Shaenon K. Garrity

This is where I write stuff.

New Smithson!

6th-Sep-2007 04:55 pm

Well, kind of. Brian and his wife Meg are on a cross-country train trip, so this week he just posted some bonus pencil sketches. Consider this an opportunity to go through the archives and catch up on the whole thrilling story.

www.smithsoncomic.com

Brian and Meg breezed through San Francisco this week, so I got to meet up with them and talk way too much about comics. They toured both the beautiful Cartoon Art Museum and my own wretched, manga-choked apartment, and then they no doubt vowed to get away as quickly as possible and never come back. Also, they brought me cookies!

Oh, and I certainly hope you didn't miss this week's Chronicles of William Bazillion!

One more thing: thanks to everyone who sent me kind words about last week's Edward Gorey pastiche. I drew it strictly for my personal entertainment, and I was bowled over that other people enjoyed it. It turns out that when you combine two things nerds like, such as Star Trek and Edward Gorey, they really dig it! Who knew?

Okay, time for a quick Overlooked Manga Festival Special Event!

OMF Special Event:
Top Ten Lines from the Excel Saga Manga

Credit should be divided between creator Rikdo Koshi, translators Dan Kanemitsu, Pookie Rolf, and Yuko Sawada, and rewriter Carl Gustav Horn.

10. Excel and Hyatt on choosing an impenetrable alias:

9. Dr. Iwata on invasive surgery:

(Small text: I'll do it like this...I'll do it like that...I'll do it with a Crile hemostat! Note also the inclusion of a Jack Chick-style HAW HAW!, a recurring feature in the English-language Excel Saga.)

8. Excel on the resemblance between an army of robot duplicates of Hyatt and the steampunk technology of Galaxy Express 999:

7. Iwata on why it's presumptious for androids to suggest expensive restaurants for lunch:

6. Elgala and Excel on getting drunk and cooking the dog:

5. Excel on the difficulty of escaping from prison:

4. Excel on the best way to befriend a new coworker:

3. Excel on the train that ran over her crude homemade flying machine, ACROSS-Star One:

2. The Manager (who, for reasons unknown, speaks in a thick German patois) on the time Dr. Shiouji's top-heavy mad-scientist mother won an eating contest at her okinomiyaki stand:

1. And a labor of love...Dr. Shiouji on the accidental deletion of hundreds of gigabytes of (mostly underage) pornography:

Thank you. That is all.

Previous Overlooked Manga Festivities:
Basara
Please Save My Earth
From Eroica with Love
Even a Monkey Can Draw Manga
Dr. Slump
Your and My Secret
Phoenix
Kekkaishi
Wild Act
Knights of the Zodiac
The Drifting Classroom
OMF Special Event: Manga Editors Recommend Manga, Part 1
OMF Special Event: Manga Editors Recommend Manga, Part 2
OMF Special Event: Manga Editors Recommend Manga, Part 3
OMF Special Event: Great Moments in Manga Baking
Shout Out Loud
Monster
Swan
Warren Buffett: An Illustrated Biography of the World's Most Successful Investor
Sexy Voice and Robo
OMF Special Event: 2006 Overlooked Manga Update
The Four Immigrants Manga
Gerard and Jacques
Ode To Kirihito
Bringing Home the Sushi
Banana Fish
Skip Beat
OMF Special Event: The Greatest Manga Magazine in American History
Cyborg 009
Anywhere But Here
To Terra
Town of Evening Calm, Country of Cherry Blossoms
Doing Time
The Walking Man
Sugar Sugar Rune
Parasyte
Japan as Viewed by 17 Creators
Mariko Parade
Golgo 13
Ricca 'tte Kanji!?
Pure Trance
OMF Special Event: My Legacy
OMF Special Event: An All-Star Tribute to Carl Gustav Horn
Guest OMF by Jason Thompson: 888
JoJo's Bizarre Adventure
Tekkon Kinkreet
Yakitate! Japan
Flower of Life
Domu

Tags:overlooked manga festival, smithson

Comments

7th-Sep-2007 03:29 am (UTC)

klyfix

Maybe I'm weird, but now I'm wondering what manga versions of Chick tracts would look like....

