Windows Live Mail's familiar Microsoft-word user interface makes writing blogs fast and easy. Although there's a fairly well-known bug which causes Live Mail to crash when inserting images using the Insert menu, users can just open Windows Explorer and drag the image file to the document.

 

Thunderbird provides more options for bloggers when creating a hyperlink or inserting an image, but Windows Live Mail just lets you do it. Plus, if you clicked on the URL bar of your browser before inserting a hyperlink, the address is pasted automatically to the insert Hyperlink window.

 

 

Besides the normal formatting features found in most e-mail clients, Windows Live Mail seems to have a leg up in speed especially when sending a blog post to Blogger via your Hotmail/Live account. For some reason, although Thunderbird natively supports Gmail, Thunderbird occasionally has hiccups sending blog posts - the post gets there but Thunderbird takes awhile or just plain stops when attempting to save a copy to the drafts or sent folder (an important precaution for the serious blogger).

 

 

Some might be wondering why you should use Live Mail when Live Writer, a dedicated blogging tool from Windows Live, is available instead. Well, the short answer is that if your country is blocking Blogger.com, chances are a direct upload from Live Writer will also fail.

 

Options and options in Thunderbird

 

Live Mail is great if you're more focused on writing, but if you want a blog post with all the normal accouterments of a web page, switch to Thunderbird. Sure, you have to do a lot more work when inserting hyperlinks or images, but you're assured that everything will work well once the blog gets posted.

 

When inserting a hyperlink, Thunderbird prompts for the full URL (you have to type http://) while offering additional options for Javascript Events and HTML attributes.

 

 

When inserting images, Thunderbird reminds you to put an ALT text or tooltip, asks you if you want to attach the image to your e-mail (always!), and provides you plenty of options in terms of resizing or positioning the image not to mention creating a hyperlink to a different location.

 

 

Among many other features not found in Live Mail, Thunderbird also allows you to create a table of contents based on standard HTML styles.

 

Microsoft and Mozilla

 

Windows Live Mail and Thunderbird are two great e-mail clients for blogging. Live Mail is better at dashing off a quick missive to a loving audience, while Thunderbird is perfect for a carefully crafted article. Hopefully, Microsoft and Mozilla will retain some semblance of support for these applications despite the coming arrival of Windows 8 and Mozilla's plans for Firefox. As for me, I'll still be running both applications in my Windows and Linux boxes for some time to come.

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The Art of Spider-Man (circa 1970-1990s) Part 2

*In celebration of the 50th anniversary of Spider-Man and the release of the new Spider-Man movie, this blog will intermittently feature a month-long series of Spider-Man articles. The author was an unabashed fan of the web-swinger from the early 1980s and although gave up on the Marvel character in the mid-1990s, follows his adventures to this day. Prepare for some hardcore fanboy opinions!

**To check out covers, story titles, and credits to comic books mentioned in this article, visit Spiderfan.org, one of the oldest and most reliable Spider-Man sites on the Internet.

Spidey lays it into Thanos in Spider-Man #17 – art by Rick Leonardi

4. Erik Larsen (late 1980s to 1991 for Amazing Spider-Man and Spider-Man)

Erik Larsen had the unenviably task of following up Todd McFarlane's (#2) fantastic run on Amazing Spider-Man and Spider-Man (which at that time was the best-selling comic book until Jim Lee's X-Men #1 came along). Instead of aping McFarlane, Larsen approached Spidey his own way – resulting in one of my favorite Spider-Man renderings of all time. Dynamic, explosive, and evoking an eerie Steve Ditko vibe at times, Larsen took Spidey to another level, using his artistic license to often squeeze and tighten Spidey's eyeholes for added expression. Like McFarlane, his webbing was solid and impressive, and Spidey wasn't a pushover unless David Michelinie, his ASM writer, said so.

Although Larsen's art changed drastically after leaving ASM and SM and working on his Savage Dragon series, he remained my ideal and favorite Spider-Man artist for a long time especially when it came to loud and explosive panels and colorful guest stars.  With Michelinie at the helm, Larsen drew Venom's return (which was compiled in the Venom Returns Trade Paperback) and redefined the look of Spidey's slobbering foe. Larsen also contributed to the memorable Cosmic Spider-Man saga (ASM#327 against Magneto and #329 against the Tri-Sentinel) with many characters from the 80s such as Nathan Lubensky and Willie Lumpkin getting the Larsen treatment.

