I’ve just finished listening to my Moon Town rendez vous tonight, and wow, this episode was especially sweet to our ears, my precious

Not only because Steve Ogden probably has the most sexiest voice in all Maryland’s wine country (says my wife), not only because  Steve speaks of characters as you always wished your literature teachers would (but seldom did), not only because of the excellent music by Tim Larkin in the background, but… because he speaks of us !

Steve gives us a good five minutes of praises, for Mirlikovir’s work on Oghme Comics and mine on Babel, and let’s indulge into some auto-satisfaction here for a minute, that sure feels good. Thank you Steve.

We’ve worked together very closely in order to translate the first ten strips of Moon Town (Luna Ville) to French.  As Frank Herbert wrote somewhere in his Dune masterpiece (or was it only in Lynch’s questionable  adaptation ?), “beginnings are very delicate times”.  As an author, I tend to have strong ideas about what I like, what I don’t, how I would bring something into a story,… etc. But when translating someone else’s works, one really has to change skins. One has to immerse in the universe and become this universe’s voice. Or put in less presumptuous terms, you have to act like a reader. Like a fan.  You become yet another the vessel for the story being told.

On the one hand, translating graphic novels is easier than translating literature, because you have the illustrations to guide you. And when they are well executed (which always is the case with Steve Ogden’s work) chances that you’ll get something wrong are less. At the same time, comics are specific : the narrative space of comic books is closer to that of movies than to that of  books. This is one of the great qualities of Moon Town in my opinion. There’s a movie feel to it. And movies rely a lot on cutting to bring the story along.  Beginnings also are the place where the atmosphere is established. It’s your chance, as a translator, to “tune in” to the song. And the best way to do this properly is by interacting with the author.

I must say here that Steve takes all this very seriously and  I truly believe we’ve succeeded in bringing to French the insufferability of Dabney Flagg, as well as the “sexy in a cold serious sort of way”-ness of  Cassandra Quinn (who said women on a mission aren’t sexy ?).

And this just the beginning, so stay tuned, and by all means, if as I do, you enjoy story talk, character talk, arc talk, listen to every single of Steve’s braincasts on Radio Moon Town ! I mean it. There aren’t that many podcasters doing such a great job.

And we’ll talk more very soon about the three other stories we’re translating, I’ve named (in Xhosa alphabetic order)  “By Moon Alone“, “Legend of Bill” and “Astray3“.

Cathbad

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