16th-Jul-2008 02:55 pm (UTC)

tiffanykonup

), but I felt like I would have got more out of reading a novel by the same guy. Bookninja 34 PM ET (US) Bug-eyed Monsters.

7th-Sep-2007 04:56 am (UTC)

estara

Lovely bit of rewriting, I don't think you can call it translation any longer. However as a German, I would love for people who want to use the accent to actually construct the sentences the way we do or use idioms we would use: I expect he meant "Holz vor der Hütte" instead of "große Kiste", oh well.

7th-Sep-2007 05:25 am (UTC)

kelsied

As a total non-German speaker, what's the difference? Or is it translatable?

7th-Sep-2007 06:46 pm (UTC)

estara

You mean between "große Kiste" and "Holz vor der Hütt'n"?

Well the first translates directly as "big box" and the second means "to have a pile of firewood in front of the hut" ^^, so both have to do with wood. Maybe that's why the translation got messed up?

The rest is nonGerman sentence structure: e.g., we do use many "the", but those used are mostly in the wrong place.

(no subject) -

alidanehac

7th-Sep-2007 05:37 am (UTC) - *awestruck*

kelsied

That's... wonderful.

*adds to wishlist*

7th-Sep-2007 02:09 pm (UTC)

ajshepherd

The thing from the Excel Saga manga that totally had me in stitches was Sumiyoshi as a geordie. That was inspired on the part of the translator!

9th-Sep-2007 04:00 am (UTC)

shaenon

I can't believe I got through the entire top ten list without a single Sumiyoshi line. There wasn't one that really jumped out as me, although, as I've mentioned in the past, referring to dating sims as "date-a-lass games" was inspired.

7th-Sep-2007 02:48 pm (UTC)

sargent

It turns out that when you combine two things nerds like, such as Star Trek and Edward Gorey, they really dig it!

And should that bit of Star Trek be "The Trouble With Tribbles," so much the better.

7th-Sep-2007 07:43 pm (UTC)

erinfinnegan

I bought the Excel Saga anime on sale and liked it well enough. I flipped through the manga in the store once but put it down... but if Carl Horn's involved, I might have to read it!

D'oh!

10th-Sep-2007 03:08 pm (UTC)

fooliv

You know, I loved Carl Horn's voice from back when he was more of a gonzo fanboy than a professional, but haven't really read any of his manga rewrites, and every time you go on one of these Horn-idolizin' tears... I can't say I'm sorry.

He's got too much personality to be doing this sort of thing - it overwhelms the actual material. Every line you excerpt sounds so much like Carl being Carl that it comes across more like a standup routine about the manga rather than the manga itself.

11th-Sep-2007 03:31 am (UTC)

klyfix

That would seem to be something of an issue with any "localization" or whatever of Manga, I would expect (confession: I don't read that much of it although I should). Beyond a certain point you would have a new story attached to the original pretty pictures. Obviously there can't just be a word for word translation, and in some cases the real meaning might be best conveyed with Americanisms (anime example: In an episode of "Cowboy Bebop" "Black Bean Paste" becomes "a pudding.").

12th-Sep-2007 08:00 am (UTC)

_w_o_o_d_

Unrelated, but... Neil Gaiman just linked to your "Edward Gorey's Trouble with Tribbles" !!

Neil Gaiman !

25th-Sep-2007 03:56 pm (UTC)

uncreativity

:D?

Anyway, thanks for doing this! This really is an underappreciated manga.

23rd-Nov-2007 08:30 pm (UTC) - Number three

Anonymous

Great list. I use #3's "You persons of illegitimate birth!" line all the time, even changing it to the singular 'person'.

E^D

17th-Aug-2008 01:35 am (UTC)

smystery

Little review about Excel Saga manga:
Today the city, tomorrow the World! That's the plan of Il Palazzo, the haughty, pretty-boy leader of ACROSS, a secret society based somewhere deep beneath the streets and sewers of Fukuoka, Japan. After setting up house in a cheap apartment, Il Palazzo explains that the budget for world conquest and the budget for room and board must regrettably be kept separate. Their neighbors are a trio of regular guys, whom they hope will overlook the curious comings and goings — not to mention the screams, struggles, and gasoline explosions.

You can buy Excel Saga manga at manga astore

Andy Landers

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