Peter and a very sexy MJ talk about having kids in SM#15

I have half a dozen favorite standalone issues of Erik Larsen and David Michelinie – #350 where Spidey is outclassed by Dr. Doom, #348 with a brilliant 90s Avengers team and a good guy Sandman (who Slott and company ruined as a character), and SM#15 where Beast advises Peter on having children.

Spidey ambushes the Sinister Six in "Revenge of the Sinister Six" – art by Erik Larsen (SM#19)

He drew some of the most action-packed 6-part storylines in all of the Spidey universe.  My personal favorites were Return of the Sinister Six, Powerless, (where Peter gave up his powers) and Revenge of the Sinister Six, where Larsen takes his art and writing to the extreme. Compared side-by-side and panel-by-panel with recent issues or any issue of ASM in the last few years, and you'd wonder why today's creative staff chose those artists.

5. John Romita Sr. (1970s-1980s)

John Romita is the legendary Spider-Man artist and his depiction of Peter Parker and his alter-ego defined what the character would look like for future generation of artists (Gil Kane, Romita Jr., Alex Saviuk, Sal Buscema all took their cues from him). His Spidey overshadowed the version penned by creator Steve Ditko. If you bought any marketing product of Spidey in the 70s to late 80s, chances are it was his version of Spider-Man that was used – from stickers to lunch boxes to posters. The Spider-Friends (1981)  and Spider-Man (1981) cartoons strictly adhered to his version of Peter Parker, Norman Osborn, Green Goblin, and Aunt May.

What else needs to be said about Romita? Unlike artists of today, his looming New York reflected the feel of the times with detailed architecture and a colorful Mad Men palette. He drew the seminal J.J.J., Joe Robertson, MJ, Captain Stacy, Gwendy (Pete's pet name for his true love) and re-introduced characters like the Black Widow (ASM#86) and Medusa (#62). His stories chronicled Pete's war on the underworld and Kingpin (perhaps due to the whole gangster craze in Chicago during the 60s).  There were so many life-turning points that occurred during Romita's run that it's hard to pick a favorite (which included Pete revealing his identity when he had the flu). For me, Peter's battle against Doctor Octopus (ASM#88) which precluded the death of Captain Stacy was particularly memorable as Captain Stacy largely became an important character during the Stan Lee-Romita era (an important character that future writers would subsequently ignore). And for me, no matter how sexy MJ was, Romita's Gwendy was always Pete's #1 girl no matter how badly they retconned Gwen's character.

The short-lived Spectacular Spider-Man (1968) black-and-white series showcased Romita's work at its best. (Spectacular Spider-Man #1)

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Adobe Creative Suite 6 Conference in Shanghai

Categories: Techtoday

 

I attended Adobe's conference last Friday at the Oriental Riverside Hotel's Shanghai International Convention Center. After registering, the young Adobe staff member handed me a cute grab bag which I really liked (I can later use it for groceries in Parkson Minhang).  Inside the bag were marketing materials for the Adobe Creative Suite 6 Design Standard, Design & Web Premium, Production Premium and Master Collection. Also included were flyers for the new Cintiq 24HD Wacom tablets. All of the handouts were in Chinese but I didn't mind – the quality of the paper alone made me feel privileged. The event organizers included inflatable elongated bags like the ones they use in soccer games.  Obviously, they were supposed to promote some audience participation during the marketing event, but the crowd didn't bite. I was somewhat disappointed that they didn't hand out demo DVD copies of at least one of the new Adobe releases like Microsoft did in their Windows 8 release event. What really surprised me during the conference though was that for a room full of graphic artists and professionals, all of them were using smartphones to take photographs.  I was using a somewhat obsolete Canon Powershot A2000 IS but at least I was using a real camera.

