Comics | How do you say "Bam! Pow!" in Russian? A group of Russian translators is calling for comics translators to use words derived from the official languages of the Russian Federation rather than simply rendering the existing sound effects in the Russian alphabet. "In comic books you can often encounter words imitating sounds," the translators said in a letter to the Vinogradov Russian Language Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences. "How can one express the sound of a phone ringing, of a creaky door, or a soda can being popped open, or the crinkle of an ice cream wrapper, or the sound of a motorcyclist's foot rubbing against the ground? Often translators simply transliterate the English words." Instead, they recommend using indigenous substitutes such as "chorkh" (scratching) and "khurt-khurt" (swallowing), both derived from Lezgian, a language spoken in Dagestan and Azerbaijan. [The Moscow Times, The Calvert Journal]
Manga | Anime historian Jonathan Clements writes a fascinating history of the atomic bomb as a theme in Japanese manga and films, covering the iconic Barefoot Gen and also Osamu Tezuka's X Point in the Pacific, which eerily prefigured the one of the largest detonations ever, the Castle Bravo test on Bikini Atoll. This test raised concerns about the way radiation affected people far from ground zero as well as the possible contamination of food, and the movie Godzilla was filmed in the midst of that. The article also notes the recent pushback against the use of Barefoot Gen in schools by right-wing politicians because of its portrayal of Japanese atrocities (such as the Rape of Nanking) that they claim never took place. [Aljazeera America]
Creators | Writer Paul Cornell talks about his new comic This Damned Band: "I like stories about professionals in one area getting blindsided when they encounter something from another field, leaving them completely out of their depth. For a bunch of very un-self-aware rich musicians, pretend Satanists, to actually run into Satan, that seems like a rich seam to mine, for comedy, satire, and emotion." [io9]
Creators | Alex Dueben interviews Marguerite Cook and James Romberger about their collaborative work, The Late Child. [THEthe Poetry]
Creators | Babs Tarr, Michael Cho, Joelle Jones and other creators address how they deal with negative reviews in a short video made at Boston Comic Con. [The Mary Sue]
Graphic novels | Heidi MacDonald has a quick rundown of fall releases to look forward to. [Publishers Weekly]
Conventions | Joe Peacock writes about the Little Con of Comics, a mini-con run by children and featuring their work — which was for sale. [Huffington Post]
Conventions | The Northwest Comic Fest, coming this weekend to the Salem (Oregon) Convention Center, aims to be more dazzling than your average comic con, according to organizer Casey Ocupe: "We're trying to do programming that's not like anything like a comic con. Something a little more interactive or considerably more interactive." That will include a princess fashion show for children, circus acts, a giant robot, and much, much more. [The Oregonian]
Exhibits | The exhibit of work by New Yorker cartoonist Charles Addams at the Zarrow Center for Art and Education in Tulsa, Oklahoma, features not only a selection of famous and lesser-known works by the master of macabre cartoons but also 70 pen-and-ink drawings by students from a local school that were inspired by Addams cartoons. [Tulsa World]
Retailing | Comics FTW in Santa Rosa, California, is a self-described "nerd haven" that welcomes customers with a variety of different activities, including trivia nights, book clubs, and gaming nights. Customer Ruby McNulty explains why she enjoys the meetings of the all-female Girls with Issues book club: "Not that [men] don’t have valid opinions, but many times they can be a little bit louder with their opinions, and it can be hard to talk over them, especially in comics where they’re generally thought of as the majority. And they’re not." In fact, the store's very first customer was a woman. There's a co-ed book club as well, although customer Julie Hartley says "the girls' club has way better snacks." [The Press Democrat]