Broken Frontier

In 2007 Peggy Adam’s French language graphic novel Luchadoras was included as part of the official selection of the Angouleme comics festival. This critically-acclaimed OGN examines the Cuidad Juárez femicides in Mexico through the complex relationships of protagonist Alma. Coming soon, Luchadoras will be published in an English language version for the first time, courtesy of Blank Slate Books. Broken Frontier spoke to Luchadoras’s translators Martin Steenton and Judith Taboy, of comics blog Avoid the Future, about Peggy Adam‘s work, the burgeoning availability of European material in the graphic novel market and the intricacies of the translation process.

BROKEN FRONTIER: For some of our audience at Broken Frontier, this interview may serve as their introduction to Peggy Adam and Luchadoras. Could you briefly describe the central premise, and the themes of the book, for the uninitiated?

MARTIN: Luchadoras is a fictional story that takes place during the height of the Cuidad Juarez femicides in the state of Chihuahua, Mexico. Since the early 1990s, Juarez has been the scene of hundreds upon hundreds of brutal female-victim murders. It’s a horrific, senseless phenomenon—the bodies of victims (typically aged between 12 and 22), would be found abandoned on the outskirts of town, often showing signs of rape or torture.

The graphic novel is very much Peggy’s reaction to this, both personally and as a creator. By focusing on the character of Alma, a victim of domestic abuse attempting to escape her violent fiancé, Peggy is able to offer insight about the wider set of issues at play within Juarez. As Alma attempts to escape with her daughter, she has to contend with her fiancé’s gang, Los Diablitos, looking for her, corrupt police, and the general hostility of Juarez itself.

JUDITH: Rather than focus the plot on the killings themselves, the murders inform the plot indirectly from the background. On the surface, it’s an intense story of one woman’s survival, but beneath that, I think it’s a book is about strength, vulnerability and the morality of survival in a corrupt environment.

BROKEN FRONTIER: When did you first encounter Peggy’s work and what were your initial reactions to it?

MARTIN: The very first time was in Fantagraphics/ l’Association’s Comix 2000 anthology, but it was several years before we got a chance to see one of her graphic novels. In 2009, Judith and I were in la Rubrique à Bulles in Paris looking for comics, and we stumbled across Luchadoras. We’d read about Peggy’s series Plus ou Moins... (More or Less...) before, but we still hadn’t gotten a chance to read any of her work. After flicking through a couple of pages of Luchadoras, we knew we had to take it home.

JUDITH: I was very attracted to the art. The character of Alma got my attention immediately—vulnerable but very tough, real in a way that the usual damsels in distress and unbelievable uber-woman of comics aren’t. I knew I could get Martin’s attention by showing him the depictions of wrestling in there, too.

MARTIN: We should state that even though the graphic novel is called Luchadoras, there’s only a teeny, tiny bit of wrestling in it. Alma attends a Lucha Libre match midway through the story—a segment that’s actually a really good example of Peggy’s subtle use of symbolism to enhance her narrative. She’s extremely talented at grabbing the reader’s attention quite directly with raw dialogue and appealing illustration whilst covertly building meaning in a very subtle way.

BF: How did you become involved with Blank Slate and the translation of Luchadoras?

MARTIN: For a business-brain, Blank Slate’s Kenny Penman is really the nicest guy—and has an incredibly impressive knowledge of comics, to boot. He puts us to shame! Around July 2010, he got in contact with us about reviewing some of Blank Slate’s graphic novels, and we got talking about French comics in general. We’d remembered reading that Kenny really loved Peggy’s art in the Plus ou Moins... books, and Luchadoras came up. I mentioned that we were really interested in moving into translation at some point, and after some discussion Kenny offered to make our dream come true. We really owe him a lot.

BF: While Luchadoras has been critically-acclaimed across Europe, it’s taken a number of years for it to make its English language debut. With publishers like Blank Slate and Cinebooks, to name just a couple, pushing translated European material into the English-speaking market, do you think there is an encouraging UK/US audience being built up? Or do we still have a very long way to go in providing the exposure that international comics deserve?

MARTIN: I think things are at their best ever when it comes to exciting work from wider Europe getting exposure in the English-speaking market. It’s always been a bit of a mystery to me why publishers haven’t tapped more into the various European comic scenes—I think it’s fair to say that you’d be hard-pressed to find many comic readers in the UK under 25 who haven’t at least read one Asterix or Tintin book.

Publishers like Fantagraphics and D&Q have done a tremendous job translating Euro comics and Gekiga for quite a while, but the new wave of British publishers really seem to be throwing a new commitment behind it. Between SelfMadeHero, Nobrow, Blank Slate, and—of course—Cinebooks, a really impressive body of translated work from all over the world is emerging in the UK market. We feel very fortunate to be part of this movement. It’s a real honour, in fact.

BF: To me, Peggy’s narrative style is reminiscent of creators like Marjane Satrapi. It has that same deceptive simplicity, and yet Luchadoras is a very layered graphic novel, that also works on a number of symbolic levels. What, for you, are Peggy’s greatest strengths as a storyteller?

JUDITH: Like you said, the deceptive simplicity of her work is a big strength. All at once it goes straight to the point, and yet forms different layers of meaning as the book progresses. The way Peggy uses Laura (Alma’s daughter), for example, is one of my favourite things about the book. I see Laura as the symbolic representation of an innocence that is not possible in Juarez itself. There’s a lot of subtlety that’s not immediately apparent, and it’s a book that definitely rewards readers who go back through it a couple of times.