 

 

Although my group arrived on time, the huge convention room was full to the brim. The four huge displays were already playing videos about graphic artist professionals and how they used their Adobe products. I was able to watch short videos of a Russian artist, a Japanese/European duo, and an American production team showing off their "creative process."  They heavily promoted Adobe's tagline "Create Now" and I have to admit they were laying it on a bit thick – one American lady on the video said she would be dead if she couldn't create.  As expected, these "artists" couldn't help but feel self-important as Adobe asked them how they made their artworks.

 

 

When the event started, the host taught the audience how to slap the inflatables together.  A few minutes later, I found out the American and Australian speakers weren't coming as they were in another country already. I had been receiving emails from Adobe repetitively promoting these guys so I felt it was pretty sloppy that they didn't arrive at all. Thankfully, a fairly competent Chinese team took up the slack and started demonstrating the new features of Adobe Creative Suite 6.

 

 

I was most impressed with the performance of Adobe Premiere, which didn't lag at all on the high-end Macbook Pro the presenter was using. There was only one moment a Chinese presenter faltered – a transition trick in the new Dreamweaver release didn't work and needed two scripting edits. The Adobe Flash Professional 6 presentation consisted of a Platypus game that involved popping their balloons so they couldn't get to a mountain of donuts. The audience, which was composed of fairly young professionals and students, hardly responded to the Illustrator CS6, After Effects CS6 and Adobe Edition CS6 demos. There was one point when I saw quite a few people yawning, dozing off, or just playing around with their iPhones and accessing the free wi-fi at the convention center. A huge lady came in halfway through the event and just plopped next to me and spent the rest of the day fiddling with her phone. I was wondering if she was a graphics professional or some passers-by who saw the free Adobe gift bag and wanted to get away from the Shanghai humidity.

 

Acrobat X Pro didn't get an upgrade so it was surprising that the Adobe team decided not to provide airtime to one product – Adobe Fireworks CS6 (which probably isn't Adobe's bestseller anyway). Not surprisingly, the presenters emphasized that the Creative Suite 6 now fully supported exporting files to Android and iOS tablets and smartphones (the demo displayed many of the resulting designs using his Samsung Galaxy, Blackbery and iPhone).  In fact, most of the changes were concentrated on creating media for smartphones and the iPad (Blackberry, WebOS, and Symbian were surprisingly even mentioned!). 

 

 

As expected, the highlight was Adobe Photoshop CS6 which did have a few neat features.  It didn't have any groundbreaking new tool, but like previous Adobe releases have tools that made certain tasks easier (like moving an object from one background to another or managing 3D images).  The crowd particularly laughed when the presenter edited a somewhat stocky Caucasian's girth to one resembling Batman's using the revamped Liquify tool. I was personally interested in Adobe InDesign CS6. Besides noticing better support for ePUB, the only real changes they presented was specific export options to specific tablets or smartphones. One InDesign file can be configured to be displayed differently for each tablet product – Kindle Fire, the iPad, 10" Android, iPhone, and 7" Android tablets were all included in the export options. Besides fitting the text and images to the dimensions, users can configure layers, transitions, and how they would all look when the device is viewed horizontally or vertically. Unfortunately, it looks like Adobe didn't improve InDesign's ability to support XML.

 

It was obvious that half an hour before the Adobe team was done, all the audience was waiting for was the raffle draw. Three lucky contestants were going to win a Wacom Cintiq 24HD, Adobe Photoshop CS6, and an Adobe Creative Suite 6 Design & Web Premium package. Suffice to say, I didn't win any of them and came away wondering if Adobe will ever drop the prices on their products. Even with the discounts they provided for those who attended (which was pretty big at 500RMB), one CS6 suite cost an arm, a leg, and a testicle.  Create now? I am, I am – just not with Adobe's latest and greatest quite yet.

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The Art of Spider-Man (circa 1970-1990s) Part 1

*In celebration of the 50th anniversary of Spider-Man and the release of the new Spider-Man movie, this blog will intermittently feature a month-long series of Spider-Man articles.  The author was an unabashed fan of the web-swinger  from the early 1980s and although gave up on the Marvel character in the mid-1990s, follows his adventures to this day. Prepare for some hardcore fanboy opinions!

