To have a good time the significance and impression of translated comics work, Comica, the Lakes International Comic Art Festival (LICAF) and VIP Brands have introduced the Sophie Castille Award.
The inaugural Sophie Castille Award might be for finest translation of works into the English language, with room for the awards to probably widen in scope with worldwide companions in future. Publisher submissions for the award at the moment are open with a deadline set for June 1, 2023, and the winner to be declared at this 12 months’s LICAF, scheduled to happen the weekend of September 29 to October 1.
The press launch says:
“VIP Brands Ltd. is delighted to announce the Sophie Castille Awards for Comics in Translation. The inaugural award might be offered in partnership with Comica and the Lakes International Comic Art Festival, at their annual occasion this autumn (Friday twenty ninth September – Sunday 1st October).
“The Sophie Castille Awards for Comics in Translation are for the best translation of graphic novels into a variety of languages around the world. This inaugural award will be for the best translation of a non-English graphic novel into English.”
English language publishers can submit as much as six works for consideration, crediting the translator for every. The works should have been launched in the previous twelve months and are restricted to at least one work per collection. Submissions are to be made to LICAF through a kind. The submission deadline is June 1, 2023 and a shortlist of competing works might be made by July.
The awards are named after the late Sophie Castille, worldwide rights director and VP of licensing at main rights hub Mediatoon, and cofounder and director of Europe Comics, who handed away all of the sudden in 2022, age 52. Her assist of the worldwide comics business has proved invaluable – in creating connections and serving to the English-reading world uncover new basic works of European comics and likewise serving to Europe to find new graphic novels from the UK, US, Canada and past.
As the press launch says:
“Since the late 1990s, Sophie built bridges for bandes dessinées and their authors, out of France and around the world. She was a constant source of creativity, motivating publishers from throughout the world and encouraging them to exchange ideas and, as a result, became a key figure in the growth of translation of comics and graphic novels around the world.”
Adding:
“With comics in translation becoming an important influence in the publishing world, VIP Brands Ltd, Comica and LICAF have decided to honour Sophie’s memory and continue her work to promote comics in translation around the world with these new Awards.”
Founder and General Manager of VIP Brands Ltd Ivanka Hahnenberger mentions the genesis of the awards have been a very long time coming:
“I have talked of this idea for years, having global awards for comics in translation to encourage acquisition and translation of graphic novels. I spoke to Sophie about it several times and she encouraged me to do it. I wish very much she were here to see this happen, as if it were not for her, I would never have had the courage to go through with it. Sophie, here’s to you.”
The award of translated works into the English language has its three-person jury already picked out – Columbia University’s Comics Curator and Librarian Karen Green, artist Charlie Adlard (a very long time proponent of translated works), and former TV producer and LICAF chair Peter Kessler.
Comics creator Charlie Adlard says:
“This is a brilliant initiative.There are so many strips first published in a foreign language that wouldn’t have been a success in the United States or Britain without standout translation work.”
LICAF director Julie Tait continues:
“Take Asterix, for example, When some Asterix stories, including the first story, were originally published in comics like Valiant and Ranger in Britain in the 1960s, the translation had none of the sparkle that Anthea Bell and Derek Hockridge gave the series later, and made the English editions such a success. Good translation deserves wider recognition.”
Sophie Castille’s accomplice Dirk Rehm mentioned:
“Awards for excellence in comic translation are more than overdue. And it is only logical that these awards are named after Sophie Castille who loved comics – and even more, the idea of the exchange of cultures. In her role as Director of International Rights for Dargaud, Dupuis and Lombard, she was an ambassador for comics – making sure the whole world would get to know the treasures of the French and Belgian bandes dessinées”.
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