MARTIN: Definitely, one of the most fun things about editing Judith’s initial translation was how much discussion we had about what exactly is implicit in the story and what isn’t. No real judgement is cast on the character’s actions either, and the reader is essentially encouraged to form their own opinion about the morality of some of the character’s actions.

BF: Yes, beyond the obvious horror of the book’s backdrop, the intensity of characterisation in Luchadoras is one of the aspects that will stay with the reader the longest. Even the most sympathetic characters are often flawed and, ultimately, full of very human frailties. Would you agree that’s one of the book’s most powerful elements?

JUDITH: Absolutely. Even though the subject matter is quite harrowing and some of the events of the book can be shocking, Peggy doesn’t patronise the reader—her leading characters are complex and it’s impressive to see her show someone like Romel (Alma’s violent fiancé)—someone who would be traditionally portrayed as purely an antagonist—as having a sensitive, human side. He’s a devoted father, despite being a horrible fiancé. Similarly, even though she’s the victim of extreme abuse, Alma can at times seem the most morally flawed character. We must have read the book between fifty and one hundred times during the translation project, and it really continued to surprise me to see just how nuanced some of the characterisation really is.

BF: The limited global reporting of the Ciudad Juárez femicides is, in itself, shocking. Having completed the translation, could you recommend any resources, online or in print, that effectively raise awareness of the events?

JUDITH: Right from the very beginning of the translation process, Peggy made it very clear just how important the issue is to her, and that she hopes it will continue to draw attention towards the cause. Peggy intended Luchadoras to be a symbol of solidarity with the families of the victims, and asked us to include a link to the website ‘May Our Daughters Return Home’ in the book.

MARTIN:  Amnesty International have some valuable, in-depth resources to learn more about the issue, such as this report from 2003, and this 2009 submission to the UN’s Universal Periodic Review which also contains recommendations for further reading. There are plenty of video resources out there too, such as this Amnesty International Youtube clip and several informative documentaries can be found with just a quick Google search.

BF: Turning to the finer details of translating a book like this from the original French, could you tell us a little about that process? Are there any particular challenges in maintaining the integrity of the text, in terms of context and meaning, when approaching this kind of work?

MARTIN: In terms of our process, Judith does all of the core translation—she’s French and has a degree in English. My job is far less glamorous, mainly just acting as her editor, occasionally stepping in with idiomatic suggestions, etc. We decide most of the “rules” by which the dialogue must adhere to together though, a task which can get quite complicated when you’re translating French dialogue spoken by Mexican characters to English! I also did a lot of production work, changing the sound effects in the art to English counterparts, etc.

JUDITH: Maintaining the integrity of the original text is always the first priority in translating. This said, one problem you see is that some translators confuse the idea of literality with that of integrity. A lot of meaning can be lost idiomatically between languages, so it’s the job of the translator to find an appropriate phrase or a suitable compromise. This can range from the most dramatic exchange of dialogue to the most inconspicuous. For example, in Luchadoras we argued for days over the specific kind of drink ordered by a character, knowing that the connotation of the original drink would be lost in translation.

MARTIN: Oh yeah, that was a nightmare. I shudder every time I see grenadine now.

BF: How closely do you work with a creator when translating their work? Is it a collaborative process to any degree? Or is it best to initially approach the translation from a more detached perspective?

JUDITH: It all depends on the creator, really. Some creators prefer to be very involved throughout the whole process, while others just trust us to do the best for the work. In Peggy’s case, she left the translation in our hands, but was very involved in other areas such as the cover, choosing the lettering, etc. It’s really important for us to make sure creators know that they can be as involved as they want to be—after all, it’s their work, we’re just privileged enough to help give it a new audience.

BF: You’re both very active as bloggers on your Avoid the Future site. What is the blog’s philosophy and mission statement, so to speak?

MARTIN: As it currently stands, Avoid the Future is very much about celebrating the things that we love from the world of independent comics, whether that be titles from publishers like Fantagraphics and Drawn & Quarterly or self-published work with a run of 50-100 books. We’ve covered comics from all over the world, and we’re especially interested to hear from creators from places that haven’t traditionally had much of a publicised comic culture. We don’t really claim to be comics critics, there are plenty of other great sites for that. We just want to help promote the work that appeals to us, and help (even in our small way) the medium of comics continue to grow.

BF: Finally, will we be seeing further collaborations between you and Blank Slate? Can we expect more French language graphic novel translations in the near future?

MARTIN: You can! Together we have several French translations in the works with Blank Slate. We can’t really discuss those at the moment, but you can expect an announcement in the near future. Be sure to bookmark the Blank Slate website, and follow their Twitter feed for news as it happens. Although we haven’t started yet, we will also be helping Nobrow translate Blexbolex’s sequel to Dog Crime, No Man’s Land very soon.

JUDITH: Outside of my work for ATF, I’ve been steadily acquiring freelance translation jobs inside and outside of comics. I’ve been translating David Ziggy Greene’s cartoons for French weekly magazine Charlie Hebdo, and have been aiding Nobrow and Blank Slate as a kind of French consultant on a few items. Living the dream!

Luchadoras will be published by Blank Slate Books priced £12.99 and can be pre-ordered on Amazon here. Martin and Judith actively blog about comics at Avoid the Future and can also be followed on Twitter here, as can Blank Slate here. For more on the work of Peggy Adam check out her website here.