 

**To check out covers, story titles, and credits to comic books mentioned in this article, visit Spiderfan.org, one of the oldest and most reliable Spider-Man sites on the Internet.

 

With all due respect to the creative staff over at Marvel that have handled the Spider-Man titles in the last decade, the artists they've selected today are poorly chosen (just look at the upcoming previews for the 50th anniversary issues and you'll understand what I mean).  The truth is that very few artists in the comic book business could draw Peter Parker and Spider-Man right (the old series Marvel Team-Up with its rotating staff was a good example of this). Peter's costume defined the character and unfortunately, Spidey has historically been seen as a clown next to other characters - he's not as strong as Thor, commanding as Captain America or Iron Man, or as cool as Logan (one of the most overrated characters in the industry).  This misinterpretation of Peter's alter-ego made it hard for artists today (and in the last decade) to take him seriously. After all, he has one of the worst colorful costumes in the Marvel Universe.  It takes a really good artist to draw the amazing wall-crawler.

 

 

I personally like Humberto Ramos' art, who penned the excellent DC comic book Impulse in the 90s, but his visuals aren't as impressive as way back when. Although John Romita Jr. is on my own definitive list of artists, his best work on Peter Parker is over and his recent work is mediocre at best (see "Coming Home" ASM#471-473 and his recent work in Avengers). Greg Capullo, a former artist of Spawn, would be perfect for Spidey if he wasn't so busy drawing almost perfect comic book artwork over in Batman. Other choices I would love to see on ASM as a regular artist would be J. Scott Campbell, Mike Mignola, Jim Lee, Jim Cheung, Chris Bachalo, Andy Kubert, or Joe Madureira,  an impossible selection but all definitely worth hiring. 

 

The revolving door of untalented and forgettable artists in the Spider-Man books today and the poor quality of writing and illustrations make me yearn for the good old days of the 80s when selecting a regular artist for the book mattered.  These guys stayed on the book as long as they could, leaving their mark on Peter Parker's misadventures in history.

 

The list below, in no particular order, is my definitive list of Spider-Man pencillers.  Like most artists, many of them eventually evolved or their artwork suffered as time passed, so included are their highlight years and examples of some of their best work. Long-time fans will notice that a few classic pencillers like Sal Buscema, Larry Lieber, and original ASM penciller Steve Ditko aren't included on this list.  This is a matter of preference. I felt that the style of artists such as John Romita Sr. captured Peter, Spidey, and his cast better and provided a more definitive look at Spider-Man's universe.

 

***Although the author would have liked to post more scans from Spidey's best artists from the 80s to the 90s, he's currently overseas and has to make do with archived scans he made decades ago.

 

1. Rick Leonardi

 

Along with Ron Frenz (#8 on this list), Rick Leonardi drew Peter's adventures with the Black Costume (both the alien version and the version sewn by Felicia Hardy the Black Cat). His use of shadows made him well-suited for drawing the black costume, Peter's best and most realistic costume.  Leonardi also penned the bulk of the excellent Spider-Man 2099 and didn't lose his touch when he returned to draw the graphic novel Spider-Man meets Spider-Man 2099.  Leonardi's action scenes were characterized as a dynamic mess and his ability to pace the story and work with dialogue was exceptional (see the Saga of the Black Costume and Spider-Man 2099# 1-6).  His background work in 2099 was Mike Mignola on Blade Runner; his ability to draw facial expressions matching Peter David's wit page for page.

 

 

Perhaps my favorite and most memorable issue of Rick Leonardi was his work on Spider-Man #17 which featured one of Ann Nocenti's best one-shot issues.  In this filler issue, Peter experiences a brief after-life experience while trying to save a young girl's life from a freak accident.  In the afterlife, an unmasked but costumed Peter comes face to face with the titan Thanos. Peter pleads (and fights) for the child's life, whose fate is in the hands of Death herself.

