English Version of Mandrake Daily D065 - The Million Dollar Loaf

The English version of Mandrake Daily #D065 "The Million Dollar Loaf".

This has been a unique project for me. Translating from a language which is completely alien to me was interesting when I began but became a little tiring and time consuming as the work progessed and once the initial phase was over the speed became slow. Because I was taking help of mechanical translator like Google Tranlation, the conversion was not very smooth, as I mentioned in my last post, but somehow I was able to complete it.



Now, if you compare both Hindi and English translated versions, you'll find differences at a few places. Those are brought deleberately. Sometimes it was done to bring local flavour in Hindi version, and at some other occasions I was forced to change the text only to fit the text into the given speech balloon. For instance at page number 8 panel 4, in English, Lothar asks Mandrake if he were willing to have some sandwich, to which Mandrake replied "No, thanks, I dined with Narda." But the Hindi text read as "नहीं धन्यवाद, मुझे भूख नहीं है. Actually There was not much space to fit the correct text, "नहीं, धन्यवाद, मैंने नारडा के साथ रात्रि-भोज किया था."

Same constraint forced to trim the actual dialogue at a few other places. There was one other option to bring down the text size (and I used it once or twice) but most other times changing of sentence was preferred.

It was fun working on this project (but I an not going to repeat it again). Now, I wish to see the original English version by Lee Falk. Just to compare my translation. At many places I used common sense since google was not providing any meaningful sentence. It would be interesting to chech the original for real text.

The translation is talked in depth now, few words on colouring also. Because half the pages were printed in colour by the magazine, the liberty of choosing a colour of own choice was not available to me. I had to follow the pattern selected by original colouring artist from magazine, and I would say it was disappointing at times. Not enough care was taken by publisher on that part. You'll notice the colour of the dog running away with bread in his mouth. at the same page it was white and then suddenly turned blue. Goofed up. There are a few other similar examples.

But finally it is here. So friends, let's enjoy this interesting Mandrake story in English now.

Download Mandrake Daily Strip D065

"The Million Dollar Loaf"

Within next three weeks, this blog is going to complete three years of its existence. Another surprise package is under production for that occasion. First of its kind, yet again. Hope to see you there, dear friends.