23 Jul 2009 1:55
Hello world! (and this time, we mean it)
Welcome to Babelcomics !
Yet another webcomic portal ? Yes, yet another. Only this one has its specificities.
Why the French ? Why them ? Why ??
(Napoleon was French, they kiss like snakes and their burgundi wine is outrageously expensive !)
We’re two French webcomicers, bravely hiding behind the pen names of Cathbad and Mirlikovir, authors of the CucuC / Cuchulainn tandem. You might even have heard of it. You might also know that Comics, in France, are huge. They sell as well as novels, and often are to be found on the front displays of general book stores. Only here we don’t call them comics, but “Bandes Dessinées”. Français Oblige 
The number of new Bandes Dessinées published every single month in France and Belgium is amazing, by comparison to the number of inhabitants of French speaking countries. Yet, webcomics have not yet become here the phenomenon they are in the UK/US, Australia, New Zealand, and I’m not even talking about online Manga.
Wel like webcomics, and often find ourselves in the following situation. A friend of ours suffers from a Comics addiction and… wants to read more online comics. We can redirect them to an Anonymous Webcomicoholic Therapy Group, ooooor… we can also find ourselves answering : “go check **my favorite webcomic here**, it totally rocks”.
Just before we add : “ah,… erh… yes, it’s in English”. Then our friend visits the website, looks at the art, and comes back to us with statements like “man, now I’m real pissed ! I want to read this, when will it be translated to French ?”. We look at them with mild uncompromising expressions, aaaand…
They join the local Therapy Group. Help us save them.
It’s all about building bridges…
And that’s the idea behind Babelcomics. A desire to help bridge the gap between French and English audiences. We then contacted two authors we really appreciate and knew a little : David Reddick, author of Legend of Bill, and Steve Ogden, author of Moon Town. We asked them if they’d like to join our little experiment, and we received two HUGE, ENTHOUSIATIC, IMMEDIATE YES.
From that point on, we discussed the idea of Babelcomics the three of us, Oghme Comics (Cathbad + Mirlikovir) , David Reddick and Steve Ogden. (yes that’s four, really, but webcomically speaking, that’s a three, people). We soon realised we should bring at least two/three other excellent webcomics into the dance, and contacted Honoel A. Ibardolaza, author of By Moon Alone and Eldon Cowgur, author of Astray3.
And they answered with a HUGE,…. YES.
What now?
We’re thrilled to be offered the opportunity to translate the works of such excellent artists, and will try and achieve high quality translations. They deserve it. So do readers.
Now what’s planned for the near future ?
- first, we’re beginning the task of translating the archives. This will take a while, we have to do it well.
- second, we’ll also try and bring to you, English readers, some great French webcomics for you to read.
So, please, do us a favor, bookmark this page, spread the word to all these lovely French teachers from high school who gave you a F grade, and come back ! There will be news before long.
Cheers,
Cathbad
English 
French
August 25th, 2009 at 6:22 pm
Hello and cheers for your project
I expect to be ready as soon as possible to give you something to compete with
August 25th, 2009 at 6:49 pm
Hi Kyon, Megatokyo !
We’ve worked on a multilingual translation portal for some time (it’s ready as a matter of fact, a drupal with some nifty GUI, mutlilingual, multiblog, etc… online page editing, community based) but have dropped the idea in favour of a dedicated translation service targeted to specific webcomics instead.
Not that the idea lacks potential, on the contrary. These portals will become the Wikipedias of comics & books. I’m positive this business model is promising.
Reason is, what I like best is writing, reading and translating. I just don’t have the time to run a 1500 members community and write 6000 words a day, and translate 3000 at the same time. I’d need two lives.
I chose to concentrate on what I do best and build specific and close relationships with the few authors I really appreciate, to translate their works and guaranty them the best translation possible by taking the time to exchange with them on an individual basis, something I just couldn’t figure a way of doing with the aforementioned portal… without becoming a manager instead of a writer.
I’ve been a manager in a precedent life, in civil engineering, for 15 years, in order to gain my financial independence. Now that it’s done, Enough
Good luck to you too, and keep us informed.
I’ll pop to say hello as soon as you’re open.
Cathbad