 

 

 

2. Todd  McFarlane

 

Say what you will about McFarlane's familiarity with anatomy and the man himself, but Todd's legendary run on Amazing Spider-Man and his own title Spider-Man in the 1990s made everyone sit up and take notice.  He took a goofy, spindly, and skinny guy in a silly costume and made him a bad ass (compared to the silly, whining sidekick in today's books).  Although most remember Todd's crouching poses, spaghetti webbing, and big eyes, fans of Todd's ASM run know that he never forgot Peter's spider-strength (10 tons) and his extensive experience.  When Spidey threw a train car, smacked Taskmaster and his sword with a flick of his wrist, bludgeoned a vat of opal and blood to stop Venom, and battered a ton of the Red Skull's men, you knew Spidey would hand you your head if he wasn't so darn nice.

 

 

Todd also knew how to push Spidey to the limit convincingly (unlike the garbage you read today in Avengers and Dan Slott's ASM).  His vicious battle against a mindless Lizard in Torment (SM#1-5) and the climactic battle on the church in ASM#300 with Eddie Brock was exciting and brutal  (this was the original Venom and not the ridiculous Venoms that have been running around in the last 10 years including that idiot Flash Thomson).  McFarlane is also one of the few artists that could draw Spider-Man in the forest without him looking out of place (Perceptions – SM#8-12). His Peter Parker was mature, but hokey and funny; his Mary Jane Watson-Parker was a classy supermodel combination of Kate Upton and Christina Hendricks.  He even made an obscure character like Prowler cool and drew some of the best Silver Sable appearances.

 

 

Although his final issues on SM was poorly done (SM#16 crossover with Rob Liefeld's X-Force), I will always remember McFarlane's earlier work on ASM, including the largely forgotten but highly recommended Assassination-Nation Plot where he teamed up with Captain America, Paladin, and Silver Sable against the Red Skull.

 

3. Mark Bagley

 

Today, Mark Bagley is revered for his long run on  Brian Michael Bendis' Ultimate Spider-Man.  However, I remember Bagley for his equally lengthy and memorable run on ASM, following Erik Larsen's swansong in ASM#350. Bagley's work in Ultimate Spider-Man is soft compared to his much more detailed and defined artwork with Randy Emberlin and Al Milgrom from ASM#351 onwards.  Bagley emphasized the "Man" in Spider-Man and avoided the more spidery poses of Todd McFarlane(#2) and Erik Larsen (#4).  His anatomy was superior to both Todd McFarlane and Erik Larsen, while retaining an agile, sleek, and slim Spider-Man.  Although his action panels were repetitive, predictable, and unimaginative, he was only limited by the writers behind him.  Moreover, Bagley's clean lines evoked a real New York and a normal couple in Peter Parker and Mary Jane.

 

 

 

 

Mark Bagley's art was so good, only his parts in Maximum Carnage and the dreadful Clone Saga were worth reading.  For me, Bagley truly excelled when he was paired with a heavy inker and drawing issues with plenty of guest stars (Hulk and Samson in ASM#381-382) or colorful villains like Shocker (#364).  In a forgettable, but fun 6-part story called Round Robin: the Sidekick's Revenge (ASM#353-358), Bagley drew Nova, Darkhawk, the Punisher, Moon Knight, Night Thrasher, and even the Wrecking Crew. His Tri-Sentinel 2-parter (ASM#351-35) with Nova and Spider-Man was brilliant and who could forget the sold-out three-parter that introduced Carnage (ASM#361-363)? Another early multi-part storyline that I found fun to read was Invasion of the Spider-Slayers which featured Black Cat's sexy but short-lived new costume.

 

 

I have great respect for Mark Bagley, who stomached the whole vomit that was the Clone Saga and made the death of Aunt May (ASM#400) worth reading despite falling sales of the Spider-books and a disgruntled fan base.

 

Part 2: Ron Frenz, Erik Larsen, the Romita family, Alex Saviuk, Rick Buckler and Bob McLeod

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Play Atari 2600 ROMs using Stella Atari Emulator

Categories: Linux

Celebrate Atari's 40th anniversary by installing Stella Atari emulator, loading some Atari ROMs, and showing this generation what real gaming was like. 

Stella Atari emulator is easily accessible via most Linux package managers.  They're also available via Ubuntu Software Center and Linux Mint Software Manager.  



Installation is fairly problem-free via any software manager.  Once Stella is installed, you would need to download some ROMs.  For those who aren't familiar with Atari games, ROMs are extremely small files that are less than 200 kB and are loaded to play Atari classics.  Tons of Atari games are available online in web sites such as Atarimania, which carries one zipped file that contains a truckload of ROMs.

After downloading the zipped file, extract the ROMs to a folder.  Launch Stella, which will prompt for the location of the ROMs.  Select a ROM file and the game will begin. 



Stella provides plenty of configuration options including the ability to manage audio and video settings.  However, most users can just go ahead and get lost in nostalgia while getting hit by a payload in Battlezone or eaten by a ghost in Pac-Man. 





The Stella site at Sourceforge.net has a pretty comprehensive user guide in case some of the games don't run or you really want to play Krull, Pitfall, or E.T. on a bigger screen.  Even the most obscure games can be found online so you can spend a few minutes or two watching the mesmerizing graphics.  That said, give your kid or some youngster a few tries at Asteroid or Pong and let them see what they missed during the golden age of gaming.

Note: For Ubuntu Unity users, you may find yourself unable to exit Stella or even switch windows.  Just press the Super/Windows button on your keyboard to trigger the Dash and use the Unity Launcher to close Stella.

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A Primer on Translating Comic Books Part 2

Categories: Techwriter

 

Translations and Editing the text

 

Google Translate and Microsoft Bing Translator are equally competent when I was working with the Italian text in Corto Maltese: The Secret of Tristan Bantam.  However, they use different approaches and come up with different results when translating Italian to English.  Sometimes, Bing made more sense, but Google Translate would tell you if you mistyped a word here and there.  Using both online tools, however, will help you come up with reasonably rational text that you can work with and complete the narrative.  Here are some tips to keep in mind when translating the dialogue boxes and word balloons:

 

1. Both Google Translate and Bing Translator won't translate the text as perfectly as you would want it and will be almost nonsensical 70% of the time. You'll be tempted to edit the text immediately as you transcribe but it's better to copy and paste the results Bing and Google provides and edit the whole story later. By the end of the comic book, you would have a bigger picture of the plot and can "tweak" the text to suit the mood and plot.

 

 

2. You have "artistic license" to modify the script. You will have to stay as true as possible to the text but in most cases, you would have to add words here and there to make the dialogue make sense. Most foreign languages can make use of only a few words to form meaningful statements (French, German, Russian) while others use tons of characters to say a simple expression (Chinese, Japanese, Arabic).

 

3. Watch out for idioms, onomatopoeia, foreign expressions, and slang words. Google Translate caught an idiom accurately in one of the panels but Microsoft Translator didn't. There are a lot of times that both online translators will make a literal translation and it's up to you to interpret what's happening based on the images. Comic books make use of onomatopoeia a lot. "Aiyaaa" and "Naruhodo" are Japanese expressions that anime fans will recognize but a typical reader won't necessarily know.

 

 

4. When typing text into Google Translate and Bing Translator, type a bunch of sentence or even a whole dialogue. Do not type word for word unless really needed. Dialogues contain ideas and a word-for-word translation never works even in professional tasks.

 

5. Don't forget places, events, and things. Some translations don't capitalize proper nouns or use punctuations. In the example of Corto Maltese: The Secret of Tristan Bantam, the place "paramibo" is mentioned frequently and can be mistaken for an Italian word but is really a former Dutch colonial town in South America.

 

 

6. The font can be misleading. The original scan of Corto Maltese: The Secret of Tristan Bantam made use of a handwritten font that had a curious T and V which I often mistyped when translating.

 

7. If you know of any native speakers to the target foreign language, consult them about difficult parts of the comic book. Don't ask them to translate the whole thing, however, as not only is it cheating, it can be a particularly annoying task to ask of someone.

 

8. You're translation won't be perfect. In fact, you'll probably get a lot of the text wrong even with all your resources. But you will get better as you get along.

 

9. Typos count. A single letter mistyped into the translation box can result in a totally wrong interpretation. Google Translate offers suggestions which are extremely helpful. Microsoft Translator will attempt to construct a sentence based on the words that make sense. So watch out for butter fingers. You may be the fastest touch typist in English but it's very different when you're typing words you're not familiar with since your fingers will gravitate to the English spelling.

 

 

10. As you translate and copy the text, don't forget the pages and panels. A comic-books is typically 22 to 30 pages in length but the number of panels can get you lost quickly - you don't want to have to repeat the panels you've went through.

 

 

As you finish your project, you'll realize you'll start remembering some of the foreign language words, especially if their often repeated in the dialogue. I actually learned more words in translating Corto Maltese ("si," "accede" and "ha piu") than studying a grammar book or watching an Italian movie. Plus, I have my own English copy of a fantastic adventure of Corto Maltese.

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A Primer on Translating Comic Books Part 1

Categories: Techwriter

Translating foreign language comic books is a great way to improve your foreign language vocabulary.  Plus, it's a great project that may eventually encourage you to take up translation tasks professionally.  As a plus, you can add the finished project to your collection of comic books. 

Why comic books?

Translating whole documents is a serious and more difficult task.  Comic books are composed of both graphics and text. The text isn't very long and thus easier to transcribe.  The illustrations, on the other hand, help you interpret what the text is saying.  Personally, I love comic books and find it more interesting and fun to translate than a dissertation, white paper, or legal document.

Tools of the Trade

Undertaking the task really doesn't need much more than the Internet and basic software tools.  For this tutorial, the following are the minimum requirements:

1. Photo-editing/vector-editing software - Expensive software isn't needed here as any free or inexpensive product would do.  Photoshop Elements is a popular choice but the open-source Gimp, Pinta, and many others are available for Linux and Windows. Users of vector-editing software might prefer using Illustrator and Corel Draw when replacing the foreign language text due to its more flexible and cleaner text-handling features.  They're also better for dynamic text that stretches and zooms across panels (commonly found in Marvel, DC, and manga).
2. Access to Google Translate and Microsoft Bing Translator
3. Foreign Language comic books - There are plenty of free foreign language comic books floating around on the Internet to practice on.  Some of them are freely downloadable and even samples would do. Besides the ever-popular manga, there are plenty of European comic books in French and Italian, many of them dealing with adult themes and very different from American comic books.

Not included in the list are grammar books or dictionaries for the serious  foreign language student - but these are optional.  There are many reference sites or even apps available online for looking up obscure or slang words.  Also, you may need an unarchiver utility like 7-Zip to unpackage the comic book if it's compressed as .cbr or .cbz.  Moreover, a separate comic book viewer such as Comical or Comic Book Reader can be handy for viewing the image as you translate (Linux users will already have Evince and Okular in their respective operating system). 

The most important requirement needed in this task is a lot of patience and time.   No prior knowledge of a foreign language is needed considering that Bing and Google will do most of the work. For the screenshots below, I used pages from a popular European character by Hugo Pratt named Corto Maltese.  I had watched the animated releases of Corto Maltese and loved the character's rich background and unique milieu.  This prompted me to find the comic books and work on translating the Italian text to English.

Workflow

The tasks are fairly straightforward and the work cycle is as follows:

1.  Assuming the files are in .cbr or .cbz, unzip the files to a folder.  They will be unpacked as individual .PNG or .JPG files.  This step can be done at the end or middle of the process if the user prefers to translate the comic book with a comic book viewer running.

2.  Translate the text using Google Translate and Bing Translator.  This process requires you to type the text in the online translator and then record the translation.  Since the comic book page is scanned to .JPG or .PNG, the text can't be copied and pasted.  This is probably the most time-consuming and annoying part of the task.

3. Edit the text, making sure that the structure, mood, and idea are accurate to the story's plot.  If you're already aware of the story, then refer to the synopsis or source to verify if your writing is on the spot.  A lot of love for the comic book and a lot of imagination can go a long way.

4. Erase the text from the comic book image and replace it with your own dialogue.  Use a clear, readable font that is appropriate for the panel.

5. Compress the .PNG or .JPG files back to .cbr or .cbz for reading on a laptop, netbook, iPad, or Android tablet.

Part 2: Translations and Editing the text

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